I have an opinion piece out today in GOVERNING magazine. Despite the insistence that West Virginia’s pension experience proves reform can’t work, a closer analysis actually reveals how the state’s missteps can be instructive for other states looking to address their own teacher pension problems:

…the limited success of the state’s DC plan wasn’t the result of an innate shortcoming of DC plans in general. Rather, the state’s design choices undermined the ability of the plan to provide a sufficient benefit to most teachers. Indeed, both plans were designed in such a way that at least 40 percent of teachers never qualified for any retirement benefits from the state at all.

Read the full op-ed here. And check out our new report on teacher pension reform in West Virginia here.