If we want to keep good teachers in Alaska, we need defined-benefit retirement

Brian Mason

COMMENTARY

In the spring of 2022, I found myself in a strange, yet increasingly familiar position. At 44 and with 16 years of experience, I was once again the youngest and least senior member of the science department at Chugiak High. In the 15 years since I joined this school that I love, we had hired roughly a dozen science educators who were young and full of energy and ideas.

In that time, exactly zero of them had stayed for more than a few years. While reasons vary, the most common thread in the mass exodus of educators is the simple fact that we are the only state that has neither an option to earn a pension nor access to Social Security.

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