Response to Jeffrey Keefe’s review of “Assessing the Compensation of Public School Teachers.”

The authors of the November 2011 Heritage Foundation report “Assessing the Compensation of Public-School Teachers” respond to questions and concerns, in the process showing that certain critical accusations—such as undercounting teachers’ work hours or overestimating retirement benefits—are simply false.

The teaching profession is crucial to America's society and economy, but public-school teachers should receive compensation that is neither higher nor lower than market rates.

Fringe benefits for Ohio public workers are more than twice as generous as those paid in the private sector, meaning that when pay and benefits are taken into consideration public workers receive 31.2 percent more in total compensation than private‐sector counterparts.

How many veterans fall through the gap between care and compensation is a question that is worth investigating. The scope is important, but there is little question that the problem exists.

Reducing federal employee compensation to market levels could save taxpayers roughly $77 billion per year.

We cannot say for sure how much job security is worth. But we can say it is worth something more than zero and we believe that our estimates are reasonable or even conservative.

Reports that undercount public-sector pension benefits, omit retiree health coverage and ignore job security do not accurately represent public-sector compensation.