Dive Brief:
- According to District Administration, some school districts are viewing teacher retirement incentives as an effective cost-saving strategy.
- Howard County Public Schools in Maryland implemented a buyout plan for the 2014-15 academic year that is projected to save the district $11.4 million over eight years.
- Incentives can include cash payments, buyouts and early-notification incentives; one district saw success by offering teachers 55 and older 50 percent of their yearly salary and $250 a month toward health insurance premiums until the age of 65.
Dive Insight:
With some districts reportedly offering retirement incentives to teachers who have 15 years of experience or more, the length of today’s teachers' career may be shortening. If an educator started at age 21, he or she could be targeted for “retirement” at just 36. Although many districts are scrambling to pull in funding from wide-ranging sources, some may want to rethink the concept of enticing experienced teachers to leave schools in order to save money. As reported by District Administration, some school officials view cutting one older teacher as akin to being able to hire two new, young, inexperienced and cheap teachers. The National Education Association reports the average salary for a public school teacher fell roughly 4% in the last decade.
So do young teachers now have an edge? By looking at the teacher shortage crisis across the U.S., it seems they just might. Reasons for the shortages vary, and some have pointed to the economy, low wages, and poor working conditions in certain schools. States like Nevada, Kentucky, Indiana, Kansas and Pennsylvania have been particularly hard hit.
And some districts like North Carolina's Wake County Schools have seen significant numbers of teachers resigning. In 2014, Wake County saw a 41% jump in teacher resignations, attributed to low salaries (the base teacher salary is $30,800) and a gradual discontinuation of tenure.