We asked a few experts to share their thoughts on our newly published paper, "Charting a New Course to Retirement: How Charter Schools Handle Teacher Pensions"?an online forum of sorts. Here is a guest post by Karen Hawley Miles of Education Resource Strategies.
Fordham digs in on pensions
Michael Podgursky of the University of Missouri at Columbia and Amanda Olberg of the Fordham Institute are releasing a paper today that examines how charter schools handle teacher pensions in states that allow charters to opt out. The paper shows various choices charters make with regard to their pensions and identifies several interesting trends. Observations include different levels of participation in state plans based on school location (rural or urban), age of the prospective teacher workforce and freestanding schools vs. part of a charter management organization. Learning more about why these factors make a difference to compensation decisions is very important for all education decision-makers.
This kind of analysis is especially crucial in these tough times. No serious effort to improve education and contain educational costs can occur without a close look at teacher compensation which comprises between 40 and 55 percent of district operating budgets. And charter successes and failures can inform district decision-making, especially around what works and what doesn't work to provide the right incentives to attract the best teachers and to keep them there.
Next step: The full compensation package
Our hope is that Podgursky and Olberg are able to take this beginning analysis and continue to understand the structure of pensions in the context of the full compensation package. As they rightly point out, when districts and schools address compensation, they must look at every component including benefits (including health, pension, and fringe), the level of starting salaries, and how salary is structured over time and teaching career to reward performance and responsibilities longevity.? In the end, teachers' choices are determined by the whole package.
Using Compensation for District Transformation
Since charter schools have considerably more freedom to innovate around compensation and job structure, districts and policymakers could learn from their efforts to attract and keep the highest quality workforce. What structure is significantly more attractive for the teachers who contribute the most? And what system not only attracts high potential teachers to make a career in teaching but enables school and system leaders to manage their workforce mix and compensation spending for the benefit of student learning over time? What circumstances affect different choices?
It's important to remember that existing outmoded compensation structures were created to complement the industrial-age school model, where teachers worked alone in their classrooms in one-size-fits-all time slots and class sizes. We need to redesign compensation in the context of a new vision for school organizations where time and student groupings are more fluid, teachers can create relationships with their students and respond to individual needs, and have time and support to collaborate with team members who bring a complementary set of skills and passion to their work. This research adds to creating a clear picture of full compensation spending.
--Karen Hawley Miles is Executive Director of Education Resource Strategies. You can read the ERS blog here.