Break-even rates across the country for teachers are pretty dismal already, the Bellwether report finds, with just 28 percent getting to the break-even rate—the point at which new teachers will go on to earn pension benefits equal to or greater than their own contributions plus interest. But in New England, it's even worse.

In Vermont, for example, only 4 percent of new teachers will ever get as much or more out of their pensions as they put in, while in Maine the rate is 2 percent.

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But Massachusetts takes the cake, with a 0 break-even rate—and bear in mind that in the state teachers aren't even covered by Social Security. The irony is that Massachusetts is where the U.S. public education system began—and it's home to 72,000 teachers, to boot.

But new teachers here will get nothing more out of their pensions beyond what they themselves contributed.

But that's not to say that the rest of the country's teachers are doing well, by any means; in fact, 42 states and Washington, D.C. all received failing grades for how their retirement systems serve teachers.

No state got even an A or a B, while all of New England flunked. And when it comes to cumulative scores, Massachusetts, Maine, Connecticut, Vermont and New Hampshire all rank in the bottom 13 jurisdictions in the country.

On average, the report finds, less than half of teachers across the country—about 46 percent—actually vest in their contract, and it takes them an average of 6.6 years.

In four of the six New England states, vesting is even lower, with just 14 percent of Maine's teachers and 12 percent of Massachusetts', vesting at all. And it takes them longer; on average, New England teachers wait 7.5 years to vest, close to a full year longer than the national average.

In all six states, the percentage of teacher retirement contributions devoted to servicing pension debt is higher than the already-high national average of 63 percent, with Vermont's the second-highest in the country, at 90.1 percent.