Freedom Foundation Teacher Pension Scandal Story Goes National

Jeff Rhodes
March 24, 2015

A teacher pension scandal first uncovered last month by the Freedom Foundation has exploded into a national story.

On Tuesday, Fox News aired a feature based on research by Freedom Foundation researcher Anne Marie Gurney exposing dozens of Washington teachers still collecting lavish pensions despite having lost their teaching licenses after being convicted of horrific sex crimes against children—including their own students.

Seattle’s KING-5 TV produced its own feature on Gurney’s data last month, but the Fox piece has additional information, including an update on bills being proposed in the Washington State Legislature to combat the problem.

“A pension, in a lot of ways, is regarded as a reward for a job well done,” Gurney said during an on-camera interview. “I think we would all agree that raping children is not a job well done.”

The video can be watched here.

- Education, Labor

Jeff Rhodes

Vice President for News and Information

Jeff is a native of West Virginia and a graduate of West Virginia University with a degree in journalism. He served in the U.S. Army at Fort Lewis, Wash., as a broadcast journalist and has worked at a number of newspapers in West Virginia and Washington. Most recently, he spent 11 years as editor of the Port Orchard (Wash.) Independent, which earned the 2011 Washington Newspaper Publishers’ Association’s General Excellence Award as the top community newspaper in Washington. Previously, he was editor of the Business Examiner newspaper in Tacoma, Wash., for seven years. Jeff lives in Lacey; he and his wife have grown twin daughters.