For the last two decades, Ohio has given its new public school teachers choices among retirement plans. Early in their employment, they are handed a form that allows them to opt for a traditional pension plan, a 401(k)-style defined-contribution (DC) plan, or a plan that combines elements of each. If they make no affirmative decision at all--that…

Just 18 minutes before the midnight signing deadline on May 15, 2010, Minnesota state legislators breathed a sigh of relief. Their bipartisan pension reform legislation, which passed both chambers by large margins and aimed to help shore up a potentially failing pension system, had just escaped a veto threat. Under pressure from his Republican…

Teacher pensions consume a substantial portion of school budgets. If relatively generous pensions help attract effective teachers, the expense might be justified. But new evidence suggests that current pension systems, by concentrating benefits on teachers who spend their entire careers in a single state and penalizing mobile teachers, may…

The financial state of the nation's public pension funds--which provide the retirement incomes for all state employees but in most states are dominated by teachers, administrators, and other school employees--has gone from bad to worse, and is projected to continue to worsen in coming decades. A perfect storm of factors has combined in the past…

The Ohio State Teacher Retirement System (STRS) provides retirement, survivor, and disability benefits to public school (K-12) teachers, college and university professors employed by state institutions, and the spouses and eligible dependents of these employees. In doing so, it operates much like other state retirement systems. The money to…

This paper presents the Ohio edition of the National Council on Teacher Quality's 2008 "State Teacher Policy Yearbook". The 2008 "Yearbook" focuses on how state policies impact the retention of effective new teachers. This policy evaluation is broken down into three areas that encompass 15 goals. Broadly, these goals examine…

Ohio's legislative interest in regulating college faculty workloads is seen as unnecessary by many institutions. Impetus for new regulations requiring more faculty time in the classroom comes from research on increased use of teaching assistants for undergraduate instruction. Some argue that early retirement and reductions in the number of…

A 2005 MetLife Foundation/Civic Ventures New Face of Work Survey found that many baby boomers are eager to make career changes that can launch a new chapter in their working lives while they make social contribution. The survey found that 50 percent of Americans age 50 to 70 want jobs that contribute to the greater good. It found that more than 53…

The purpose of this publication is to focus attention upon a rapidly growing development in public school administration--the increasing interest in personnel administration as a process which can be identified through a description of certain formal functions which every school district must perform. The existence of adequate personnel policies…

This final report presents examples of activities conducted to address the objectives focused on in the 1979-80 Upper Arlington Career Education program. It first presents a list of the twelve objectives for three specified levels: (1) grades K-6--motivation (2 objectives), (2) grades 7-8--orientation (2 objectives), (3) grades 9-10--exploration…