Check out the last week’s article, “How state pension subsidies undermine equity,” published in a leading journal for professional educators. It makes what the authors seem to think is a novel point. Pensions in many states, they say, are “anything but equitable,” and they single out Illinois. From the article:
Specifically, when the state government pays district pension costs, this can have a massive distortionary effect on the distribution of state education dollars, threatening to undermine (and, in at least one state, completely negating) other efforts to achieve equity between rich and poor school districts. We’ve found in our own research that although state pension subsidies receive limited public scrutiny, they’re a major source of inequity in school finance.
The topic “has have been left out of conversations on school finance. It is time for that to change,” says the article.
Not here.
My colleagues John and Ted last year published here a special report on just that topic as it applies in Illinois. Read it. You will find more detail than in the recent article.
“Equity,” today, is among the education establishment’s favorite buzzwords. When it comes to pensions, however, equity has been for “thee and not for me.” And when we’ve written about inequity and other problems with pensions, some in that establishment have called us “pension thieves,” “racists” and more.
Glad to see at least that one journal in the teaching establishment finally recognizing the issue.
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The NEA has a major pension problem as well. Watch a video on you-tube “Oakland School Board Approves $22M In Budget Cuts Amid Student Protests”. The students are actually getting wise and bashing teachers for selling them out.
http://dropoutnation.net/2017/12/19/nea-loses-money/
Klonsky already has his predictable response: https://preaprez.wordpress.com/2019/05/05/note-to-the-kappan-illinois-state-school-underfunding-undermines-equity-not-teacher-pensions/
Also predictably, he did not put up a comment I did on his article, correcting his false claim that I was a Rauner pension advisor. Comrade Klonsky and his Pravda tolerate no dissent.
Klonsky’s radio show with his brother is called “Hammer ‘n Sickle”
School boards and superintendents recognized this a couple of decades ago. However, they were short-sighted. Probably intentionally. They implemented early retirement windows as a cost saving measure. Get rid of a 55-year old burnout and hire two recent graduates for what had been spent to keep the burnout in the classroom. Transfer the cost of health insurance to the pension fund and let the teacher begin drawing an un-reduced early retirement benefit. Pay him or her a lump sum tax-deferred into a 457 plan. Call it a severance incentive and get a release. Problem not solved, but the initial cost… Read more »