Matt Miller with an interesting idea: offer ineffective teachers with lots of seniority buyouts. I don't love the idea – ideally, teachers would be laid off based on merit (or lack thereof) without buyouts (i.e., payoffs) – but if it's politically impossible to do so, then maybe it's a good fallback idea:

What to do? The federal government should turn calamity into opportunity by putting a Harkin-sized pot of money on the table that districts can tap to offer buyouts to senior teachers. This is what a business would do to refresh its workforce and begin to pay down outsized pension obligations. A 20-year veteran can cost twice as much in salary as a newer teacher -- and three or four times as much once retirement benefits and pensions are factored in. If a district can offer, say, a year's pay as an incentive for an ineffective senior teacher to retire early, it can bring in (or save) several younger ones and come out ahead fast.

Democrats should love the idea because it ensures that children in poor classrooms end up with better teachers. Republicans should love buyouts because they mean a farewell to senior teachers who are often staunch union loyalists and reactionaries, making room for younger talent interested in professionalizing teaching, rethinking archaic protections such as tenure, and bringing a culture of achievement to the classroom.

Union leaders like Randi Weingarten of the American Federation of Teachers should embrace buyouts, too, because they're a way to do what's right for kids while getting ahead of the brewing backlash against union recalcitrance. As Weingarten should realize, when unions are cast as villains even by liberal filmmaker Davis Guggenheim in his powerful new schools documentary, "Waiting for Superman" (due out in October), we're reaching a tipping point.

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