The Vermont teachers’ retirement fund has found plenty of front page space recently especially with calls from Governor Douglas to sluff it off wholesale onto the local property tax rolls. In today’s Barre/Montpelier Times Argus (Retirement funding tops agenda for new NEA chief, Times Argus, 09/14/09) new Vt NEA chief Martha Allen keeps pace with vocal disdain for recent attempts to review the system claiming “They are out to eliminate our pension system as we know it”.

The easy, comfortable solutions to this mess won’t work. I think the true answer lies in the uncomfortable and unknown which requires a different story line entirely.

Face it: teachers are invaluable parts of our educational system, and teachers in general deserve to have compensation commensurate with their experience and education and abilities.

Face it: unlike legislators and governors who are able to increase their salaries more or less in the dark, employees of Vermont’s various governments are generally held up to the public spotlight and discussion at salary negotiation time. Rightfully so in the latter … too bad the prior don’t have the courage to do so too.

Now we can get to the murky part …

First: the Vermont State Teachers Retirement System (VSTRS) is defined by state law (Title 16, Chapter 55) and administered under the auspices of Vermont’s State Treasurer by a board of varied sources (VSTRS Board of Trustees, State Treasurer’s site). Local school districts and supervisory unions have no power or decision making regarding this retirement fund. We (I’m currently serving on Williamstown’s school board) don’t set retirement, contribution, payout or any other rates.

There is some cloudiness in this in that supervisory districts do negotiate teacher salaries which does directly affect post-retirement payouts; but state law has so successfully insulated retirement from year to year salary negotiations that we end up with decisions in these two arenas being made in literal isolation.

The above by itself should have all the anti-unfunded mandate freaks screaming in anger when it comes to any attempt to push any part of the retirement fund onto the shoulders of local tax payers. I fall under the aforementioned category, and I know I’m at the alarmed hair pulling stage.

Unless, of course, the whole idea behind Douglas’ push was to send the money along to pay for the move … but that never was the intent behind the rhetoric.

One concept that has gained a certain amount of public currency is a statewide teachers contract. This would have the advantage of bringing the retirement and salaries systems to the same table at the same time, but it would also leave local communities totally at the mercy of state government regarding how education is delivered.

Not many years ago Williamstown was lucky enough to have a dedicated town resident who also had a wide range of education, knowledge and direct experience. Bill volunteered his services to the community by offering to teach a course in international events, and the Williamstown school board gratefully accepted his offer and expertise. The teachers’ union complained under the guise that Bill’s volunteer activity meant a certified (ie. union) teacher did not get a job because of Bill’s activities and thus contractual obligations were violated.

In the end the court’s sided against the union view, but imagine now a state teachers’ contract that arbitrarily decides no town can use volunteer teachers under any circumstance.

A state wide contract would also eliminate any possibility for local districts to offer anything beyond cash compensation … hire at the state’s prescribed wages or go without … end of story. Suppose a district comes up with an innovative educational process that teachers would almost pay to take part in (for their own professional development for instance)? Too bad … the state decided.

No, I don’t see bringing contract negotiations to the state level as being to anybody’s benefit other than the General Assembly and Governor’s office. They would get the power to dictate even more than already exists.

The easy, comfortable solutions to dealing with a burgeoning fiscal obligation aren’t going to work well for Vermont’s communities, and doing nothing will only make matter more untenable vis-a-vis the Vermont State Teachers Retirement System.

Here’s what I propose: end the statewide defined benefits retirement package for teachers’ retirement and engage in educational choice.

The first half is a fairly simple, even if distasteful to the fund’s membership, process. Move from defined benefits to a contribution system. A teacher gets out the actuarial (am I misusing that word?) value of what they put in. All people currently in the defined benefits system would be moved immediately over to the contribution system with allowances made for the current value of their retirement as defined under current law … complex financial equations but simple for those with appropriate computers and bookkeeping skills.

Doing this would alleviate any concerns over FUTURE needs. We, Vermont, would still be rightfully on the hook for catching up to what things should be today.

The other uncomfortable part of my prosal, educational choice, would give local school districts greater leeway in both the content and manner of education. This could be, for example, doing away with most state and federal mandated standards and letting the towns decide which standards make the most sense and work the best for them. Another possibility is to keep the mandated standards but drop the age/grade level correlation so students could progress at a pace that makes more sense to them. A student gifted in reading and writing but having problems with math and US history should not be kept back from advancing in reading and writing simply because of a lack in other subject matter.

I like this second option: forget the concept that you graduate high school at age 18. One should be graduating when the time is ripe whether it’s at 17 years old or 60. Meet the standards and receive a diploma.

An advantage with this educational choice approach regarding teachers’ retirement and salaries is local schools would now be able to offer something of substance beyond cash rewards. A young teacher, for instance, may find a low paying job in Vermont to be preferred because that young teacher can learn and develop in ways that aren’t available elsewhere.

Of course this would increase demands on local school boards and administrations. But that’s why we’re here, isn’t it?

So how would I phrase my proposal? Pick up a funnel. Normally we pour our liquids into the wide end of the funnel so everything is directed to the small opening. Our intention is to place the liquid in a very specific spot.

Now turn that funnel over. Imagine pouring the liquid into the small opening so we can let it pour out over a larger, unknown area. This is my picture of a successful education: we don’t know all of what folks will need to know in 20 or 30 years. But we do know there are some fundamentals that will allow the future to understand what it is they need to know and how to learn what they need to know. Let’s focus on those fundamentals (ie. pour into the small hole) so, as the need arises, the future can learn what it needs to know (flow out the wide hole).

We should be reforming by inverting our educational funnels.

And when we start thinking this way, we can start finding sensible answers to the fiscal issues running amuck with the teachers’ retirement fund. We can disconnect entirely the link between local supervisory union salary negotiations and the state law making process vis-a-vis teachers’ retirement. We can offer teachers something of value in place of the comfort that comes from a state guaranteed defined benefits package.

We can do and be better.