Published Articles & Media
Blog
School Pension Costs Have Doubled Over the Last Decade, Now Top $1,000 Per Pupil Nationally
Employer pension costs represent a significant drain on resources that might otherwise have been available for classroom expenditures.
Research
The Rising Cost of Teachers’ Health Care
Insurance costs for teachers are 26 percent higher than they are for private-sector professionals
Blog
A Modest Proposal for Pension Reform
Fundamental reform—based on tying benefits to contributions—is needed to fix these broken systems.
Blog
Yes, We Have No Bananas
In a recent Education Next article we talked about winners and losers in teacher pension systems, and about the huge costs these systems impose on mobile teachers due to the back-loading of benefits. In a letter to the editor written in response to our article, Beth Almeida of the National Institute on Retirement Security takes us to task for describing this phenomenon as “redistribution,” noting that such a practice is illegal. Since we don’t want to get pension and teacher union officials in trouble, we have a modest proposal.
Governance and Leadership
Teacher Retirement Benefits
Even in economically tough times, costs are higher than ever.
Blog
Teacher Pension Reform: A Way Out of the Impasse
For more than a decade, debate over reform of public pensions has been in a rut. On one side, some reformers have favored scrapping traditional teacher pension plans in favor of the IRA-type plans received by most private-sector professionals. On the other side, teacher unions, retiree groups, and defined-benefit pension plan professionals fight hard to protect existing plans. Each side has legitimate points.
Blog
Making Mountains Out of Molehills? Let the Reader Decide
A recent “Policy Memorandum” from the Economic Policy Institute by EPI researcher Monique Morrissey is sharply critical of our article “Peaks, Cliffs, and Valleys." Morrissey has a number of critiques of our articles, but the main one, as the title suggests, is that our metaphors are inappropriate, and there is nothing at all “peculiar” about the structure of retirement incentives in teacher pensions.