The presumed November match-up produced by the long presidential-primary season offers contrasting approaches to K-12 policy, along with some common ground on the basics of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). Senator John McCain of Arizona, the presumptive Republican nominee, and Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, his Democratic counterpart, both express support for the NCLB's goals and its use of testing to measure schools' success. But Senator McCain would promote market forces as a way to spur school improvement, and would consider freezing education spending as part of a review of the effectiveness of federal programs. Senator Obama, meanwhile, promises to search for new ways of assessing students and to invest significantly in efforts to improve teacher quality. Although education was not a prominent issue in the Democratic or Republican primaries, it could emerge more clearly in the general-election campaign, one political scientist said, pointing to the potential for sharper focus on where the candidates stand on the requirements for testing and accountability under the NCLB law.