MISSOURI CHARTER SCHOOLS AND TEACHER PENSION PLANS - How Well Do Existing Pension Plans Serve Charter and Urban Teachers?

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Jacob

Missouri educators rely on a fragmented tripartite retirement structure spanning Kansas City, St. Louis, and the statewide system, raising concerns about how well current pension arrangements support charter and urban teachers. The report examines reciprocity and transfer rigidities that can impose substantial pension penalties when educators move between districts, worsening turnover, recruitment difficulties, and leadership pipeline challenges. It evaluates whether alternative pension designs could improve portability, strengthen retirement security, and help urban districts retain teachers and leaders.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages33

Reading Time1 h 23 min

AccessFree to download

Foreword

Teacher Pension Plans in Missouri

Tripartite Educator Retirement System

Impacts on Portability, Recruitment, and Retention

MISSOURI CHARTER SCHOOLS AND TEACHER PENSION PLANS: How Well Do Existing Pension Plans Serve Charter and Urban Teachers? February 2014 MISSOURI CHARTER SCHOOLS AND TEACHER PENSION PLANS: How Well Do Existing Pension Plans Serve Charter and Urban Teachers? February 2014 Note: An erratum to this report was published August 27, 2014. The initial report was inaccurate in stating that there is not reciprocity between the Missouri Public School Retirement System (PSRS) and the Kansas City Public School Retirement System (KC). The correction also examines rigidities in the transfer agreement that cause educators to face significant pension penalties in moving districts. Cory Koedel Shawn Ni Michael Podgursky P. Brett Xiang This report has been prepared for the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. The authors are in the economics department at the University of Missouri-Columbia. The views in this report reflect those of the authors. The usual disclaimers apply. © 2014 by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. All rights reserved. FOREWORD By Aaron North, vice president of Education, and Dane Stangler, vice president of Research and Policy, Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation For decades, education has been a political football. From differing opinions over funding levels and diversity, to arguments over what to teach and how to teach it, education debates are often proxies for ideological disputes. While these arguments still rage, there is an emerging consensus that the central actor in improving educational outcomes is the teacher. And, therefore, the locus of change and reform is the teacher. To some, this may sound rather obvious: haven’t teachers always been central to education? Yes, but ongoing education debates often treat teachers as incidental. With teachers at the center, we can focus on public policies that support the entire system of teaching—from new teacher training to working conditions to ongoing professional development to a facilitative labor market. Organizations across the political spectrum are working on these issues, and all recognize that there is no “one solution” that will address the challenges at once. Each dimension is nuanced and embedded in years of institutional tradition. The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation focuses much of its education work on urban school districts, where the general challenges of American education are especially acute. Urban districts are a crucible of many teacher-related issues. Our experience with the salient characteristics of urban education systems—frequent teacher turnover in the early years, difficulties recruiting teachers and leaders, performance gaps, funding constraints, and so on—led us to identify the teacher labor market as a potential point of change in enhancing support for teachers. One important dimension of the teacher labor market is pensions; this, too, has sometimes been a source of contention among teachers, administrators, and policymakers. But those arguments (usually concerning money) miss broader points. How do we design teacher pension plans that align with labor market realities and the interests of all teachers? Can alternative designs help address challenges of recruitment and retention, especially for urban districts? These are the questions that Podgursky, Koedel, Ni , and Xiang explore in this paper with respect to Missouri. It turns out that Missouri is a good place to examine these questions because of its tripartite educator retirement system. Uniquely, the state has three separate pension systems: the Kansas City Public School Retirement System (KC), the Public School Retirement System of the City of Saint Louis (STL), and the Missouri Public School Retirement System (PSRS) . The KC and STL retirement systems cover employees of district and charter schools only in the two respective city school districts. The statewide system, PSRS, covers everyone else. Because of this fragmented structure, with the two ur

FAQs

What is the main research question of the report?

How well Missouri’s retirement plans serve educators working within them, and whether different designs could better recruit and retain teachers in the state’s two urban centers.

Why does Missouri’s retirement system create challenges for teachers?

Missouri has three separate pension systems for Kansas City, St. Louis, and statewide districts, and limited transportability and reciprocity can lead to pension penalties when teachers move between systems.

What kinds of problems does the report link to pension penalties?

Pension penalties after transfers exacerbate teacher turnover, hinder recruitment, and contribute to difficulties in attracting and retaining school leaders, especially in urban districts with growing charter shares.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Jacob