A major source of pressure on school finances: teacher pensions

 There’s plenty of conversation in the education sector right now about the coming pivot from "what do we do with all this money?" to "there's not enough money!" As Covid-era relief funds expire, many school districts are facing a budget crunch — a challenge that's compounded by declining student enrollment. 

Yet you won’t hear nearly as much about a third source of pressure on school finances: teacher pensions. Bellwether has produced a lot of analysis about this issue over the years, tracking how pension plans have gobbled up a growing share of education dollars despite offering poor value to many teachers. But the complexity of pension policies and perceived political costs of addressing these problems keep reform off most policymakers’ agendas.

In a series of guest posts on the Bellwether blog this month, Chad Aldeman explained why that must change. It’s never been more important for state leaders to grapple with the exploding cost of teacher pensions, because it’s limiting spending on every other educational priority — from teacher salaries, to building maintenance, to investments in academic recovery from the pandemic. And, again, these plans do not work that well for most teachers. There are better alternatives. 

Across these four posts, you’ll learn how pension debt is keeping teacher salaries stagnant. You’ll learn just how much the 100 biggest school districts are spending to pay down that debt instead of on resources for teachers and kids. You’ll learn how declining student enrollment could make these problems many times worse. Most importantly, you’ll learn how state policymakers can begin to clean up a mess that’s almost entirely of their own making.