You're right. Outlier is a poor word choice. I just mean to say that increasingly we need separate discussions for the 10% of people who live in CA and the 90% who don't, because the experiences are really quite different.
I think you're right in that discussions need to be different for different parts of the country, but I think the split is urban and not-urban. A lot of California is urban, but so is a lot of New York, Massachusetts, Washington, Oregon, Illinois, etc etc. as far as where the population lives. And all have similar problems when it comes to education.
When it comes to education pensions, CA is not an outlier. The precise terms vary, but I think most public educators have access to similar pension programs.