Children, School, Unions and Teacher's going on strike.

[IrishLax]

I was hoping WV would tell the teachers to go pound sand. Oh well.

Why would you hope that? They're not compensated adequately and had every reason to strike. This is an example of unions-gone-right.

 

[Legacy]

I was hoping WV would tell the teachers to go pound sand. Oh well.

Tell me you wouldn't enjoy throwing a grenade in a room full of serious discussion. Metaphorically, of course.

 

[Ndaccountant]

Why would you hope that? They're not compensated adequately and had every reason to strike. This is an example of unions-gone-right.

Yes and no.

Yes, in terms of the power of the people, so to speak.

No, in that there is no free lunch here. The money either has to come from 1) Economic growth (which may be temporary) 2) New taxes or increased tax rates 3) re-allocation of state budget funds.

In the end, the real elephant in the room is pensions (teacher or otherwise). Until that is fixed, anything like a 5% raise is merely a band-aid on a gun shot wound. The unions do what they can to appease everyone today, while ignoring the ugly truth of tomorrow. Unions aren't alone, politicians are just as equal to blame. But the end game is crystal clear here and the pain being felt today is nowhere near the pain going to be felt tomorrow.

SCHOOLS in Pennsylvania ought to be celebrating. The state gave them a $125m budget increase for 2017-18—enough for plenty of extra books and equipment. But John Callahan of the Pennsylvania School Boards Association says all the increase and more will be eaten up by pension costs, which will rise by $164m this year. The same happened in each of the previous five years; cumulatively the shortfall adds up to $586m. The pupil-teacher ratio is higher than in 2010. Nearly 85% of the state’s school boards said pensions were their biggest source of budget pressure.

A similar squeeze is happening all over America. Sarah Anzia, at the University of California, Berkeley, examined 219 cities between 2005 and 2014 and found that the mean increase in their real pension costs was 69%; higher pension costs in those cities were associated with falls in public-sector employment and capital spending.

The problem is likely to get worse. Moody’s, a rating agency, puts the total shortfall of American public-sector pension plans at around $4trn. That gap does not have to be closed at once, but it does mean that contributions by employers (and hence taxpayers) will increase even more than they already have (see chart).

In a sense, this is a meeting of irresistible force and immovable object. The force is the rising cost of providing a pension linked to a worker’s final salary (known as a defined-benefit or DB scheme). Higher costs are the result of improved longevity, poor investment returns and inadequate past contributions. Because of these factors, many private-sector companies no longer offer employees DB pensions. The immovable object is the need, both legal and ethical, to meet past pension promises to workers who may be relying on them as their main source of income.

Take teachers in California. Jennifer Baker of the California Teachers Association points out that, when they retire, they get no income from Social Security and their health benefits, determined locally, have been downgraded in recent years. Moreover, 72% of the state’s teachers are women, many of whom will have had interrupted career records, and thus may not benefit from a full pension.

Squaring this circle is not easy. States and local governments have tried to cut the cost to taxpayers of pension benefits in various ways. First, they have offered less generous pensions to new employees. But that leaves the bulk of the liabilities intact. Second, they have reduced the extent to which pensions will increase with inflation via a cost-of-living adjustment; this will save money in the long term but, with inflation so low, does not save much in the short term. Third, they have asked employees to contribute more from their current wages—ie, take a pay cut.

These changes have made only a small dent in the problem. Bigger savings would have to come in two areas. One seems out of the question—cutting payments to those who have already retired or the benefits that workers have already accrued. The trickier issue is whether it is possible to cut the future benefits of existing workers. A 45-year-old, for example, could keep the DB pension based on his past earnings, but his future pension would be based on a defined-contribution (DC) system in which the final income was not guaranteed.

Making such a change is difficult; it is unpopular with workers, and in some states, possibly illegal. Arkansas, Illinois and New York have deemed it unconstitutional to cut the rights of existing employees. In other states, the courts have ruled that rights, once promised, can never be withdrawn. California’s Supreme Court may get the chance to overturn this ruling this year or early in 2018 because of two cases currently in the system.

The issue cannot be tackled overnight. As Rob Dubow, the director of finance of the City of Philadelphia, points out, “The problem took decades to create so it will take a while to solve.” His city recently agreed on reforms with unions involving higher contributions from some employees (with the highest earners stumping up most), extra revenue from sales taxes, and new employees being offered a mixed DB/DC plan. The aim is to get the plan, just 39.5% funded using current asset values, to 80% funding by 2031.

Taking 14 years to close the funding gap may seem like slow progress. But Philadelphia’s plan may be optimistic; it assumes an investment return of 7.75% a year. The scheme has around 22% of its portfolio in bonds. If those return, say, 3%, the rest of the portfolio would need to earn 9% a year after costs—not easy when annual inflation is expected to be only 2% or so.

Mr Dubow says that the 7.75% target has come down in recent years, and is deemed achievable by investment professionals. Over in California, Jack Ehnes of CalSTRS (which oversees teachers’ pensions) says that, after talking with his advisers, he now expects its scheme to return only 7%.

Experts can differ, it seems. But small changes in assumptions can make a huge difference to the amount employers need to contribute. According to the National Association of State Retirement Administrators, cutting the return assumption by a quarter of a percentage point increases the required contribution rate (as a proportion of payroll) by two to three points.

In consequence, it is in no one’s interest to make more realistic assumptions about future returns. Workers (and their unions) fear it might generate calls for their benefits to be cut; states worry it would require them to raise taxes. Don Boyd, the director of fiscal studies at the Rockefeller Institute of Government, a think-tank, reckons that with a 5% assumed rate of return, states would have to stump up an extra $120bn a year just to tread water—ie, to fund their pensions without making any progress on closing the deficit. So the game of “extend and pretend” continues.

But the danger of optimistic projections is that, if missed, they simply create a bigger long-term hole. David Crane is a campaigner for pension reform and a former adviser to Arnold Schwarzenegger, California’s governor from 2003 to 2011. In a speech as long ago as 2010, he pointed out that in 1999, CalPERS (the fund that covers most state employees) had assumed an 8.25% long-term return, and an annual pension cost to the state of $450m. Over the following ten years, that average was actually $2.3bn. One reason why costs rose so fast is that the state granted generous benefit increases to its workers in 1999, based on those optimistic return assumptions.

The danger of the current optimism is that the American stockmarket is at a record high, and, even using their sanguine return assumptions, state and local pension plans are only 72% funded. A market downturn could have a disastrous impact.

The problem is most acute in areas facing other financial problems; most starkly in Puerto Rico, which has just defaulted on its debt and has a $50bn pensions deficit. In Detroit, which declared bankruptcy in 2013, pensions were cut by 4.5%. Moody’s has downgraded the bonds of Illinois to a level very close to “junk” status. Proportionate to its size, it has the biggest pension deficits of any state.

As years go by, voters and legislators across the country will have to make a trade-off. They can pay more taxes and cut services; or they can reduce the benefits they pay people who teach their children, police their streets and rescue them from fires. There will be no easy answers.

https://www.economist.com/news/fina...t-crowding-out-other-spending-american-public

 

[NDRock]

Yes and no.

Yes, in terms of the power of the people, so to speak.

No, in that there is no free lunch here. The money either has to come from 1) Economic growth (which may be temporary) 2) New taxes or increased tax rates 3) re-allocation of state budget funds.

In the end, the real elephant in the room is pensions (teacher or otherwise). Until that is fixed, anything like a 5% raise is merely a band-aid on a gun shot wound. The unions do what they can to appease everyone today, while ignoring the ugly truth of tomorrow. Unions aren't alone, politicians are just as equal to blame. But the end game is crystal clear here and the pain being felt today is nowhere near the pain going to be felt tomorrow.

I've not really done a ton of research on different states but I know here in Tennessee, the state pension plan is very strong. Looking at this chart is interesting. The states surrounding Tennessee run the gambit of very strong (North Carolina) to very poor (Kentucky) and everything in between.

https://taxfoundation.org/state-pensions-funding-2017/

 

[Legacy]

Texas retired teachers leaving state health program in droves (Austin Statesman-Journal)

 

[NorthDakota]

Why would you hope that? They're not compensated adequately and had every reason to strike. This is an example of unions-gone-right.

Average teacher in WV is making like 45 or 50K a year. What's adequate? What isn't adequate? That puts them... lower middle class?

 

[drayer54]

Why would you hope that? They're not compensated adequately and had every reason to strike. This is an example of unions-gone-right.

Yeah. Unions can serve a purpose. I hope these Teachers get taken care of.

This is also why some states went union busting.

 

[Ndaccountant]

I've not really done a ton of research on different states but I know here in Tennessee, the state pension plan is very strong. Looking at this chart is interesting. The states surrounding Tennessee run the gambit of very strong (North Carolina) to very poor (Kentucky) and everything in between.

https://taxfoundation.org/state-pensions-funding-2017/

I think you need to be careful with reports like this. Pew typically doesn't adjust reported discount rates in these analyses. Actuarial agencies typically report that there's is on average 80 to 100 basis point difference between what insurance companies use for expected market performance and what state and local governments use, as govt is much slower to adjust downward. For example, Tennessee assumes 7 5% annual return while insurance industry standard for same asset mix is 6.5 to 6.7.

Strongly suggest that everyone read the attached as it accurately paints the picture of how much pain there is to come.

https://www.hoover.org/research/hidden-debt-hidden-deficits-2017-edition

 

[ACamp1900]

Average teacher in WV is making like 45 or 50K a year. What's adequate? What isn't adequate? That puts them... lower middle class?

Everything else aside, "lower middle class"... Is that honestly the draw you want, talent wise, for shaping our youth??? You'll get plenty of those like myself who thought 'lower middle class' is paradise ( yes, I thought that) and fight for it, but that passes, believe me. There must be some incentive to teach...

 

[Legacy]

I think you need to be careful with reports like this. Pew typically doesn't adjust reported discount rates in these analyses. Actuarial agencies typically report that there's is on average 80 to 100 basis point difference between what insurance companies use for expected market performance and what state and local governments use, as govt is much slower to adjust downward. For example, Tennessee assumes 7 5% annual return while insurance industry standard for same asset mix is 6.5 to 6.7.

Strongly suggest that everyone read the attached as it accurately paints the picture of how much pain there is to come.

https://www.hoover.org/research/hidden-debt-hidden-deficits-2017-edition

Good article. Comment on this one?

TEACHER RETIREMENT RANKINGS
(Teacherpensions.org)

An interactive view of pensions in each state with criteria. For Tenn, Okla, and W.Va:

Tenn - 56% of teachers will qualify for pension
-- 22% of teachers will break even
-- 38% of teachers' contributions go towards debt
-- Employers contribute 5%

Okla - 44% of teachers will qualify for pension
-- 26% of teachers will break even
-- 77% of teachers' contributions go towards debt
-- Employers contribute 3%

W.Va - 39% of teachers will qualify for pension
-- 37% of teachers will break even
-- 82% of teachers' contributions go towards debt
-- Employers contribute 4%

Another:
Texas - 59 percent of teachers will qualify for a pension
-- 18 percent of teachers will "break even" on their pension
-- 71 percent of teacher pension contributions go toward debt
-- Employers contribute 2 percent of teacher salary toward actual retirement benefit
(Teachers do not have a portable retirement option)

Texas is one of fifteen states that participate solely in their own state-run pension plans instead of Social Security.

Not all public sector employees are covered by Social Security, and in fact, initially Social Security didn’t cover any of these employees. However, over the years, many states abandoned their own pension plans and adopted coverage agreements with the Social Security Administration. Today there are 15 states that participate solely in their own state-run pension plans instead of Social Security.

How Teacher’s Retirement and Social Security Benefits Work Together (Social Security)

 

[NDRock]

I think you need to be careful with reports like this. Pew typically doesn't adjust reported discount rates in these analyses. Actuarial agencies typically report that there's is on average 80 to 100 basis point difference between what insurance companies use for expected market performance and what state and local governments use, as govt is much slower to adjust downward. For example, Tennessee assumes 7 5% annual return while insurance industry standard for same asset mix is 6.5 to 6.7.

Strongly suggest that everyone read the attached as it accurately paints the picture of how much pain there is to come.

https://www.hoover.org/research/hidden-debt-hidden-deficits-2017-edition

Not much of this stuff is in my wheelhouse but it seems like the author of your link has been predicting states imminent doom since 2010. Skimmed his paper from 2010 and he seemed to indicate this year would be the beginning of the end for many state pensions. I’m assuming the strong stock market may have pushed that back a little. Interesting, nonetheless. I’mprobably a little biased against him as he teaches at Stanford.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1596679

 

[Legacy]

Arizona teachers leading #RedForEd movement will give demands at Wednesday rally (AzCentral)

From: TeachersPension.org - Arizona

Scoring Variables
- 100 percent of teachers will qualify for a pension
- 16 percent of teachers will "break even" on their pension
- 83 percent of teacher pension contributions go toward debt
- Employers contribute 2 percent of teacher salary toward actual retirement benefit
- Teachers do not have a portable retirement option

From NDAccountant's link from Hoover Institution • Stanford University (Figure 1, p 13 State Funding Ratios—Lowest 25) (Arizona is fourth lowest)

 

[IrishSteelhead]

Arizona teachers leading #RedForEd movement will give demands at Wednesday rally

From: TeachersPension.org - Arizona

After a decade of experience, I say with absolute certainty AZ is one of the worst states to be a teacher in. Good luck to my former colleagues....

 

[Legacy]

Good article on the issues involved in the Oklahoma teachers walkout expected on Monday despite a pay raise just passed.

Why Oklahoma teachers will walk out Monday (PBS)

Over the last decade, the state of Oklahoma has cut hundreds of millions of dollars in education, Priest said. As a result of the low wages, the state loses an average of 200 teachers a month from the profession or to other states.

“They have 700,000 reasons” to make the larger pay increase happen, said Priest. “That’s how many public school students we have in the state of Oklahoma.”

A total of 91 out of 512 school districts in the state have gone down to a four-day school week due to budget cuts, according to Priest.

In 1990, the Oklahoma legislature passed House Bill 1017 in order to raise teachers’ salaries and get them back into the classroom following another funding crisis. The bill was also the largest tax increase in state history at the time, said Ownbey.

As a result, a group of dissatisfied voters got enough support to pass a referendum in 1992, he said, that stated Oklahoma could not raise taxes without a super-majority consisting of three-quarters of the state legislature or without a vote of the people.

Another issue that arose in the late 1990s was the introduction of horizontal oil drilling, or fracking, Ownbey recalled, who was not then in office. The oil industry lobbied to cut the gross production tax (GPT) from 7 percent to 1 percent, given the experimental and expensive nature of fracking at the time. After a couple of years, the tax went to 2 percent. It was meant to go back to 7 percent but interest groups kept pushing to renew the tax at 2 percent, and were successful.

At the time, Ownbey didn’t look at it as an education issue, something he later said he regretted. But as time passed, and fracking became the norm in the state, the tax rate didn’t change. “It felt like we were giving away our minerals in our state,” Ownbey said, not to mention that Oklahoma is collecting less than half the average in oil and gas taxes as the top 10 energy producing states.

 

[Legacy]

Now it's the Kentucky teachers for many of the same reasons.

Furious over pension bill, Kentucky teachers storm Frankfort (L'ville Courier-Journal)

Kentucky teachers shut down schools in protest over the pension bill. Here's what we know (Courier-Journal)

TeachersPensions.org - Kentucky

Kentucky's state pension plan is at least $41 billion short of the money it needs to pay retirement benefits over the next 30 years.

 

[Legacy]

Kansas House passes $500 million school funding deal

Kansas' problem is that they've cut taxes so much with education cuts that their education funding hasn't passed constitutional requirements.

 

[Legacy]

Republican lawmakers want to prohibit Colorado teachers from striking, with potential fines and jail time for violators (Denver Post)
https://www.denverpost.com/2018/04/23/republican-bill-ban-teacher-protests-colorado/

Jeffco Public Schools teachers are planning to walk out Thursday, while Denver Public Schools teachers are planning to demonstrate on Friday.

Two Republican state lawmakers have introduced a bill seeking to prohibit Colorado teachers from striking and make it so they would face firing, fines or even jail time if they do so anyway.

Senate Bill 264 was introduced on Friday and comes amid a broader conversation across the state about education funding and educator pay, and as teachers gear up later this week for a second round of demonstrations at the Capitol. Classes have been canceled in a host of Denver metro school districts as a result, including in Jefferson County and in Denver where school officials plan an early release.

These Colorado school districts are canceling classes for teacher protests Thursday, Friday
https://www.denverpost.com/2018/04/23/colorado-school-districts-classes-cancelled-demonstration/

Recent statistics are that housing in Denver metro is 34% higher than the U.S. average. Colorado ranks 46th in teacher pay. Considering costs of living and relative salaries to those in the areas, Colorado has been ranked dead last. The Denver economy has ranked 4th fastest growing in the nation, growing 100,000 in seven years. Much of the growth are more young adults with the school system challenged to meet this growth.

 

[Legacy]

On Thursday, Gov. John Hickenlooper addressed the 2,000 Colorado teachers who were at the capital to advocate for increases in school funding. The Colorado economy is booming with corresponding increases in costs of living. The Governor told the teachers that he would push for the state to pay back about $1 billion borrowed from education during the recession. The Colorado Education Association, says the state has shorted the education system $6.6 billion since 2009. Half of the districts in the state now have four-day school weeks andt the state’s low teacher pay has helped create a 3,000-person staffing shortage. Colorado ranks as the nation’s 14th richest state and 42nd in how much it spends per student.

A rural teacher's story:
Rural Teachers Working Second Jobs, Struggling To Make Ends Meet « CBS Denver

One factor constraining education funding in Colorado is the Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR)
In Colorado, School Funding Lags Despite A Booming Economy | CPR

Their state pension fund is in somewhat better shape after they raised retirement ages, cut benefits and upped taxpayer contributions eight years ago. But, with an economic downturn, the fund would tip towards insolvency.
PERA at risk of insolvency if another recession comes, director says (Denver Post)
https://www.denverpost.com/2017/01/20/pera-colorado-growing-pension-concerns/

According to an annual state pension report from Pew, Colorado has $94.2 billion in public pension liabilities versus $43.4 billion in assets to meet those obligations, a funded ration of 46 percent - one of five states with less than half the assets they needed to meet their pension obligations.

The State Pension Funding Gap: 2016 (Pew)

Colorado made the decision not to offer state workers Social Security. Only those teachers who remain in their career until retirement age of 58 get a full pension.

Social Security gap punishes Colorado teachers (Denver Post)
https://www.denverpost.com/2015/01/29/social-security-gap-punishes-colorado-teachers/

One solution proposed over a week ago:
Democrats debut pension reform plan sparing workers from contribution increases | The Colorado Independent

 

[Legacy]

Analysis highlights shortfall in Mississippi public education funding (Mississippi Today, 4/16/18)

A new analysis of state-by-state spending on public education found that a high school senior in Mississippi received about $33,000 less in state funding than the national average over the course of his or her public education.

Efforts to rework the state’s public education funding formula died in this year’s legislative session, but debate over appropriate school funding levels continues —and the analysis provides new insight for evaluating state spending levels.

The analysis — based on U.S. Department of Education data through the 2015-16 school year — was done by Steve Suitts, a former chief strategist of the political action committee that unsuccessfully pushed for full funding of Mississippi’s school funding formula under Proposition 42 in 2015. Suitts previously worked at the Southern Education Foundation for almost 20 years and now is an adjunct professor and researcher at Emory University in Atlanta.

Since 1997, the state has used the Mississippi Adequate Education Program (MAEP) to determine public school funding. The Legislature, under the leadership of both Democrats and Republicans, has fully funded MAEP only twice since then, and last fall the Mississippi Supreme Court decided the state is not required to do so.

Link to state by state education spending.

For Mississippi to Progress, Health Care Has to Become Issue No. 1 (Jackson Free Press, 12/12/16)

More than a quarter of Mississippians don't have health care. These are not just Democrats or just Republicans. These are Mississippians who live below the poverty line and simply can't afford the high costs of health insurance. Medicaid was put into place to help alleviate the pressures that afflict low-income families, but the laws governing access to it are stringent. Qualifications for Medicaid coverage rely on income, household size, disability, family status and other factors. Adults are denied coverage unless they have children. Even then, the laws are extremely strict: You can't be covered unless you make less than 23 percent of the federal poverty level. This comes out to approximately $384 a month for a family of three.

#Medicaid expansion, a facet of the ACA, was touted as a way to help those who were too poor to qualify for the subsidized health insurance that the law offers. This expansion would have immediately helped those who previously didn't qualify for Medicaid, because the expansion would grant coverage based on income alone. Residents would qualify if their income was less than 133 percent of the federal income level.

Teacher Pensions - Mississippi

Based on our analysis of Mississippi’s teacher retirement plan, it earned an overall grade of F. Mississippi earned a F for providing adequate retirement benefits for teachers and a F on financial sustainability. Read below for how Mississippi did on each variable, or go here for a longer description of the variables and comparisons to other states.

 

[dshans]

Which came first, the poverty or the lack of education?

 

[Legacy]

Moved from school to school, fewer than 1 in 4 foster kids graduate. That’s worse than homeless kids.
(Denver Post)

Colorado foster kids change high schools an average of 3-1/2 times over 4 years
The four-year graduation rate for foster kids in Colorado last year — 23 percent — was lower even than among kids who are homeless. And it’s getting worse. It’s now the lowest since 2013, which is as far back as researchers have studied.

Each year, more than 200 foster kids in Colorado exit the system without a home, turned loose to begin life on their own at age 18. For those who do not finish high school, the likelihood of becoming homeless or ending up in jail is even higher — far more likely, in fact, than enrolling in college.

While 70 percent of foster kids in the country say they want to go to college, just 10 percent enroll, according to the National Center for Child Welfare Excellence. Only about 3 percent of foster youths who “age out” of the foster care system earn a college degree at any point in their lives, reports the National Foster Youth Institute.

The Colorado Department of Higher Education does not track how many foster kids enter college. But a data-sharing partnership between the state child welfare division and the state education department resulted in first-of-a-kind statistics so awful that they’re startling.

“When I first looked at it, I thought, ‘This can’t be right,’ ” said Elysia Clemens, the University of Northern Colorado researcher who used the data to track foster kids through the education system. “It was very disheartening and surprising to see how much we need to do in order to change the odds for these young people.”

Along with the bleak graduation rates, the research revealed:

-Colorado foster kids change high schools an average of 3.5 times over four years. The greatest number of school changes for a single kid was 18.
-Each school move is linked to an 8 percent drop in the likelihood of an on-time graduation.
-By the end of middle school, just 13 percent of students in foster care in Colorado are at grade level in math.

Alone in the world: Foster kids in Colorado leave system with no home, no family, little support (Denver Post)

 

[Circa]

I was a foster child. It's a very tough way to be raised. I still have to deal with the burden that my lack of care from being a foster child presented. I feel for those kids and It's a shame I couldn't do more with the knowledge I gained from going through it.

 

[Legacy]

More than 100 Oklahoma teachers are running for office. Dozens advanced in primaries last night

After Rallying At The Capitol, A Dozen Teachers Win Primary Races In Kentucky

An Attack From Teachers Unions Has The Colorado Governor’s Race All Shook Up
(The candidate favored by the Teachers Association, Cary Kennedy, was beaten by Jared Polis, who spent $11 million of his own money in the Democrat primary for Governor.)

Richard Ojeda’s West Virginia primary win gives Democrats their best chance to turn coal country blue: The teachers strike in West Virginia pushed Ojeda into the national spotlight.

 

[Old Man Mike]

In a world where facts are changed to fluidity and science is fake news, teachers are "obviously unfit" to speak out let alone run for office. I smell cuts in educational funding coming to "teach" these upstarts a lesson.

Cutting education is always a great idea afterall.

 

[dshans]

Cutting education is always a great idea afterall.

There's that old little ditty from my childhood: "The more you know, the more you forget, the more you forget, the less you know. So why study?"

 

[Legacy]

Hundreds of teaching jobs unfilled as school starts with most Oklahoma districts saying hiring is worse than last year

In Arizona
Roberts: 866 Arizona teachers have already quit this year (dec '17)

Despite pay raises, teacher vacancies remain a problem for Tucson schools

Schools can now hire uncertified teachers in Arizona but most local districts aren't

Report: More than 1,500 teacher vacancies in Arizona

In West Virginia
Even after 5 percent pay raises, some counties struggle to find teachers

In Kentucky
Koch group backs 5 GOP House incumbents facing Kentucky teachers (29 current or former teachers are running)

Kentucky teachers to skip work after lawmakers' 'bait and switch' on pension reform (March '18)

More than 20 Kentucky counties had schools close Friday after the state Legislature approved changes to their pension the day before.

Educators, who are furious over the pension issue, called out of work sick or requested substitutes in protest.

 

[EddytoNow]

I can't speak for every state or every school district's situation, but, in general, teachers are underpaid for the services they provide. The low pay used to be tolerable because health care benefits and a good pension/retirement plan supplemented the low pay or offered a future benefit in exchange for low pay in the early years of a teacher's career. In the past few years health care plans and pension plans (for new teachers) have virtually disappeared.

Newly hired teachers start out with low pay and remain there with very little hope that things will be better in the future. There used to be hundreds of applications for teaching openings. That is no longer the case. Fewer and fewer young adults view teaching as a lifelong career. With low pay, poor health insurance coverage, and no pensions for future retirees, young adults are rejecting teaching careers in favor of other occupations that pay more and offer a better future.

Substitute teachers are a dying breed. In most cases, a person can earn more in an 8-hour shift at McDonald's than they can by substitute teaching. Why work irregular days/hours and be on-call at 5:00 a.m. when you can work regularly scheduled shifts and earn an equal amount.

Our local school district hires "teacher aides" to teach in reading and math support programs. The pay is about $10.00 an hour with no benefits. So go figure. The students who struggle to learn under the direction of the certified teacher are now being taught by un-trained aides who are willing to work for low pay and no benefits. Even so, these positions often remain open for months before a "warm body" can be found to fill the positions. Once hired the "teacher aides" are typically left on their own.

Bottom line. You get what you pay for. If you want more and better teachers, then you will need to pay them a decent salary with benefits. If you are no longer going to provide health care coverage and a pension plan, then you will need to pay your teachers enough that they can afford to pay for health care coverage and make regular deposits into a 401K or some other investment plan. At $35,000 per year gross, there's no way teachers can support themselves and still have enough to pay for health insurance and retirement investment.

 

[Legacy]

Since we've discussed pensions in crisis and shared thoughts in this thread before....

Specifically, for Kentucky with info on how the crisis for public employees worsened,

A general background:
A GIANT PILE OF MONEY: How Wall Street Drove Public Pensions Into Crisis and Pocketed Billions in Fees Part 1ublic Pensions for Sale (Intercept)

Specific to Kentucky pensions, their public pension plans that were fully funded in 2000 and has devolved to become among the very worst-funded plans in the country, officially carrying more than $37 billion in unfunded liabilities, which their Gov. Matt Bevin says in reality is worse.

Part 2:
THE WHISTLE BLOWER
How a Gang of Hedge Funders Strip-Mined Kentucky’s Public Pensions (Intercept)

One of the proposals from their Governor Bevin last August in a poor state - Facing Shortfall, Kentucky Mulls Ending Medicaid Expansion (U.S. News)

Warning of a nearly $300 million potential shortfall in Kentucky's Medicaid program, officials say they could eliminate health coverage for more than 480,000 people to balance the state's budget.

Kentucky's Medicaid program spends about $11.5 billion every year, but most of that money comes from the federal government. Cabinet for Health and Family Services Secretary Adam Meier told state lawmakers Thursday that Kentucky's share of that budget will be $296 million short by 2020 — money that must come from the cash-strapped state.

More than 1.4 million people receive Medicaid benefits in Kentucky, or about one-third of the state's population. Federal law requires the state to cover most of those people. But 480,000 people were added to the Medicaid rolls when former Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear chose to expand the program to cover able-bodied adults. The state is not required to cover those people.

What lawmakers have done about their public pension shortfall and crisis as the risky and expensive investments detailed above have failed.
The Week in Public Finance: In Kentucky, Pension Reform Fails (Again)
- Late last week, the Kentucky Supreme Court struck down pension reform passed earlier this year.
- Kentucky lawmakers adjourned a special session called by Gov. Matt Bevin Tuesday night without addressing the court's ruling.
- The state employees plan is less than 17 percent funded -- the worst in the nation. Lawmakers have been trying to fix the state's pension system for nearly 15 years.

 

[Legacy]

Why Los Angeles Teachers Are Striking (NPR)

In Denver,
DPS teachers saving money as strike threat looms with just three negotiating sessions remaining