Make teaching affordable and attractive

Countries like Finland are able to recruit top college graduates into the field of teaching in part because their graduate education is state-funded. In Finland, promising teacher candidates do not have to make the same financial sacrifice as they do in America – forfeiting the promise of a high earning career and taking on debt in order to be trained to do so. Ideas like a GI bill for teachers, income tax forgiveness for teachers, or redesigning the flow of federal funding streams devoted to teacher development are promising approaches to tackling this challenge.  Such a proposal might also be linked to a more differentiated pay scale with different pay for different roles, which would be consistent with the  goal of moving away from a flat profession.