Petitions are circulating for several proposed initiatives that would change the State Teachers Retirement System, also known as STRS. Member Allison Marks offers some facts that members should know before they consider signing any petitions for these measures.

1. Teachers, counselors, and administrators in California public schools pay eight percent of their salaries to STRS.

2. Unlike social security, the two-per-cent annual cost-of-living pension increase teacher’s receive is not compounded. In other words, it remains the same amount over the years of retirement. Two of the petitions would put in jeopardy even this increase.

3. Teachers and other certificated personnel cannot receive both social security and a STRS pension, even if they worked in private industry for years and paid into social security. They also cannot receive spousal benefits, even if a spouse has spent an entire career in private industry and has paid into social security. The two penalties were put into effect during the Reagan Administration. They are called The Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and The Government Pension Offset (GPO). California is one of about eleven states with those two penalties. The penalties are considered to be a major hindrance to people leaving private industry and coming into the public schools to teach, particularly in the fields of secondary math and science.

4. Finally, teaching is not an easy profession. The challenges are many, and many teachers every year leave teaching. The figures show that as many as fifty percent of teachers in Teach For America leave after their commitment, and it could be more. We should not discourage people further from entering the profession by attacking teacher’s pensions.