Blog: Funding

If you want to attract and retain good teachers, it’s probably more worthwhile to think about increasing salaries than increasing benefits.

Is Missouri's teacher retirement plan one of the best in the nation? That depends on who's asking.

In Maryland, teacher pension spending increases inequities between high and low poverty school districts. The problem is only getting worse as the state's pension debt costs continues to grow. In 2018, Maryland spent approximately twice as much per pupil on teacher pension debt than it received in federal Title I funding. The state’s pension spending blunts the effect of federal education spending designed to provide greater support to high-poverty school districts. If Maryland were to improve the financial health of its teacher pension system, students attending high-poverty districts would receive greater per pupil funding overall even if the state didn’t increase the equity of its own school funding system.

An analysis of Illinois teacher salary data reveals that disparities in pay increase funding inequities most acutely in rural and urban districts.

California's investments in education--pension payments included--should be steered by principles of fairness and equity.

Inequities in teacher salaries across districts are exacerbated by teacher pensions. While it is true that teachers with higher salaries pay more into the pension fund, the additional pension wealth they receive far outweighs the greater contributions they made to the fund during their tenure.

In a new report we modeled the wealth accumulation for teachers in West Virginia's pension fund, before and after its reform, as well as the intervening DC plan. We found that all of the plans were poorly constructed from the outset and fail to provide a significant retirement benefit to a majority of West Virginia’s educators

As of 2017, 28 states were spending less on teacher salaries than they did 10 years prior.

Arizona’s teacher pension system is complex, expensive, and fails to produce an adequate retirement benefit for the majority of its teacher members.

A new study finds that teachers live the longest of all public employees. That's great news for them, but can come with increased costs for state pension systems.