Teacher Age Discrimination During a So-Called Teacher Shortage
Jeb Bush is 62. Hillary Clinton is 67. Donald Trump is 69 and Bernie Sanders is 73. If these individuals were teaching in a public school, and not famous politicians, what would you bet that they’d still be working?
How many older teachers do you know who are still teaching? While there is much gnashing of teeth in the news about a teacher shortage, I don’t see any effort to bring elderly teachers back to the classroom. And by elderly I’d start at age forty. They’d rather put someone in charge of a class who hasn’t earned credentials!
Older teachers face the “do not apply” signs wherever they go. For years, efforts have been underway to get rid of veteran teachers through faulty teaching evaluations, the elimination of tenure, school closures and outrageous early retirement plans. This phenomenon appears to be happening in many places.
In 2013, The Guardian’s anonymous “Secret Teacher” column titled “There’s an Insidious Prejudice Against Older Teachers” describes a veteran teacher’s unsettling fear that Teach First, which sounds eerily like England’s version of Teach for America, was being highlighted as the answer to education problems—older teachers were cast as culprits.
We often seem to be unfairly perceived as unmalleable or even as troublemakers, instead of as a rich asset. Over the last 18 months, a tsunami of change driven by fear seems to have invisibly swept over many schools and classrooms. Mistakes in some schools are not tolerated and have frightening repercussions. These days I am Teacher Age Discrimination During a So-Called Teacher Shortage:
