Where 53rd district candidates stand on education issues

Since Rev. James Meeks had students from Chicago bused to New Trier High School in September to display inequality in education, school funding has been on the minds of state legislators.

"There certainly is a disparity in school funding, and it's my goal to bring the bottom schools up," said state Rep. Sidney Mathias, of Buffalo Grove. "But it should not be at the expense of the local schools."

Carol M. Javens, the Republican representative's Democratic opponent in the District 53 State House race, has similar sentiments.

Javens, of Wheeling, said residents are already so concerned about taxes that she wouldn't support higher taxes for the area to offer the same education somewhere else.

"I need to be assured by the data that it's not going to increase the tax burden for the people in the area," she said.

She also wouldn't want the education in the area to suffer for someone else's baseline to go higher.

Javens said she's looked at some other ideas for funding, such as the data the group A+ Illinois has gathered, and she wants to look at it more for a solution.

However, she said she doesn't agree with ideas such as leasing the state lottery or the tollway to a private investor.

"When I look at the long-term effect of the short-term fix, it's not the solution for everyone," she said. "Those are Band-Aid fixes to an immediate crisis."

Mathias said he also doesn't agree with using income taxes instead of property taxes to fund education.

"We certainly are in economic times where income taxes may be lower than expected because of the high unemployment rate in our state," he said. "That means there will be less funding for schools as opposed to property taxes, which are stable."

However, Rob Sherman, the Green party candidate in the race, said income taxes are a more fair way to bring in money for schools.

"Property taxes are not based on your ability to pay; they're based on one asset that you have," Sherman, of Buffalo Grove, said.

He said the property tax system is inherently unfair to people with lower incomes, since a home may be their one and only asset.

However, Sherman said much of the perceived disparity in funding has to do with social situations in certain areas. He said if one area is crime-prone, then it's not Springfield's fault that businesses don't want to exist there and thereby support the tax base.

He said he'd like to see Springfield draw up a wage scale for teachers and superintendents that would be equal across the board. If a district wants to pay a teacher more than that, it would be up to the district itself to put in that money.

Mathias, who is part of the education caucus for the General Assembly, said he's been trying to come up with a solution that will please Illinois residents.

"It is a very, very hard issue to resolve. Otherwise it would have been done a long time ago," he said.

Mathias said Illinois is divided into at least three distinct regions, and the schools in the city have different needs than the ones in the suburbs or downstate.

"One of the ideas I supported and still support is taking 51 percent of any new revenues the state receives and transferring that to education funding," he said.

Javens said she'd also want to concentrate on funding special education programs, which can go ignored in favor of other programs.

All the candidates agreed that testing in Illinois, based on federal No Child Left Behind legislation, should be tweaked. Mathias said the main problem is the IMAGE test, which was formerly used to gather data on English learners. That test was considered invalid by federal standards last year, but Illinois did not find an adequate replacement in time, so English learners had to take the same test as native English speakers.

Mathias said the State Board of Education dropped the ball in not finding a replacement test in time.

He said he also thinks some of the subgroups in No Child Left Behind need to be changed.

"It seems to be unfair that a school can be put on failure status because one or two students in a small subgroup may fail a test," Mathias said.

However, he said schools do need to be tested and to have a valid way of looking at the data to make sure students are learning.

Sherman, for his part, wants to eliminate No Child Left Behind.

"That law is merely a scam to take federal money away from local school districts by pretending the federal government cares," he said.

The requirements are so high, Sherman said, that the government is just setting schools up to fail.

He said he'd rather see a way to test that students have been given an adequate opportunity to advance in school by the teachers and administrators.

Javens agreed that No Child Left Behind puts undue burden on teachers.

She said more teachers and administrators involved in schools need to be consulted.

"The intent is excellent to have schools and teachers be accountable," she said. "However, the methodology does not work."

The 53rd district covers much of Buffalo Grove as well as parts of Arlington Heights, Wheeling and Prospect Heights.