California State Teachers Retirement System: Case Study

The new changes No Child Left Behind laws were passed earlier in 2010 stresses the importance of education has to be our main concern to ensure that our children are getting quality education. The legislation is called “Performance Counts,” It reevaluates tenure laws and evaluation. This means that teachers are evaluated and being laid off because of their performance in the classrooms. No matter how long the teacher has been in his/her position that still wouldn’t keep them in their position because of their low performance. Over the next 10 years the focus will be to prepare hundreds of new teachers in STEM science, technology, engineering, and math (Mclatchy, 2010). The program is to encourage students in the STEM field or alternative teacher certification programs to switch their careers if they choose to. For

Webster's dictionary defines tenure as, “the act, right, manner, or term, of holding something (such as a landed property, a position, or an office); especially :a status granted after a trial period to a teacher that gives protection from summary dismissal. In other words, educators receive due process protection from accusations or charges against them.Years ago, educators who acted in destructive and abusive demeanor sidestep meaningful ramifications due to tenure safeguards .However, the supreme protection granted to tenured teachers diminished greatly as of July 2011. Michigan stripped the unassailable security of tenure and the world of education in Michigan altered permanently.Forlornly, educator Kathleen Goulouze failed to adhere to modifications of the updated teacher tenure decree.

The Chicago Fire Department and The Chicago Police Department are in danger of losing their pensions. These brave men and women put their lives on the line every day and this is how the government repays them. This is not securing their future of retirement. Citizens believe that our first responder’s pensions should be a high priority to Chicago’s to-do list. This City of Chicago owes these brave men and women a pension like they promised and if that means cutting funds to other things, then it should be done. The pension secures the men and women’s future of retirement, and by taking it away from them it may create unstable lives.

The Ontario Teacher’s Pension Plan (OTPP) is a defined contribution plan that was created in 1917 to provide and administer a pension plan for Ontario school teachers.  Sponsored by the Ontario Government and the Ontario Teacher’s Federation, the plan currently supports 343,000 teachers, former teachers and pensioners. The recent government decision to eliminate the 30% constraint on foreign investments and the increased volatility in the currency market has prompted the OTPP Investment Committee to address the following:

The City of Houston pension systems are at a crossroads. The recession has brought pension funding practices into the bureaucratic limelight due to the proliferating scrutiny and tightening of the local finances. Pension reform has been spurred by ballooning cost projections and an estimate $2.7 trillion nationwide funding gap (Johnson, Chingos & Whitehurst, 2013). Reforming the insufficient pension system has suggested for most citizens from taxpayers who want to reduce the expense down and yet still receive a great quality of firefighters, police officer, and public services who want to preserve their retirement security. The recent Detroit bankruptcy ruling has left a sobering precedent that pension promises are not sacrosanct, but could possibly renege on if a local government falls too far behind its funding obligations (Bomey 2013). The wide ranges of public sector pensions are considering benefit plans. In these kind of plan, when an employee reaches a specified age or years of service, he or she in entitled to a set amount of benefits each year from retirement until decease. The benefit amount of a retiree

Plaintiffs allege that defendants had prior knowledge that their daughter was a target for murder by a psychiatric patient and failed to warn the victim or anyone capable of stopping act. Defendants had notified campus police of patient’s intent, but after detaining him briefly, chose to release him because he “appeared rational.” Plaintiffs allege liability based on defendants’ failure to warn of impending danger, and failure to confine the patient. The Superior Court of California sustained the defendants’ demurrers to plaintiffs’ complaints. Appeal followed.

The California State Teachers’ Retirement System –from this point on will be addressed as CalSTRS– is one of Government Operations Agency programs of the State of California. It was established in 1913 with the objective to provide retirement, disability, and survivor benefits for full-time and part-time teachers, administrators and their families/beneficiaries in the State of California. This means to provide a proper income intended for teachers and school administrators from pre-K to community college with benefits according to their period of services respectively and also to sustain their members’ trust

Colorado’s population, employment, annual pay, and GDP have been above the national average and ranked top among the nation in 2015 (Leeds School of Business). This trend should continue, and Colorado’s economy is expected to grow within the next year (Leeds School of Business). However, to continue this growth Colorado must solve this teacher shortage problem, or it will begin to affect the

According to the Maryland Teaching Staffing Report, the annual attrition percentage continues to decrease, going from 13.3 percent in 2010-2011 to 11.1 percent in 2012-2013 and 9.3 percent in 2013-2014. Although the total attrition percentage is improving, PGCPS continues to have the greatest percentage of attrition compared to neighboring districts as well as the greatest number of teachers that exit the district with less than one to five years of experience. These data confirm that teacher retention is a major problem that significantly impacts PGCPS. These data also support Ingersoll (2003) and Perda (2013) studies regarding the significant number of teachers that leave the profession within their first five years of teaching.

A teacher’s salary has come a very long way in the U.S. from 1980 to now, it went from 15 (elementary) and 16(secondary) thousand a year to 57 and 59 thousand a year as average. That is a pretty decent change in just a little over thirty years. But as the salary went up so has the cost of living, so, in reality, it is not much help. Texas is the state with the most teachers since 2014. Texas has a total of 342,257 and California comes in second while New York comes in third (statista). That is a lot of people, who all happen to be on a state salary schedule in Texas. What this means is that teachers all get paid the starts salary and depending on who has been there longer than others determine who gets a bonus or raise.

In the United States, majority of teachers are public school teachers and they make over three millions in numbers. The number of pupils per teacher has recorded a decline for the last few decades and it continues to decline to date. The average class size presently is over 20 pupils for public elementary schools and 23.4 for public secondary schools. This can tell the reason as to why teachers leave teaching professions because of workload.

My final reason talks about on how the teachers are calculated to earn their retirement benefits.In the same article I found that the teachers have a type of calculator where they can estimate what their retirement benefits are going to be.In the article it states that the ,“CalSTRS gives 2% at 60: for those first hired on or before December 31,2012 this is the formula for calculating a member-only defined benefit: Age factor x Service Credit x Final compensation = Member only retirement benefit”. What this article is trying to say is that it all depends on how long and how much time you’ve been

According to Coulson (2011), the unions of teachers has helped to drive up the cost of a student in the K-12 school system and to protect even those teachers with low performance. Since 1970, the cost of a student in the K-12 system has raised from $55,000 to $155,000, but the performance of the students have declined since then (Coulson, 2011). Where is the rest of the money? I believe that a teacher need to have a

Pension funds are any plans, funds or schemes which provide retirement income. The money in them varies from some offering very little making it not worthwhile for their holder to retires, whilst others pay more than the employee has earned in his lifetime. Examples of the former are the present-day crisis with Chicago teachers who have found that their pension is giving them as little as 42,000 per year ((NYT Times (September 19, 2012) Next School Crisis for Chicago: Pension Fund Is Running Dry). Examples with the latter are the absurd instances of Yonkers, where policemen in their 40s are retiring on $100,000 pensions (more than their top salaries), or in California, where payments to Calipers, the biggest state pension fund, soared while financing for higher education was cut (ibid). The largest 300 pension funds collectively hold about $6 trillion in assets (Global Investment

Most would ask, "What exactly is teacher tenure?". Well, in short teacher tenure is a permanent job contract for school teachers. Teachers can earn tenure by proving their teaching skills over a specific number of years while working at the same school. In most cases the number of years a teacher must work at the same school is anywhere from two to seven years. After receiving tenure a teacher cannot lose his or her job without just cause, for example obvious incompetence or severe misconduct. Tenure offers job security to teachers that have successfully completed their probational period of teaching. (Heard)