When Teachers Choose Pension Plans: The Florida Story

Although long ignored by education-policy analysts, the structure of teacher retirement benefits has come under increasing scrutiny in recent years. The vast majority of teachers, like other state and local public employees, are covered by traditional defined-benefit (DB) pension plans. Now rare in the private sector of the United States economy, these plans provide a retired teacher with a guaranteed lifetime benefit, the annual value of which is typically based on his number of years of service and average salary during the final years of his career. A teacher is often required to contribute from her salary to funds set aside to pay for this plan, but the size of her benefit is not tied to the amount of any contributions.Critics of existing teacher pension systems raise two broad sets of concerns. First, they note that the time lag between when the government funds and pays out retirement benefits encourages politicians to contribute too little to their pension systems, effectively borrowing from future taxpayers to fund current spending on government services.The shortfalls facing state and local pension systems covering teachers and other public workers due to persistent underfunding are staggering. Novy-Marx and Rauh13 estimate that achieving full funding of promised pension liabilities nationally over thirty years would require a tax increase of $1,385 per household each year. A more likely outcome is substantial cuts to public services such as education.Second, critics note that the reliance on traditional DB pension plans makes total teacher compensation severely back-loaded, potentially hindering efforts to improve teacher quality. Most of these plans have vesting periods of five or more years and are structured so that employees do not amass substantial benefits until late in their careers -- at which point benefits increase rapidly. These features may make teaching less attractive to individuals who are uncertain of whether they will remain in the profession long enough to benefit or would prefer to receive a higher salary to support present consumption. Recent evidence confirms that DB pension plans lead some veteran teachers to continue teaching solely for the sake of increasing pension wealth, while encouraging others to retire prematurely so as not to sacrifice years of benefit payments.The back-loading of benefits also imposes heavy costs on career-switchers and geographically mobile teachers, who typically stand to receive benefits worth far less than the pension contributions made on their behalf. The most prominent alternative to a traditional DB pension plan is the defined contribution (DC) model. Under DC plans, an employee builds up an individual retirement account through her or her employer's regular contributions throughout her career and exercises some control over how the account is invested. Because the value of that account is tied directly to these contributions (and the performance of investments), DC plans, by definition, cannot be underfunded. Rapidvesting, portability, and the smooth accrual of benefits over time eliminate the problematic end-of-career incentives created by existing DB plans and could make teaching more attractive to young workers, possible career-switchers, or those likely to be geographically mobile.Finally, because benefits take the form of a personal account that can be converted into a lifetime annuity, the employee gains control over the timing and structure of her retirement benefit. An important potential drawback of the DC model is that employees, rather than taxpayers, bear the consequences if disappointing investment returns or poor withdrawal decisions yield inadequate retirement savings. Unions representing teachers and other public employees have vigorously opposed proposals to convert public pension plans to the DC model, largely on these grounds. Proponents of DB pensions cite survey data suggesting that public employees strongly prefer the DB model and contend that "when given the choice between a primary DB or DC plan, public employees overwhelmingly choose the DB pension plan."Yet there is reason to believe that many current and potential teachers could find well-designed DC plans as or more attractive than traditional DB plans. As noted above, DB plans typically provide minimal benefits to those who do not remain in the profession (and in the same state retirement system) for many years. They may therefore be unappealing to a younger generation of workers prone to exploring multiple career paths before settling on one. Other teachers may simply prefer to exercise greater control over their retirement savings, either due to confidence in their investment abilities or to doubts as to whether public pension funds will be able to deliver on their promises. Consistent with this logic, a survey of Washington State teachers found that a plurality of teachers would prefer to invest additional retirement savings in a DC plan rather than in a DB plan. The extent to which preferences expressed on surveys correspond to the actual behavior of teachers when given the option remains unclear.In this paper, we examine teacher preferences as revealed by their decisions when empowered to choose between alternative pension-plan structures. Since 2002, public school teachers (and most other state and local employees) in Florida have been permitted to choose between a traditional DB retirement plan and a new DC plan. During the time period of our study, school districts were required to contribute 9 percent of the salary of teachers taking the DC option to personalinvestment accounts in their names. Neither DB nor DC choosers were required to contribute from their own salaries to the retirement system, meaning that teachers' plan choice did not alter their take-home pay. The benefits of teachers choosing the DC plan vested after just one year, as compared with six under the DB plan

Do More Effective Teachers Earn More Outside of the Classroom?

We examine earnings records for 90,000 classroom teachers employed by Florida public schools between the 2001–02 and 2006–07 school years, roughly 20,000 of whom left teaching during that time. Among grade 4–8 teachers leaving for other industries, a 1 standard deviation increase in estimated value-added to student achievement is associated with 6–9 percent higher earnings outside of teaching. The relationship between effectiveness and earnings is stronger in other industries than it is for the same teachers while in the classroom, suggesting that existing compensation systems do not account for the higher opportunity wages of effective teachers.

Warm-started wavefront reconstruction for adaptive optics

Future extreme adaptive optics (ExAO) systems have been suggested with up to 10^5 sensors and actuators. We analyze the computational speed of iterative reconstruction algorithms for such large systems. We compare a total of 15 different scalable methods, including multigrid, preconditioned conjugate-gradient, and several new variants of these. Simulations on a 128×128 square sensor/actuator geometry using Taylor frozen-flow dynamics are carried out using both open-loop and closed-loop measurements, and algorithms are compared on a basis of the mean squared error and floating-point multiplications required. We also investigate the use of warm starting, where the most recent estimate is used to initialize the iterative scheme. In open-loop estimation or pseudo-open-loop control, warm starting provides a significant computational speedup; almost every algorithm tested converges in one iteration. In a standard closed-loop implementation, using a single iteration per time step, most algorithms give the minimum error even in cold start, and every algorithm gives the minimum error if warm started. The best algorithm is therefore the one with the smallest computational cost per iteration, not necessarily the one with the best quasi-static performance

Assessing Bias in Regression Estimates Using Monte Carlo Simulations: Examples in Criminal Justice Research

Can we trust published results? Problems with bias in reported results: “Do social scientists even know anything?” Failed replications (“repligate”). Inaccurate inferences about important relationships (Type I and Type II errors). Inaccurate power analyses for future studies. To avoid these problems, researchers need tools to rigorously evaluate statistical models. The Monte Carlo method is one tool that can be used to evaluate bias in model estimateshttps://digitalscholarship.unlv.edu/gcua_symposium/1008/thumbnail.jp

Paulo Freire, Disability, and Sociological Consciousness in a Southern Metropolis: The Knoxville Mayor’s Council on Disability Issues

This article examines attitudes and opinions among members of the Mayor’s Council on Disability Issues (CODI) of Knoxville, Tennessee. Using focused interviews, respondent commentary is presented on topics such as the disability rights movement, employment and education, the nature of defining disability, and the functionality and relative importance of CODI as a whole. Paulo Freire’s (1968) model of oppression is used as a frame of reference to examine CODI members’ attitudinal assumptions of these issues

Comprehensive Investigation of Bioactive Steroidal Alkaloids in \u3cem\u3eVeratrum californicum\u3c/em\u3e

Veratrum californicum, commonly referred to as corn lily or Californian false hellebore, grows in high mountain meadows and produces bioactive steroidal alkaloids, including cyclopamine. Cyclopamine is a potent inhibitor of the Hedgehog (Hh) signaling pathway. Our lab has optimized methods to extract cyclopamine and related steroidal alkaloids from V. californicum, and implemented in-house Hh signaling bioactivity evaluation of these steroidal alkaloids using a Shh-Light II cell assay. A survey of extraction methods and solvents resulted in the identification of conditions most favorable for alkaloid extraction yield and antagonist activity in the Shh-Light II cell assay. The highest amount of bioactive cyclopamine was obtained by soaking V. californicum biomass in ethanol for 24 hr. with vigorous stirring. The extraction protocol was effective for isolating additional alkaloids beyond cyclopamine, some of which have been reported in the literature prior and some that have not. In all cases, bioactivity screening was performed and new insights provided. Expansion of the extraction protocol for the investigation of detailed differences in alkaloid composition of V. californicum based on plant part, harvest location, and growth stage, provides a detailed assessment of alkaloids that have been characterized previously (cyclopamine, veratramine, muldamine and isorubijervine), and identifies at least six alkaloids that have not been previously characterized

Low thermal expansion transition metal oxides for reduced temperature solid oxide fuel cell cathodes

textSolid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) are power generation devices that offer many great advantages compared to lower temperature fuel cells; for example, they are able to operate at high efficiencies without the use of expensive precious metal catalysts, and are also able to directly utilize hydrocarbon fuels without the need of an external reformer. Unfortunately, the conventional high operating temperature of these devices (T ≈ 1000 °C) requires the use of expensive, specialized materials that can withstand these high temperatures. This issue has generated considerable interest in reducing the operating temperature of these devices to the intermediate-temperature (600 – 800 °C) to allow for the use of less-expensive materials, such as stainless steel. However, the conventionally utilized SOFC cathode materials exhibit poor electrochemical performance at these reduced temperatures. Currently considered alternative intermediate temperature cathodes, such as Ba₀.₅Sr₀.₅Co₀.₈Fe₀.₂O₃₋δ (BSCF), offer improved performance, but have a large thermal expansion coefficient (TEC), leading to cell failure. In light of these issues, this dissertation focuses on the development of low TEC cathodes for intermediate temperature SOFCS (IT-SOFCs). The primary focus of this dissertation is on the swedenborgite-type RBaCo₃MO₇₊δ (R = Y, In, and Ca; M = Zn and Fe) series of cathodes. Due to their tetrahedrally-coordinated M site, the cobalt ions in these materials do not undergo a spin-state transition, and have TECs similar to conventional SOFC electrolyte materials. The long-term phase stability of these materials was addressed, and it was discovered that a slight In substitution significantly promoted phase stability. In the Y₁₋[subscript x] In [subscript x] BaCo₃ZnO₇₊δ series, it was observed that x = 0.1 successfully stabilized the phase without observable degradation of performance. Similarly, a high-Ca content material (Y₀.₅In₀.₁Ca₀.₄BaCo₃ZnO₇₊δ) was successfully stabilized, though Ca is known to destabilize the phase; furthermore, this compound showed improved performance compared to YBaCo₃ZnO₇₊δ. Lastly, the replacement of the performance-inhibiting Zn with Fe was investigated, and the Y₀.₉In₀.₁BaCo₃Zn₀.₆Fe₀.₄O₇₊δ sample showed low temperature performance rivaling BSCF. Other work in this dissertation focuses on the application of functional silver materials for use in SOFCs, with good performance; these materials were easily manufactured, and they showed performance drastically greater than the conventionally utilized platinum.Chemical Engineerin