10 ms·

California teacher pension debt overwhelms school budgets

63 points by prostoalex 8y ago

Proven 8y ago
Clearly more money is needed for public education
Apes 8y ago
California progressives have a sort of "feast the beast" strategy. Provide massive benefits on loan. When those loans come due, raise taxes to pay for them. Repeat until the government fails due to overconsumption. Why can neither side just follow a sane general strategy of setting taxes and choosing the best benefits to fit under the revenue generated?
- jfim 8y ago
  > Why can neither side just follow a sane general strategy of setting taxes and choosing the best benefits to fit under the revenue generated? Why be reasonable when you can get benefits for yourself and have someone else down the road pay for them? I wonder when this will break though. California has had it comparatively easy with a surging economy (at least in the Bay area), but the next recession will likely send all the pensions even further into the red.
  - jasonbarrah 8y ago
    "When the public discovers they can vote themselves money from the public treasury, the [American] experiment will be over"-Tocqueville 1838
  - fatbird 8y ago
    > Why be reasonable when you can get benefits for yourself and have someone else down the road pay for them? The only reason someone down the road has to pay for them is because the state/municipality reneged on its half of the bargain to actually fund the pension at the time, counting on future earnings to skate by. The teachers unions accepted lower pay raises or frozen wages in exchange for a good pension. Don't blame them for the malfeasance of the counterparty.
    - PKop 8y ago
      They were both malfeasant. Accepting a bad deal because you thought taxpayers would just foot the bill doesn't absolve you of blame.
      - fatbird 8y ago
        They didn't accept a bad deal. They deferred current compensation in a scheme that's been known to work properly for a century when the managing side of it doesn't underfund its obligations. This is not, in any way, a "both sides are to blame" issue.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- rconti 8y ago
  Hardly just a California thing; see Social Security. (Which is actually quite easily fixable, if we had the political will). But also posted today was an article about surging bankruptcy filings among the very group (baby boomers) that benefited MOST from a successful economy. Subsequent generations are being saddled with their excesses, and yet we still have a looming crisis.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > But also posted today was an article about surging bankruptcy filings among the very group (baby boomers) that benefited MOST from a successful economy. The oldest baby boomers were still fairly early in their working life when the gains from the economy stopped broadly reaching the working class. The generation who benefitted the most from the long post-WWII economic boom with wide distribution of gains were the Boomers’ parents.
    - antisthenes 8y ago
      > The oldest baby boomers were still fairly early in their working life when the gains from the economy stopped broadly reaching the working class. They were just the right age for reaping all the benefits from rising land and real estate prices, despite the real wage flat-lining at the end of 1970s Not to mention that advancement and career progression were far more expedient in their day, allowing them to reap benefits earlier in their life than millenials today, who might still be working entry level jobs by their 30s. > The generation who benefitted the most from the long post-WWII economic boom with wide distribution of gains were the Boomers’ parents. And guess who inherited that wealth, since that generation is mostly dead now?
      - dragonwriter 8y ago
        > And guess who inherited that wealth, since that generation is mostly dead now? By that standard, Millennials are the eventual beneficiaries, too.
  - FPGAhacker 8y ago
- seanmcdirmid 8y ago
  It is worse than that: teachers are given paltry salaries with the promise of a nice pension to make up for it. So to the local governments, they can “pay for it later” unless they actually don’t. Parents are just as culpable as they want a great education for their kids but don’t really want to pay for it, coupled with proposition 13 many schools in california are a mess.
  - scarface74 8y ago
    Exactly. Let’s get rid of pensions and let the market sort it out - and this is coming from a teachers kid. If you get rid of pensions and try to pay the teachers the same amount as you pay them now, there will be a teacher shortage forcing the government to pay more. They will have to raise taxes to cover it but at least all sides will know the true costs. I don’t think the pension system in my state is too out of whack. It’s only 2% every year worked of your final salary up to 60% (80%?).
    - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
      I think more than a few districts nationally are already moving to 401ks like private industry is, but paying now is a bitter pill to swallow. And how do you convert existing pensions to a 401k when the money doesn’t really exist?
      - scarface74 8y ago
        In a way they are screwed. The pension system like social security is a pyramid scheme. But didn’t the private sector basically contribute the value of the pension to the 401K using some type of present value calculation?
        germinalphrase 8y ago
        I know this discussion is focus on California, but for context this is not true in all states. Yes, many states have extremely underfunded pensions (Illinois sounds like a disaster) but others (like neighboring Wisconsin) are fully/nearly fully funded.
- e40 8y ago
  California progressives have a sort of "feast the beast" strategy Why is this just a progressive thing?
  - claydavisss 8y ago
    Because public employee unions are the only reliably effective voting bloc in California. Democrats know full well that public employee compensation is a Ponzi schema in the state but won't bite the hand that feeds them.
  - leereeves 8y ago
    It's in contrast to the conservative strategy "starve the beast".
    - jewelthief91 8y ago
      IIRC conservatives don't have a great track record of following through with this.
  - madengr 8y ago
    Because a "starve the beast" strategy, like in Kansas, is a product of conservatives. Though school funding in Kansas was fine, despite the hysteria created by the media. There can NEVER be enough money for schools, per the article: "Some districts are predicting deficits and many districts are bracing for what’s to come by cutting programs, reducing staff or drawing down their reserves—even though per-pupil funding is at its highest level in three decades and voters recently extended a tax hike on the rich to help pay for schools." Maybe CA should work on it's illegal immigration problem, which is probably a big drain on the schools. Funny to read about all the economic woes in CA despite it's supposed great economy. In reality it's a dump.
- metabagel 8y ago
  Yet somehow the California economy is massive and thriving. So, apparently you're leaving something out or shading your analysis. I'll wait for peer review of your theory.
winkeltripel 8y ago
mirror: https://web.archive.org/web/20180809161052/https://calmatters.org/articles/california-teacher-pension-debt/ https://web.archive.org/web/20180809161052/https://calmatter...
swifting 8y ago
So long as public schools are treated as places that exist to provide guaranteed jobs to members of the teachers' unions, do not be surprised to see American students continuing to score lower on international tests than students in countries that spend a lot less per pupil than we do. - Thomas Sowell
- germinalphrase 8y ago
  What kind of “guaranteed job” are you talking about? As a teacher, I could be let go without cause for my first three years and, subsequently, after two poor performance reviews. Tenure merely requires the district to attempt to coach the teacher before firing them. I’ve seen teachers forced out of the classroom simply because they don’t mesh with the personality of management. Whatever horror stories about rubber rooms come out of NYC are not indicative of the reality on the ground most places.
  - zacharytelschow 8y ago
    https://www.the74million.org/article/fact-check-just-how-many-tenured-teachers-are-fired-each-year-anyway-hint-not-many/ https://www.the74million.org/article/fact-check-just-how-man...
    - germinalphrase 8y ago
      “To be clear, these numbers do not answer the fundamental question of whether more teachers should be dismissed. They also don’t include ineffective teachers who leave the profession of their own volition or who are counseled out by administrators without going through the formal dismissal process. And they do not include tenured teachers dismissed for reasons unrelated to performance. Finally, such stats can’t show whether or not the processes for dismissing tenured teachers across the country are overly cumbersome.” Listen, I don’t have a problem with firing teachers. I just don’t think the common perception of “infinite job security” for teachers is accurate. A much larger and more concerning issue - in my opinion - is that we have very poor measures for teacher effectiveness. This is problem in at least two major ways. It inhibits districts from dismissing poorly performing teachers. It likewise prevents teachers from improving their performance because it often isn’t clear what problems might exist in their curriculum and instructional practices. I also believe that if we were able to make teacher designed and administered assessment more universally trustable (as their results are now only [sometimes] trustable within the context of that specific teacher’s coursework) we could start to address some of these problems.
hirundo 8y ago
> All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management. The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with Government employee organizations. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1937 http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=15445 http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=15445
- LastZactionHero 8y ago
  I get this wistful feeling every time I read a nuanced observation from an ex-president. Maybe we can sum this up in 140 characters?
  - toast_coder 8y ago
    Take the money and run...
  - hirundo 8y ago
    Government employees negotiating with government employees over the compensation of government employees is not a formula for fiscal prudence.
- analog31 8y ago
  Unfortunately, we haven't figured out how to make teaching career-worthy without collective bargaining. Perhaps the best case study for non-union teaching is the workforce of adjunct teachers at universities. Talk to some adjuncts about their "careers." Disclosure: I was an adjunct for one semester at a big ten university, many years ago.
  - scarface74 8y ago
    I don’t think unions are necesssry, the less attractive teaching is because of the (false) promise of pensions, the fewer people will be willing to enter the profession - forcing wages to rise. On second thought, what will probably happen is that they will flee to private schools, the more affluent will lobby for “private school tax deductions” and leave only the worse teachers in public schools and only the less affluent will go to public school.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
Spooky23 8y ago
Better title: Systemic Budget Mismanagement Comes Home to Roost.
claydavisss 8y ago
Fortunately for the teachers, Californians have a very short memory. All the teachers need to do is survive for the four-to-five years it takes Californians to forget what they have voted for. Then they can roll out a Proposition or local bond measure scolding voters for not funding education. Techies and other knowledge workers in particular respond very well to this kind of prodding which is why these measures pass reliably every four to five years but tend to fail if done too frequently. The unwise teachers in my town, Los Gatos, recently tried to shake down voters before the buildings promised by the previous bond measure were constructed. The same is done with transit funding...I can't remember how many times a Measure or Proposition has passed that has promised to "finally" address transit funding...until four years pass and it is time to "finally" address it again.
- User23 8y ago
  The cool new thing is capitalizing the interest on the bond for decades. https://www.voiceofsandiego.org/topics/education/where-borrowing-105-million-will-cost-1-billion-poway-schools/ https://www.voiceofsandiego.org/topics/education/where-borro...
  - danvoell 8y ago
    Holy cow. I can't believe this is a thing and that municipalities would agree to this. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau should start creating laws to protect the government from making decisions like this.
    - dragonwriter 8y ago
      > The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau should start creating laws The CFPB can’t make laws (that's Congress’ job) and neither the current administration (including the current CFPB leadership) nor the current Congress even support the general mission of the CFPB.
  - davidfischer 8y ago
    This was huge news in San Diego in 2012 when it was revealed. The worst of these types of deals are now outlawed as of 2013. http://articles.latimes.com/2013/oct/02/local/la-me-ln-school-bonds-20131002 http://articles.latimes.com/2013/oct/02/local/la-me-ln-schoo...
nimish 8y ago
Of course they do. As the article says, teachers don't get social security and sacrifice current pay for future pay. This is California's voters not wanting to pay for promises they made.
- madengr 8y ago
  The voters didn't make a promise. The politicians did. The voters act in there own interest. Oh well, CA deserves it. If only illegal aliens could vote in the entire state.
apo 8y ago
Teachers don’t get social security, and unlike firefighters or police officers, most retirees earn modest pensions of about $55,000 a year. This seems like the most important sentence in the entire article. Why are California teachers paying into a separate pension system rather than Social Security like everyone else? What would it take to decommission STRS for CA teachers?
- claydavisss 8y ago
  Given the fact that they don't work a full year, their expected SS benefits would be a fraction of their teacher pension.
- germinalphrase 8y ago
  In some states, they pay into both.
- madengr 8y ago
  Hell, I'd love to get out of SS. My money would have much better growth without that ponzi scheme. The problem is letting the government (state or federal) manage you retirement "fund", then wondering why you don't have any.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > Why are California teachers paying into a separate pension system rather than Social Security like everyone else? Lots of state and local public employees nationally don't pay into Social Security (and consequently don't qualify for SS benefits for the earnings while in public employment; these workers also get reduced Social Security benefits if they did qualify based on either other work of their own or as a surviving spouse.) Nationally, this is true of the majority of police, firefighters, and other emergency workers, and a large minority of teachers, and smaller minorities of other public employees. Many public employees, OTOH, pay into both SS and a public employee pension. Public employers were originally completely excluded from Social Security, but were permitted (but not required) to participate after 1950.
- djrogers 8y ago
  > unlike firefighters or police officers, most retirees earn modest pensions of about $55,000 a year. That’s a very misleading statistic - it represents an average service time of about 24 years, barely more than half of a career. Full-career retirees average 105% of their final year’s pay in pension benefits, or about double what’s quoted here. [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewbiggs/2015/08/28/california-teacher-retirement-benefits-are-hardly-modest-but-calstrs-doesnt-want-you-to-know-that/#acc59ec6d3d2 https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewbiggs/2015/08/28/californ...
maerF0x0 8y ago
When I read articles such as this, where there are previous commitments that were not sufficiently backed by the committers, I cannot help but feel 1) Government services are ponzi schemes and 2) It seems only just to plunder the wealth of the those who made the commitments in order to hold them to their words.
bdamm 8y ago
Governments seem to be increasingly enamored with paying for shortfalls by issuing debt instruments such as bonds, then when the bonds come due issuing ever-larger bond packages to cover the previous bonds plus the new debt. When does this cycle break down? Is it when nobody is able to buy bonds any more? Especially at the federal level I really struggle to understand the bond market, particularly with such low returns. Who are these willing participants in poor returns with bonds?
- FPGAhacker 8y ago
  Buyers like government bonds because they are low risk of default. At the federal level, the risk is nearly zero. The yield of a bond is a reflection of the demand (inversely proportional), which itself is a reflection of risk (also inversely, so yield is proportional to risk). The federal government funds itself through bond sales and taxes. They could choose to do all of one or all of the other. But they could just keep rolling over debt into more bond sales, in perpetuity, since the dollar is just a concept, and not a voucher for anything physical. There is essentially no risk, beyond the dollar itself becoming worthless. So if you need to park a million dollars for a few weeks, treasuries offer a nearly zero risk option. So government could run completely off bond debt. It might even be fairer than taxes... the poor usually don't have a million dollars they need to park. Government funding would come from the rich. The reason for taxes is power. You can use taxes to control and direct the population. Before the US federal government believed they had the right to make drugs illegal, they controlled them through taxes. You had to buy a tax-stamp to move marijuana, but the government would rarely sell any such stamps. The drug itself was not illegal, but not having the stamp on it was. [1] Later they just went ahead and declared it "controlled" and didn't bother with the stamp shenanigans. Also taxing removes the leverage that bond buyers have (which would be the decision not to buy). China owns a lot of us treasuries, and routinely uses that as a bargaining chip. Ultimately the fed uses a mix. Bond sales for monthly adjustments in spending, taxation to control the populace. And there are various economic theories on which is better, but I doubt anyone with such pure motives actually controls any policy. [1] http://www.druglibrary.org/Schaffer/hemp/taxact/mjtaxact.htm http://www.druglibrary.org/Schaffer/hemp/taxact/mjtaxact.htm
scythe 8y ago
Proposition 13 affects this situation in two ways: it reduces tax revenue and it drives up the price of land, both of which cost money for the school system.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
makerofspoons 8y ago
A potential solution: make school year round, eliminate the unnecessary summer learning loss, and have new teachers pay into social security and a 401k like other workers do. No more separate system, students will perform better, and frankly I think parents will appreciate having more frequent short student vacations through the year rather than one large summer and winter chunk like we do now that causes problems with childcare and nutrition for low-income families. The big reason teachers don't get social security is because they do not work year round so the payout would be a fraction of what teacher pensions pay out - with year round school we no longer need to compensate in this way to make teaching a viable career.
- bufferoverflow 8y ago
  Don't know about you, but I loved the summer off as a child/teen.
  - makerofspoons 8y ago
    I did as well, but I do not feel it would be unreasonable to go to school year-round with 2-3 week breaks each season instead. There would still be free time and opportunities for families to travel, but it would not need to occur in a single 2-3 month period like what we do now.
    - antisthenes 8y ago
      I would have preferred this format as well. 3 weeks between each trimester, year round, maybe slightly longer in the summer (4-5 weeks)
- djrogers 8y ago
  That’s not remotely true. Even a full social security payout wouldn’t come close to the public employee union pension plans - in California it probably wouldn’t be 1/4 of it. In CA, teacher can retire making ~100k/yr, and get 105% of that as a pension for life. Do you really think one of the most polioactive lobbying groups in the state would let that disappear? [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewbiggs/2015/08/28/california-teacher-retirement-benefits-are-hardly-modest-but-calstrs-doesnt-want-you-to-know-that/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewbiggs/2015/08/28/californ...
lcfcjs 8y ago
Republicans just hate their citizens to be properly educated. This is why they hate any type of government money to be put into education. It's sickening, and eventually they will be found out.
andy-x 8y ago
"Teachers don’t get social security, and unlike firefighters or police officers, most retirees earn modest pensions of about $55,000 a year." $55,000 is a modest pension? That is a lot more than social security is paying. Maybe we should move teachers to SSA?
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > $55,000 is a modest pension? Yes, it is, especially compare to public safety pensions it is compared to. > That is a lot more than social security is paying. Social security is a minimal safety-net pension designed to mitigate crushing old age poverty (and it's barely adequate even to that task) in the event of absence or failure of workplace-specific retirement plans, not a primary retirement vehicle. > Maybe we should move teachers to SSA? You want the Social Security Administration to take over delivery of classroom education from state and local agencies?
  - andy-x 8y ago
    Nope, I want to fix broken system. I'm not saying teachers should get SSA and nothing else, like with many other businesses 403(b) should be available for them. Point is that their future pension should be paid with their current investment, not some future obligations.

63 points by prostoalex 8y ago

Clearly more money is needed for public education

Apes 8y ago

California progressives have a sort of "feast the beast" strategy. Provide massive benefits on loan. When those loans come due, raise taxes to pay for them. Repeat until the government fails due to overconsumption. Why can neither side just follow a sane general strategy of setting taxes and choosing the best benefits to fit under the revenue generated?

jfim 8y ago
> Why can neither side just follow a sane general strategy of setting taxes and choosing the best benefits to fit under the revenue generated? Why be reasonable when you can get benefits for yourself and have someone else down the road pay for them? I wonder when this will break though. California has had it comparatively easy with a surging economy (at least in the Bay area), but the next recession will likely send all the pensions even further into the red.
- jasonbarrah 8y ago
  "When the public discovers they can vote themselves money from the public treasury, the [American] experiment will be over"-Tocqueville 1838
- fatbird 8y ago
  > Why be reasonable when you can get benefits for yourself and have someone else down the road pay for them? The only reason someone down the road has to pay for them is because the state/municipality reneged on its half of the bargain to actually fund the pension at the time, counting on future earnings to skate by. The teachers unions accepted lower pay raises or frozen wages in exchange for a good pension. Don't blame them for the malfeasance of the counterparty.
  - PKop 8y ago
    They were both malfeasant. Accepting a bad deal because you thought taxpayers would just foot the bill doesn't absolve you of blame.
    - fatbird 8y ago
      They didn't accept a bad deal. They deferred current compensation in a scheme that's been known to work properly for a century when the managing side of it doesn't underfund its obligations. This is not, in any way, a "both sides are to blame" issue.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
rconti 8y ago
Hardly just a California thing; see Social Security. (Which is actually quite easily fixable, if we had the political will). But also posted today was an article about surging bankruptcy filings among the very group (baby boomers) that benefited MOST from a successful economy. Subsequent generations are being saddled with their excesses, and yet we still have a looming crisis.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > But also posted today was an article about surging bankruptcy filings among the very group (baby boomers) that benefited MOST from a successful economy. The oldest baby boomers were still fairly early in their working life when the gains from the economy stopped broadly reaching the working class. The generation who benefitted the most from the long post-WWII economic boom with wide distribution of gains were the Boomers’ parents.
  - antisthenes 8y ago
    > The oldest baby boomers were still fairly early in their working life when the gains from the economy stopped broadly reaching the working class. They were just the right age for reaping all the benefits from rising land and real estate prices, despite the real wage flat-lining at the end of 1970s Not to mention that advancement and career progression were far more expedient in their day, allowing them to reap benefits earlier in their life than millenials today, who might still be working entry level jobs by their 30s. > The generation who benefitted the most from the long post-WWII economic boom with wide distribution of gains were the Boomers’ parents. And guess who inherited that wealth, since that generation is mostly dead now?
    - dragonwriter 8y ago
      > And guess who inherited that wealth, since that generation is mostly dead now? By that standard, Millennials are the eventual beneficiaries, too.
- FPGAhacker 8y ago
seanmcdirmid 8y ago
It is worse than that: teachers are given paltry salaries with the promise of a nice pension to make up for it. So to the local governments, they can “pay for it later” unless they actually don’t. Parents are just as culpable as they want a great education for their kids but don’t really want to pay for it, coupled with proposition 13 many schools in california are a mess.
- scarface74 8y ago
  Exactly. Let’s get rid of pensions and let the market sort it out - and this is coming from a teachers kid. If you get rid of pensions and try to pay the teachers the same amount as you pay them now, there will be a teacher shortage forcing the government to pay more. They will have to raise taxes to cover it but at least all sides will know the true costs. I don’t think the pension system in my state is too out of whack. It’s only 2% every year worked of your final salary up to 60% (80%?).
  - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
    I think more than a few districts nationally are already moving to 401ks like private industry is, but paying now is a bitter pill to swallow. And how do you convert existing pensions to a 401k when the money doesn’t really exist?
    - scarface74 8y ago
      In a way they are screwed. The pension system like social security is a pyramid scheme. But didn’t the private sector basically contribute the value of the pension to the 401K using some type of present value calculation?
      - germinalphrase 8y ago
        I know this discussion is focus on California, but for context this is not true in all states. Yes, many states have extremely underfunded pensions (Illinois sounds like a disaster) but others (like neighboring Wisconsin) are fully/nearly fully funded.
e40 8y ago
California progressives have a sort of "feast the beast" strategy Why is this just a progressive thing?
- claydavisss 8y ago
  Because public employee unions are the only reliably effective voting bloc in California. Democrats know full well that public employee compensation is a Ponzi schema in the state but won't bite the hand that feeds them.
- leereeves 8y ago
  It's in contrast to the conservative strategy "starve the beast".
  - jewelthief91 8y ago
    IIRC conservatives don't have a great track record of following through with this.
- madengr 8y ago
  Because a "starve the beast" strategy, like in Kansas, is a product of conservatives. Though school funding in Kansas was fine, despite the hysteria created by the media. There can NEVER be enough money for schools, per the article: "Some districts are predicting deficits and many districts are bracing for what’s to come by cutting programs, reducing staff or drawing down their reserves—even though per-pupil funding is at its highest level in three decades and voters recently extended a tax hike on the rich to help pay for schools." Maybe CA should work on it's illegal immigration problem, which is probably a big drain on the schools. Funny to read about all the economic woes in CA despite it's supposed great economy. In reality it's a dump.
metabagel 8y ago
Yet somehow the California economy is massive and thriving. So, apparently you're leaving something out or shading your analysis. I'll wait for peer review of your theory.

winkeltripel 8y ago

mirror: https://web.archive.org/web/20180809161052/https://calmatters.org/articles/california-teacher-pension-debt/ https://web.archive.org/web/20180809161052/https://calmatter...

swifting 8y ago

So long as public schools are treated as places that exist to provide guaranteed jobs to members of the teachers' unions, do not be surprised to see American students continuing to score lower on international tests than students in countries that spend a lot less per pupil than we do. - Thomas Sowell

germinalphrase 8y ago
What kind of “guaranteed job” are you talking about? As a teacher, I could be let go without cause for my first three years and, subsequently, after two poor performance reviews. Tenure merely requires the district to attempt to coach the teacher before firing them. I’ve seen teachers forced out of the classroom simply because they don’t mesh with the personality of management. Whatever horror stories about rubber rooms come out of NYC are not indicative of the reality on the ground most places.
- zacharytelschow 8y ago
  https://www.the74million.org/article/fact-check-just-how-many-tenured-teachers-are-fired-each-year-anyway-hint-not-many/ https://www.the74million.org/article/fact-check-just-how-man...
  - germinalphrase 8y ago
    “To be clear, these numbers do not answer the fundamental question of whether more teachers should be dismissed. They also don’t include ineffective teachers who leave the profession of their own volition or who are counseled out by administrators without going through the formal dismissal process. And they do not include tenured teachers dismissed for reasons unrelated to performance. Finally, such stats can’t show whether or not the processes for dismissing tenured teachers across the country are overly cumbersome.” Listen, I don’t have a problem with firing teachers. I just don’t think the common perception of “infinite job security” for teachers is accurate. A much larger and more concerning issue - in my opinion - is that we have very poor measures for teacher effectiveness. This is problem in at least two major ways. It inhibits districts from dismissing poorly performing teachers. It likewise prevents teachers from improving their performance because it often isn’t clear what problems might exist in their curriculum and instructional practices. I also believe that if we were able to make teacher designed and administered assessment more universally trustable (as their results are now only [sometimes] trustable within the context of that specific teacher’s coursework) we could start to address some of these problems.

hirundo 8y ago

> All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management. The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with Government employee organizations. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1937 http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=15445 http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=15445

LastZactionHero 8y ago
I get this wistful feeling every time I read a nuanced observation from an ex-president. Maybe we can sum this up in 140 characters?
- toast_coder 8y ago
  Take the money and run...
- hirundo 8y ago
  Government employees negotiating with government employees over the compensation of government employees is not a formula for fiscal prudence.
analog31 8y ago
Unfortunately, we haven't figured out how to make teaching career-worthy without collective bargaining. Perhaps the best case study for non-union teaching is the workforce of adjunct teachers at universities. Talk to some adjuncts about their "careers." Disclosure: I was an adjunct for one semester at a big ten university, many years ago.
- scarface74 8y ago
  I don’t think unions are necesssry, the less attractive teaching is because of the (false) promise of pensions, the fewer people will be willing to enter the profession - forcing wages to rise. On second thought, what will probably happen is that they will flee to private schools, the more affluent will lobby for “private school tax deductions” and leave only the worse teachers in public schools and only the less affluent will go to public school.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

Spooky23 8y ago

Better title: Systemic Budget Mismanagement Comes Home to Roost.

claydavisss 8y ago

Fortunately for the teachers, Californians have a very short memory. All the teachers need to do is survive for the four-to-five years it takes Californians to forget what they have voted for. Then they can roll out a Proposition or local bond measure scolding voters for not funding education. Techies and other knowledge workers in particular respond very well to this kind of prodding which is why these measures pass reliably every four to five years but tend to fail if done too frequently. The unwise teachers in my town, Los Gatos, recently tried to shake down voters before the buildings promised by the previous bond measure were constructed. The same is done with transit funding...I can't remember how many times a Measure or Proposition has passed that has promised to "finally" address transit funding...until four years pass and it is time to "finally" address it again.

User23 8y ago
The cool new thing is capitalizing the interest on the bond for decades. https://www.voiceofsandiego.org/topics/education/where-borrowing-105-million-will-cost-1-billion-poway-schools/ https://www.voiceofsandiego.org/topics/education/where-borro...
- danvoell 8y ago
  Holy cow. I can't believe this is a thing and that municipalities would agree to this. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau should start creating laws to protect the government from making decisions like this.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau should start creating laws The CFPB can’t make laws (that's Congress’ job) and neither the current administration (including the current CFPB leadership) nor the current Congress even support the general mission of the CFPB.
- davidfischer 8y ago
  This was huge news in San Diego in 2012 when it was revealed. The worst of these types of deals are now outlawed as of 2013. http://articles.latimes.com/2013/oct/02/local/la-me-ln-school-bonds-20131002 http://articles.latimes.com/2013/oct/02/local/la-me-ln-schoo...

nimish 8y ago

Of course they do. As the article says, teachers don't get social security and sacrifice current pay for future pay. This is California's voters not wanting to pay for promises they made.

madengr 8y ago
The voters didn't make a promise. The politicians did. The voters act in there own interest. Oh well, CA deserves it. If only illegal aliens could vote in the entire state.

apo 8y ago

Teachers don’t get social security, and unlike firefighters or police officers, most retirees earn modest pensions of about $55,000 a year. This seems like the most important sentence in the entire article. Why are California teachers paying into a separate pension system rather than Social Security like everyone else? What would it take to decommission STRS for CA teachers?

claydavisss 8y ago
Given the fact that they don't work a full year, their expected SS benefits would be a fraction of their teacher pension.
germinalphrase 8y ago
In some states, they pay into both.
madengr 8y ago
Hell, I'd love to get out of SS. My money would have much better growth without that ponzi scheme. The problem is letting the government (state or federal) manage you retirement "fund", then wondering why you don't have any.
dragonwriter 8y ago
> Why are California teachers paying into a separate pension system rather than Social Security like everyone else? Lots of state and local public employees nationally don't pay into Social Security (and consequently don't qualify for SS benefits for the earnings while in public employment; these workers also get reduced Social Security benefits if they did qualify based on either other work of their own or as a surviving spouse.) Nationally, this is true of the majority of police, firefighters, and other emergency workers, and a large minority of teachers, and smaller minorities of other public employees. Many public employees, OTOH, pay into both SS and a public employee pension. Public employers were originally completely excluded from Social Security, but were permitted (but not required) to participate after 1950.
djrogers 8y ago
> unlike firefighters or police officers, most retirees earn modest pensions of about $55,000 a year. That’s a very misleading statistic - it represents an average service time of about 24 years, barely more than half of a career. Full-career retirees average 105% of their final year’s pay in pension benefits, or about double what’s quoted here. [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewbiggs/2015/08/28/california-teacher-retirement-benefits-are-hardly-modest-but-calstrs-doesnt-want-you-to-know-that/#acc59ec6d3d2 https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewbiggs/2015/08/28/californ...

maerF0x0 8y ago

When I read articles such as this, where there are previous commitments that were not sufficiently backed by the committers, I cannot help but feel 1) Government services are ponzi schemes and 2) It seems only just to plunder the wealth of the those who made the commitments in order to hold them to their words.

bdamm 8y ago

Governments seem to be increasingly enamored with paying for shortfalls by issuing debt instruments such as bonds, then when the bonds come due issuing ever-larger bond packages to cover the previous bonds plus the new debt. When does this cycle break down? Is it when nobody is able to buy bonds any more? Especially at the federal level I really struggle to understand the bond market, particularly with such low returns. Who are these willing participants in poor returns with bonds?

FPGAhacker 8y ago
Buyers like government bonds because they are low risk of default. At the federal level, the risk is nearly zero. The yield of a bond is a reflection of the demand (inversely proportional), which itself is a reflection of risk (also inversely, so yield is proportional to risk). The federal government funds itself through bond sales and taxes. They could choose to do all of one or all of the other. But they could just keep rolling over debt into more bond sales, in perpetuity, since the dollar is just a concept, and not a voucher for anything physical. There is essentially no risk, beyond the dollar itself becoming worthless. So if you need to park a million dollars for a few weeks, treasuries offer a nearly zero risk option. So government could run completely off bond debt. It might even be fairer than taxes... the poor usually don't have a million dollars they need to park. Government funding would come from the rich. The reason for taxes is power. You can use taxes to control and direct the population. Before the US federal government believed they had the right to make drugs illegal, they controlled them through taxes. You had to buy a tax-stamp to move marijuana, but the government would rarely sell any such stamps. The drug itself was not illegal, but not having the stamp on it was. [1] Later they just went ahead and declared it "controlled" and didn't bother with the stamp shenanigans. Also taxing removes the leverage that bond buyers have (which would be the decision not to buy). China owns a lot of us treasuries, and routinely uses that as a bargaining chip. Ultimately the fed uses a mix. Bond sales for monthly adjustments in spending, taxation to control the populace. And there are various economic theories on which is better, but I doubt anyone with such pure motives actually controls any policy. [1] http://www.druglibrary.org/Schaffer/hemp/taxact/mjtaxact.htm http://www.druglibrary.org/Schaffer/hemp/taxact/mjtaxact.htm

scythe 8y ago

Proposition 13 affects this situation in two ways: it reduces tax revenue and it drives up the price of land, both of which cost money for the school system.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

makerofspoons 8y ago

A potential solution: make school year round, eliminate the unnecessary summer learning loss, and have new teachers pay into social security and a 401k like other workers do. No more separate system, students will perform better, and frankly I think parents will appreciate having more frequent short student vacations through the year rather than one large summer and winter chunk like we do now that causes problems with childcare and nutrition for low-income families. The big reason teachers don't get social security is because they do not work year round so the payout would be a fraction of what teacher pensions pay out - with year round school we no longer need to compensate in this way to make teaching a viable career.

bufferoverflow 8y ago
Don't know about you, but I loved the summer off as a child/teen.
- makerofspoons 8y ago
  I did as well, but I do not feel it would be unreasonable to go to school year-round with 2-3 week breaks each season instead. There would still be free time and opportunities for families to travel, but it would not need to occur in a single 2-3 month period like what we do now.
  - antisthenes 8y ago
    I would have preferred this format as well. 3 weeks between each trimester, year round, maybe slightly longer in the summer (4-5 weeks)
djrogers 8y ago
That’s not remotely true. Even a full social security payout wouldn’t come close to the public employee union pension plans - in California it probably wouldn’t be 1/4 of it. In CA, teacher can retire making ~100k/yr, and get 105% of that as a pension for life. Do you really think one of the most polioactive lobbying groups in the state would let that disappear? [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewbiggs/2015/08/28/california-teacher-retirement-benefits-are-hardly-modest-but-calstrs-doesnt-want-you-to-know-that/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewbiggs/2015/08/28/californ...

lcfcjs 8y ago

Republicans just hate their citizens to be properly educated. This is why they hate any type of government money to be put into education. It's sickening, and eventually they will be found out.

andy-x 8y ago

"Teachers don’t get social security, and unlike firefighters or police officers, most retirees earn modest pensions of about $55,000 a year." $55,000 is a modest pension? That is a lot more than social security is paying. Maybe we should move teachers to SSA?

dragonwriter 8y ago
> $55,000 is a modest pension? Yes, it is, especially compare to public safety pensions it is compared to. > That is a lot more than social security is paying. Social security is a minimal safety-net pension designed to mitigate crushing old age poverty (and it's barely adequate even to that task) in the event of absence or failure of workplace-specific retirement plans, not a primary retirement vehicle. > Maybe we should move teachers to SSA? You want the Social Security Administration to take over delivery of classroom education from state and local agencies?
- andy-x 8y ago
  Nope, I want to fix broken system. I'm not saying teachers should get SSA and nothing else, like with many other businesses 403(b) should be available for them. Point is that their future pension should be paid with their current investment, not some future obligations.