There was an article in the News Miner today about the public employees retirement system. (PRS/TRS) It’s messed up, apparently. And Rep. Kelly wants to try to fix it.

The problem: The fund is about 5 billion dollars in the red! Fairbanks alone owes its teachers over 230 million. The state wants our school disctrict to pay 4 million a year for 25 years to repay the money. That money will come out of our instructional budget.

The solution proposed:

  • Restructure the PRS/TRS Board to include people with financial management backgrounds;
  • Create a new tier for future employees in which there would be a defined contribution, and not a defined benefit;
  • Charge current employees a higher contribution each year until we are paying 20% more ( I think that’s what it says);

I predict that if these bill pass, large numbers of teachers will walk away from their jobs. According to Dick Solie, TRS board member, three-fourths of the debt is owed to current retirees. The proposal Kelly is making asks current workers to pay for the retirements of those who are already retired. So why not retire!!

How did this happen? Higher health care costs, longer life expectancy, economic reversals in investment markets.

My gut reaction: My job is becoming increasingly thankless and impossible. I’m going to have to work forever. I need to find something else to do. Between NCLB, Special Ed, and Title 1 regulations, a crowded curriculum and kids with personal lives that are way too complicated, teaching has become a profession for either fools or martyrs. I don’t consider myself a fool. And I’m not sure about the other. I was raised Catholic, after all. I believe that the future of public schooling is in serious jeopardy.

The people who want to see revolutionary change might get their chance sooner than they know. I’m not saying that change isn’t warranted. I see the need maybe more clearly than anyone. But I also know that a vision for change has not been clearly articulated. If there are any lessons in recent history that can be applied to this proposition look no farther than the liberation of Baghdad. Rather than watch the system crumble like a house of cards and have to be rebuilt, I would consider it far more constructive to see it fragment and decentralize so that local systems (very small nodes) could begin to form and educate people to participate in discreet communities of practice. This sounds like the formation of street gangs, and that may not be such an outrageous model if we could apply the principles to legitimate ends. Guilds might be another way to think of alternatives to the behemoth that we currently feed. Guilds that are supported by technology and real-world experience. A decentralized system, much like the internet, supported by the internet.

One of the problems with calls to reform the school system is that it is viewed distantly as a system, rather than as a community. I think that we should try to preserve community as much as we can while transforming the structures. The federalized model that we have allowed to evolve is NOT the way to go. Privatizing education will create inequity. There lies the crux.