Kentucky Education Policy Blog

As we look ahead to the upcoming session of the Kentucky General Assembly, the issue of teacher pensions has started to make news again.  The headlines alone have caused many educators to nervously contemplate how they will get through another pension struggle on top of the stresses of COVID, the challenges of virtual learning and the threat of potential student learning loss.   The debate over teacher pensions in 2018 led to widespread protests, teacher walkouts and a significant political pushback that led to the election of Democratic Governor Andy Beshear in red-Kentucky the following year.   The question is whether the GOP, with a comfortable veto-proof majority in the legislature, will approach the topic any differently given the lessons of 2018-2019.    We got a glimpse of that this past week.  Rep. Ed Massey (R) from Boone County has emerged as a voice of reason for Republicans on this issue.  Massey has been working on a bill that wi...

With the issue of education funding and teacher pensions looming in the 2021 General Assembly, a new tool from the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) shines a light on the importance of the issue of teacher compensation for Kentucky. The SREB Teacher Compensation Dashboard shows that compensation for teachers in Kentucky lags behind most other states in the South. Considering the fact that teacher pay in the South is behind the national average, Kentucky teachers are among the lowest paid in the country. According to the site, teachers are paid 20 percent lower in the South than similarly educated professionals in the region. Kentucky ranks in the lowest quintile of southern states in terms of net pay. The net pay for new as well as experienced teachers in Kentucky is about $10,000 behind the regional average and even further behind the nation. Kentucky's retirement system is one of the bright spots of the analysis. The state's pension is one of three southern stat...