AJC, 5/14/18 article:
“Candidates: Schools need more money” catches candidates running for the
Georgia School Superintendent job are after teacher’s votes. None of them have
the guts to propose anything helpful.
Georgia public school
teachers need to terminate their defined benefit pension plans and adopt a
defined contribution 401K plan. This gives them a 5 year vest for employer
match contributions and full portability to other jobs and other states. The
Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation agency can provide numbers that can be
used to calculate the vested benefits of participants.
The dollars used for
funding the old pension should be used to make the employer’s 401K match and
fund supplemental plans. School Systems could add an “Age Weighted” retirement
supplemental plan to transition all teachers out of the pension trap. I
terminated the pension plan at Electromagnetic Sciences in 1993 and it worked.
Government pension
plans are underfunded and going under. All defined benefit plans are Ponzi
schemes and are unsustainable.
Currently, union
Georgia public school teachers vest in their defined benefit pension plans
after 10 years of continuous service to qualify for a partial pension.
44% of Georgia
teachers quit within the first 5 years. 67% of teachers surveyed would not
recommend teaching as a profession. See Survey Report below:
No doubt, many of the
44% who leave teaching within the first 5 years thought they would like to be
teachers, so they geared their college classes for BS Education degrees. But
after teaching a few years, some of them found out “they didn’t love it”.
Others may just be taking a break to have and raise kids of their own. Others
burn out and move to teach in private or parochial schools or change careers
completely. They first need to find out what they really love to do and are
good at and pursue those jobs.
No doubt, many of the
67% who wouldn’t recommend teaching as a profession are burdened with
unreasonable expectations from parents and regulators.
Parents and regulators
need to understand that it is the students who are responsible for their own
education. The best schools have the best students and they are a joy to teach.
If we had better students, we would keep our best teachers.
The Education
bureaucracy is a nasty place full of managers who specialize in self-promotion.
Teachers are often disenchanted with the politics. State and federal regulations
require too many unnecessary things and teachers lose control over their real
priorities to teach students how to read, write and do math. It sounds simple,
but the Education bureaucracy has no interest in helping teacher with reading,
writing and math.
Teaching in elementary
school requires teachers to continue to study the subjects they teach. Teaching
science and math requires study beyond what a BS Education provides.
Teachers in high
schools who teach one subject really need BS degrees in the subjects they
teach. A math teacher should have a BS in Math. An English teacher should have
a BS in English. They often don’t and they fall short.
In the real world of
the private sector, very few employees stay with their first employers. Employees typically change jobs every 5
years. This has been going on since the 1960s. The 401K model retirement plan
allows the freedom to change jobs at will and as needed.
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody
GA Tea Party Leader
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