The relationship between employer and employee has changed significantly over the past 40 years. One of the greatest changes in this relationship is in the nature of employee retirement. While pension reform at public and private colleges has helped ensure institutional financial viability, retirement security for employees has declined. With the…

Many argue that public school systems should stop linking teachers' salaries so closely to their years of experience. However, the effect of deferred retirement compensation on the premium paid to experienced teachers has, to date, been underappreciated. To shed more light on this issue, we calculate the total compensation earned by teachers in…

Currently, higher education is being roiled by class-action lawsuits filed against high-profile institutions, including MIT, Yale and New York University, over management of their retirement plans. As the lawyers are deployed and the billable hours accrue, it is timely to examine how those who have responsibility for retirement plan…

Hybrid retirement plans that combine defined benefit pensions with 401(k) type, defined contribution accounts can play important roles in the reform of public-sector pensions. Summarizing results from our longer report ["How Will Rhode Island's New Hybrid Pension Plan Affect Teachers? A Report of the Public Pension Project" (2014)], this…

Most public school teachers in the United States are enrolled in defined benefit (DB) pension plans. Using administrative microdata from four states, combined with national pension funding data, we show these plans have accumulated substantial unfunded liabilities--effectively debt--owing to previous plan operations. On average across 49 state…

Most public school teachers in the United States are enrolled in defined benefit (DB) pension plans. Using administrative microdata from four states, combined with national pension funding data, we show these plans have accumulated substantial unfunded liabilities--effectively debt--owing to previous plan operations. On average across 49 state…

From funding to teacher quality, inequities exist between school districts. This paper adds to the literature on inequities by examining the impact of pension plan formulas on pension benefits. Using data from the salary schedules of 464 Missouri school districts, this paper analyzes how various final average salary calculations would impact the…

The California State Teachers' Retirement System (CalSTRS) is in the midst of phasing in substantial increases in the contributions made by teachers, school districts, and the state of California. The phase-in period began in 2014-15. In the year prior, 2013-14, the total statutory contribution rate to CalSTRS from all parties was 18.3 percent of…

This twelfth edition of "Measuring up to the Model: A Ranking of State Charter School Laws" evaluates each state's public charter school law against the 21 essential components of a strong charter school law. These 21 components are drawn from the National Alliance's "A New Model Law for Supporting the Growth of High-Quality Public…

The 2020-21 AASA Superintendent Salary & Benefits Study marks the ninth consecutive edition of this study. The 2020-2021 version employed a slightly revised and updated survey instrument. The survey tracks the demographics, salary, benefits, and other elements of the employment agreements of school superintendents throughout the country. The…

During the late 1990s public pension funds across the United States accrued large actuarial surpluses. The seemingly flush conditions of the pension funds led legislators in most states to substantially improve retirement benefits for public workers, including teachers. In this study we examine the benefit enhancements to the teacher pension…

Traditional defined benefit (DB) pension systems in many states face large funding shortfalls. Movement toward defined contribution (DC) pension structures may reduce the likelihood of future shortfalls, but there is concern that such reforms may have the undesirable effect of increasing employee turnover. In studying patterns of employee turnover…

Based on in-depth interviews, surveys and autoethnography we explore ways in which staff responded to the COVID-19 pandemic in three Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) based in Kenya (University of Nairobi), Mexico (El Colegio de la Frontera Sur) and the United Kingdom (University of Leeds). HEIs are dependent on staff's resilience and goodwill…

The California State Teachers' Retirement System (CalSTRS) has been grossly underfunded for the past decade. State policymakers have responded by cutting plan benefits for new hires and raising teachers' required plan contributions. These changes, however, have undermined teachers' retirement income security. Only 35 percent of new hires will…

This paper examines the savings behavior of public school teachers who are enrolled in a hybrid pension plan that includes a defined contribution (DC) component. Few states have incorporated DC features into teacher pension systems and little is known about how providing teachers with greater control over deferred compensation might affect their…