The current situation is deeply unfair to the children who lose seventeen days of school. We all know the agreement was made under pressure, but it’s a disaster for the kids and we ought to fix it. Teachers desperately want to be teaching, and kids need them. We as a community ought to reject the premise that this deal is irreversible.

A possible compromise would be a combination of “buying back” teaching days by finding new money, and by recapturing some of the paid non-instructional days and using them for teaching in the classroom. This won’t be easy and it’s important to point out that nobody — not the teachers, not the DOE, and certainly not the parents — wanted this situation, so we have to move beyond assigning blame and into finding solutions.

A match program could be established — in other words, for every teaching day that the DOE is able to restore, the Legislature and governor find the money for one additional school day. It makes sense to consider using existing special funds when for every day you buy back, you get an additional day of teaching from within the DOE. It’s two days for the price of one.

This would cost $40 million to $50 million, and restore almost all of the days. Most importantly, it would ensure that this economic crisis doesn’t permanently damage our next generation.

The traditional battle lines have been drawn — those who want to raise revenue no matter what and those who want to reduce government no matter what — but the solution is in between the extremes. We need a sense of urgency and shared sacrifice; this is fixable if we work together.

But simply restoring the status quo isn’t good enough.

If we are able to emerge from this crisis having restored some school days, we should then focus on President Obama’s education program called Race to the Top, pushed by the United States Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. This is revolutionary, and funded with $4.25 billion.

Traditionally, the U.S. Department of Education has focused on compliance and oversight, not change and innovation, but all that has changed with Secretary Duncan. He has by far the largest pot of discretionary funding for K-12 education reform in the history of the United States, and the Hawai‘i DOE is in the process of applying for a piece of this pie.

Race to the Top recipients are going to focus on high standards, high quality teaching and data collection, and turning around low-performing schools and districts. This isn’t just a chance for us to pull in some needed federal money to plug our own budget puka; this is a chance for us to use the expertise and experience from other states, and finally transform our system according to what has actually worked elsewhere.

The Hawai‘i DOE has a tremendous opportunity to achieve measurable improvements, but only if we end furlough Fridays, and start a Race to the Top.

• Brian Schatz is the chair of the Hawai‘i Democratic Party. He is a regularly featured Leading Voices columnist for The Garden Island.