johnnymk

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/07/ed..._r=1&th&emc=th

Over the next four years, more than a third of the nation’s 3.2 million teachers could retire, depriving classrooms of experienced instructors and straining taxpayer-financed retirement systems, according to a new report.



The problem is aggravated by high attrition among rookie teachers, with one of every three new teachers leaving the profession within five years, a loss of talent that costs school districts millions in recruiting and training expenses, says the report, by the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future, a nonprofit research advocacy group.

“The traditional teaching career is collapsing at both ends,” the report says. “Beginners are being driven away” by low pay and frustrating working conditions, and “accomplished veterans who still have much to contribute are being separated from their schools by obsolete retirement systems” that encourage teachers to move from paycheck to pension when they are still in their mid-50s, the report says.

To ease the exodus, the report says, policy makers should restructure schools and modify state retirement policies so that thousands of the best veteran teachers can stay on in the classroom to mentor inexperienced teachers. Reorganizing schools around what the report calls learning teams, a model already in place in some schools in Boston, could ease the strain on pension systems, raise student achievement and help young teachers survive their first, often traumatic years in the classroom, it says.

“In the ’60s we recruited many baby-boom women and men, and the deal we made was, ‘You’ll have a rewarding career and at the end, pension and health benefits,’ ” said Tom Carroll, the commission’s president. “They signed up in large numbers and stayed, and now 53 percent of our teaching work force is getting ready to collect. If all those boomers walk into retirement, our teacher pension systems will be under severe strain, with the same problems as the auto industry.”

This is not the first report to predict widespread teacher shortages unless policy makers took quick action. In 1999, an Education Department study warned that the impending retirement of millions of teachers could lead to chaos, a dire outcome that never materialized.

One economist who spoke out skeptically then was Michael Podgursky, who studies teacher retirement at the University of Missouri. The latest report, too, may overstate the case somewhat, Dr. Podgursky said in an interview. “There’s a bit of hyperbole” in the assertion that the teaching career is “collapsing at both ends,” he said.

The recession may help ease potential teacher shortages because the profession’s relative job security and generous health benefits will probably attract more new college graduates and career-changers than when plenty of good jobs were available.

“Still, the authors make a credible case that the number or teachers who retire will rise in coming years,” Dr. Podgursky said, “and it makes a good deal of sense to develop phased retirement systems that permit retired or semiretired teachers to mentor new teachers.”

zippyjuan

There are still people who seem to want to teach- many districts have been laying off teachers to try to cope with budget cuts as tax collections go down in the recession and housing price collapse.

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brainsmile

I don't doubt an impending shortage.

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LPMiller

this is really true in all professions. The baby boomers retiring is seriously going to open up the job market.

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johnnymk

That is assuming they can afford to retire. The only safe retirements now are government workers and school teachers. And that could change if the economy keeps on tanking.

DarkFury

I don't know how safe a "government worker" retirement is...

My 401K has taken a major hit just like everyone else's... it sure don't feel "safe" to me.

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VTGreg

It depends on when you started with the government (I'm referring to the federal government). I believe most who work for the government and are close to retirement still have a large amount of their retirement compensation coming from a pension. The government has moved further away from that with time but still pays out 30% of your top 3 years of pay in addition to your 401k.

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brainsmile

even still no one likes to take losses like the past year brought

DarkFury

Honestly, unless the 401K makes a full recovery, I'm more or less not gonna feel anywhere near comfortable with it like I was 10 years ago.

Honestly, I never knew it could drop that low that fast... but now, since I "got caught" (i.e. I was too dumb to not know when to move my money to the safer options before the "Crash of '08") I have to ride it out and hope that it will rise again like the Phoenix.

(On top of that, my son's college fund got the same spanking... yet I only have 10 years to try to make a recovery on that. )

VTGreg

Don't get me wrong, I didn't say anyone with money invested in a 401k or TSP didn't feel some pain in the last year. It's amazing the amount of wealth that has been erased. Just wanted to point out that many of those with jobs in the government or teaching had a pension to fall back on and that has not decreased in value.

I doubt there are many that didn't feel significant pain in the last year.

DarkFury

Honestly, I have that "hang on to your butt" feeling right now with regard to my retirement fund.