While everyone is scratching their heads about how to resolve the current economic meltdown, Thomas Friedman of the New York Times reminds us of one simple equation:

stimulating our economy = stimulating our schools

While the pay-off of tax cuts and infrastructure spending will be debated until the next financial bubble appears, investing in the knowledge and skills of our people is one sure-fire way to better times.  

This is clearly the job of our nation’s public schools. But while the federal money promised for school infrastructure will surely be welcomed by cash-strapped states, the types of stimulus we have called for, along with others (such as our state’s very own Basic Education Finance Task Force and the national Education Equality Project coalition) are incentives to attract the best and brightest into teaching. This includes:

• Loan forgiveness, scholarships and other enticements to attract high-power undergraduates into teaching. 

• Higher pay for the most effective teachers, and incentives to place them in our most underserved schools. 

• Robust and easy-to-access alternative certification routes to recruit
  career-switchers into the classroom. (Just think about all those ex-WAMU financial analysts looking for jobs as our state’s schools desperately lack math teachers.) 

As our Governor and the state legislature craft Washington’s economic stimulus package, we hope they remember the people who power our next generation of entrepreneurs, artists, scientists and leaders: our teachers.