Stronger support to fix teachers’ pension plan needed

Wednesday, April 5, 2006

For more of your opinions, see Gazette.Net/Letters.

Ryan Spiegel, Gaithersburg

The writer is a prospective candidate for the House of Delegates in District 17.

In response to the Gazette’s March 17 article (‘‘Teacher pension reform remains hazy as the session winds down”), I am disappointed by the lukewarm support in Annapolis for a plan to fix the teachers’ pension system in Maryland.

If our leaders are serious about attracting and retaining the best teachers for our schools in the years and decades to come, and if they are serious about providing our hard-working teachers with benefits commensurate with their significance in our community, then they will make teacher pensions a priority.

Appallingly, our current teacher pension system ranks dead last among all 50 states. I am proud of the stellar rankings of our local public schools, but we can’t maintain our excellence if we don’t offer competitive benefits packages.

If a pension reform proposal is finally passed, it won’t be worthwhile unless it significantly overhauls the existing pension system. We owe as much to our teachers — and our students.