Texas Retired Teachers Face Exorbitant Health Care Costs In The New Year

Colorado’s retirement system for the state’s employees is causing some to worry about its stability.

As The Denver Post reports, just six years after the Colorado Legislature approved changes aimed at shoring up the state pension fund, the stability of the public employment retirement account (PERA) is again under scrutiny.

In the face of growing income inequality on the rural Great Plains, the Center for Rural Affairs has published four ways to address the problem.

First, rural people should be given more opportunities to obtain higher education. Research shows that people with college degrees earn almost 80 percent more per year than degreeless residents.

Retired Teachers in Texas will soon take a big hit when it comes to healthcare costs, reports WFAA.

Beginning in September, educators who have reached retirement in Texas will pay double or even triple their current healthcare premiums.

New efforts are being made to attract new teachers to rural areas of Colorado.

Education officials are finalizing a list of recommendations to address challenges to Colorado’s teacher workforce, and as The Denver Post reports, state officials are considering asking lawmakers to take the bold step of establishing a minimum teacher salary requirement tied to the cost of living.

Oklahoma teacher Teresa Danks recently made national news when she began panhandling beside the highway to raise money for school supplies.

On average, American teachers spend $500 a year of their own money on school supplies for their students, but that number can be much higher in states like cash-strapped Oklahoma. American teachers are currently eligible for a small tax break of $250, to reimburse themselves.

The Oklahoma Education Department has released a new plan to address the ongoing woes of the state’s education system, reports Oklahoma Watch.

The goals of the plan include reducing the state’s recent reliance on emergency certified teachers and raising the state’s high school graduation rate to 90 percent. The plan will also try to ease hunger in schools, and force underfunded public schools that have gone to a four-day school week to fix their calendars.

It’s no secret that Oklahoma is facing as major teacher crisis. But, as Oklahoma Watch reports, within that larger crisis is another problem. The state suffers from an increasingly dwindling pool of special education teachers.