The very best teacher in America makes about the same salary and teaches about the same number of students as the very worst teacher. This is because we treat educators like interchangeable widgets rather than uniquely talented professionals. While a doctor might choose to work within a large hospital or start an independent practice, teachers have few similar opportunities to customize their career paths. It’s time for that to change. The answer is to expand opportunities for students, including those in traditional public schools, while allowing the very best and brightest teachers to reach more students–and get rich if they succeed.

Teacher salaries have not budged since the 1960s after controlling for inflation. Many incorrectly attribute this to “education spending cuts,” but the truth is that inflation-adjusted, per-student spending has actually increased more than 300%. In the 1960s, it took about 13 students to pay one classroom teacher’s salary. Today, it only takes about four students. Where has all the money gone? Mostly to more non-teaching staff and administrators, smaller class sizes, and more expensive benefits. None of this has helped improve student outcomes. As with teacher salaries, student test scores have basically remained flat over this period.

Utah and a handful of other states allow public, charter, private, and homeschooled students to take courses from providers other than the school they attend full-time. Students, at no cost to their families, may enroll in advanced placement courses, career-focused learning, or simply a course that works better for them than the default. This is a form of educational choice, but it does not require students to switch schools. New Hampshire has a slightly different model that allows students to earn high school credit for learning that takes place outside of school.

These and other states should expand upon this model and automatically grant any licensed teacher the right to be a course provider within these systems. There would be no obligation to do so, of course, but an educator could use their summers, evenings, free periods, and any other time not contracted to their school to deliver such courses. Those who make a few extra bucks today selling outstanding lesson plans online could band together with those who provide world-class tutoring in the evenings. Together, they could create an unstoppable force of educational entrepreneurship.

The benefits of such policies for students are obvious. Rural students lacking access to college-level or STEM coursework would suddenly have access to the best teachers in the nation. Students from families who could not otherwise afford SAT or ACT tutoring could get it. A student in a college prep high school who wants to learn a trade can do so before graduation. Schools, too, would benefit from reduced pressure to be all things to all families.

But the greatest change and benefit would be for the teachers. Many would choose to augment their classroom teaching with a bit of tutoring on the side or take the opportunity to teach one more course section online for a larger paycheck. But an elite few could genuinely become wealthy–and even famous–by reaching numerous students from coast to coast. If such a model is good enough for Peloton instructors, why not English teachers?

It would be easy to write off such educational offerings as “a Zoom meeting with 1,000 students,” but advances in technology and staffing models enable so much more than that. Likely, elite teachers reaching hundreds or thousands of students could not do it alone and would rely on a handpicked team, AI, and other tools, to provide support. Ultimately, a transparent marketplace with reviews and recommendations would not allow weak courses to survive for long. The same cannot be said of our legacy educational system.

The best part of such a system is that it would be completely voluntary. If you are a teacher who simply wants to keep teaching several in-person class periods a day, you can keep doing that. If your family likes every single offering provided by your local school, that is wonderful. But for teachers who want more and students who need more, course choice is for you. Countless educators, politicians, and writers have been questioning the uniform “one teacher, 30 students” system for decades. Now, statewide course choice policies that allow all teachers to be providers can make changing that system a reality.