A golden educational opportunity we’re sure to pass up

Here's what we should do right now, while we're in the midst of a financial meltdown, to improve education over the next decade:

• Raise teacher salaries significantly.
• Raise salaries even more in underperforming and rural schools.
• Offer loan forgiveness programs to new teachers — 10%-20% off their college loans for every year they teach, with the highest level of forgiveness if they teach in underperforming and rural schools.
• Increase the number of teachers so we can lower class size. 
• Create  prep-school-within-a-school mini-academies in underperforming schools where students who have the ability and are willing to work their tails off get educations at the level offered by the best schools in the country, even if there are only ten students in a class.
• Advertise all the above in every college and university in the country.

Right now, college students are terrified there will be no jobs out there, as well they should be, and they'll be stuck with $50,000 worth of loans they can't pay. Teaching with its job security is going to start looking pretty good to them, and it will look even better if teachers are guaranteed a reasonable wage/benefits package and teachable class sizes.

An economic downturn creates opportunities for the public sector, and this is one of those opportunities. We can increase the number of the best and brightest college grads who consider careers in teaching, and thereby increase the chances for our students to get first class educations.

But we won't do it, because it costs money. We'll cut our education budgets even further than they've been cut already, increase class sizes, cut back on supplies, . . . In other words, we'll do all the wrong things, because we're anti-tax, anti-big-government fools who can't see a golden opportunity that's staring us in the face.