No spin from NYSUT or Leo Casey or President Mulgrew on the legislation to stick anyone hired in April or thereafter with a Tier VI pension. (Tell any paras that haven't joined the TRS to do so immediately.) This is another crushing defeat for working people that will yield no savings today as current employees and retirees are not impacted.
For those yet to be hired, the legislature and governor wiped away virtually all of the pension gains we made over the last thirty years. A new teacher or new state employee will have to work until they are sixty three to receive a full pension which will only be 55% of final average salary according to what I read. Final average salary has been increased from the average of the last five years of employment instead of three.
I remember when I started working and all of the people who were on Tier I told those of us who were on Tier IV how horrible our pension was. Now we will have to face the Tier VI people and tell them they are in it for the real long haul if they want to make teaching a career. It is the same for other civil servants across New York State.
Think about a twenty-two year old new college graduate who wants to become a teacher. That person will have to work forty-one years to qualify for a full pension. This is not a very pleasant prospect.
With the attack on teachers and other public employees continuing unabated, could anyone encourage a young person to get into this line of work?
What about those COPE contributions? We don't seem to have much influence with the legislature these days.
7 comments:
Teaching has ceased to be a profession. There will be a lot of career changers just looking for a 3 to 5 year stint before they move on. The new evaluation law will see to that. The state will probably have to do away with the Masters degree requirement, or modify the new evaluation if it wants people to stay longer than that. Don't worry about future teachers. Worry about the kids that will be facing these transient "instructors" in the classroom every day.
Having a couple of resource room classes enables me some time to enrich students. Be it a jazz artist, a Picasso, a Daniel Elsburg or current social or political topic etc, etc, etc. I introduced the new Tier 6 to my students. Now mind you some don't even know what a pension truly is and teens lack foresight, but when I explained simply, they all sensed the harshness of it. I honestly saw my own children in their eyes.
I haven't seen anything good come out of my COPE dollars for years.
Of course police and firefighters have major differences in their plans.
The thing is, how many will actually make it to age 62? It's a grueling job, and with the new evaluations, it will be easier to fire teachers before they reach retirement age.
James,
You might want to check out the following link to a petition started by the President of the Lancaster Teachers Association, Eric Pryzkuta and other union presidents, including the president of my local Ray Hodges.
The petition has the support of Carol Burris and Diane Ravitch. It already has over 1,100 signatures in just two days of being live.
If it is something you could support, then I would ask you to post it to your site.
James,
You might want to check out the following link to a petition started by the President of the Lancaster Teachers Association, Eric Pryzkuta and other union presidents, including the president of my local Ray Hodges.
The petition has the support of Carol Burris and Diane Ravitch. It already has over 1,100 signatures in just two days of being live.
If it is something you could support, then I would ask you to post it to your site.
http://signon.org/sign/educators-for-fair-evaluatio?source=s.tw&r_by=3842702
Yours in solidarity,
Darrell McElroy, NBCT
Executive VP Monroe-Woodbury TA
I will look at it.
There is no easy answer to this problem. On one hand, teachers want to make the most amount of money as possible, including pension benefits. On the other hand, government institutions all over the country are having a hard time raising and maintaining capital.
Perhaps what is needed is a re-negotiation of how a retirement plan should be distributed. Example: If the pension benefits take longer to achieve and are lower than they used to be, a substantial reduction in state taxes should be allowed by law.
By: Pedro Nicolas Payano
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