Utah state senators had a chance to hear key education concerns from their constituents Tuesday night at Cherry Hill Elementary School.

Senate Majority Leader Curtis Bramble, R-Provo, Rep. Margaret Dayton, R-Orem, and Rep. Keith Grover, R-Provo, answered questions and addressed education issues affecting Utah County schools in a forum organized by the Cherry Hill PTA. A key issue on the senators' minds was the voucher referendum, which was sponsored by Bramble.

Although Grover and Bramble supported vouchers, they both stressed the need to move past the issue and focus on improving education.

"We need to find ways to address public education in a very positive way," Bramble said.

Utah gets new students every year, he said, and it will continue to do so in the future. It is important to address growing class sizes, as well as teacher compensation.

It is consistently difficult to find math, science and special education teachers, Dayton said, and legislators want to offer incentives to attract these teachers.

"We really want to pay tribute to teachers whenever we can," she said. "The good teachers do an invaluable job."

As an educator, Grover said he understands the difficulty in finding more specialized teachers. An effort was made to give math, science and special education teachers a $1,000 bonus to attract college graduates who could make more money in other fields. However, the teacher's union opposed the move.

"We struggle to get special ed teachers in our school," he said. "We struggle to get math teachers. We struggle to get science teachers."

While a major concern for the lawmakers and audience members was teacher compensation, Bramble emphasized the difficulty of appropriating the money. In order to give teachers more money, taxpayers would likely end up paying for it.

Several teachers were in attendance for the forum, and questions varied from funding to compensation. A concern for many teachers was merit pay, as they felt student achievement could not accurately be judged from school to school.

Dayton, however, said the No Child Left Behind Act limits the ability to hire qualified teachers, and merit pay would overcome that barrier by offering more money to good teachers.