If Alaska is serious about keeping good teachers, it should return to defined-benefit retirement

I commend the University of Alaska for their ambitious goal to “grow our own” teachers and double the number education graduates hired by 2025. Homegrown, Alaskan teachers do tend to stay and have longer careers in our state. Recruiting more Alaska Natives who want to teach in their communities is also a necessity. Although I applaud this effort, without meaningful changes to the Tier III Teacher Retirement System, Alaska will fall very short of achieving this goal. Let me address the elephant in the room:

In 2005, when the legislature rushed through approval of TRS Tier III and Public Employee Retirement System Tier IV, they removed the defined benefit state pension, but they did NOT put Social Security back in its place. This means that public school teachers hired after 2005 don’t get Social Security; they only receive their own savings and 403B investments. By comparison, if you went to work at McDonald’s, you would receive Social Security plus your own savings and investments, but if you are a teacher in Alaska, you don’t.

The math becomes compelling very quickly; go to college for six years to start a teaching job at $55,000 per year in Alaska with no defined benefit retirement and no Social Security, or become a cardiovascular technologist/technician and receive the same starting salary plus Social Security with only an associate’s (two-year) degree. Or join one of the trade unions, have your education paid through an apprenticeship, begin collecting a similar salary (or higher) when you become a journeyman, and receive your full Social Security benefit at retirement, plus union retirement benefits. Even though our rural villages desperately need and want local Alaska Native teachers to teach there, and there are scholarships to pay for almost all of the young Native students' bachelors and teaching degrees, I hear parents caution and even dissuade their high school graduates from going into teaching in Alaska because of the lower compensation and lack of retirement compared to other jobs. This is tragic.

Let me address the problem from another angle: At the Alaska Career and Technical Education (CTE) Conference in October, I listened to Dept. of Labor Commissioner Heidi Drygas talk about the hiring boom on the horizon for skilled jobs in Alaska and that we need to get our students ready. I listened to Education Commissioner Michael Johnson talk about how desperately we need to recruit technical education teachers to train young people for these high-paying jobs. What they say is true. However, it is a tough sell to persuade a veteran electrician or heavy equipment mechanic who has 20 years' industry experience and is making $80,000 to $100,000 per year to go back to school to get a Type M teaching certificate, accept a $55,000 beginning teacher’s salary, sign the “windfall elimination provision” to receive only 40 percent of his or her Social Security earnings, and then, as a new Tier III TERS employee, no longer receive any Social Security. Unless a person is independently wealthy, the math just does not make sense for a qualified industry expert to become a public school CTE teacher.

I agree 100 percent with the university’s initiative to double the number of locally grown teachers produced and hired in Alaska. This needs to happen. But it won’t happen until the Legislature rectifies the retirement structure of TRS Tier III. Even then, our best young teaching talent may still continue to be drawn into other fields that are better compensated. The public needs to be aware of the many significant financial factors impacting young teachers’ decisions and influencing our state’s 20-30 percent teacher turnover rate. Outreach and mentoring will not be enough to reduce it.

Anne Adasiak-Andrew grew up in Anchorage, has worked in education for 14 years as a high school teacher, scholarship and internship manager. She holds a master’s degree in education; curriculum and instruction.

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