“Baby boom tsunami” of retiring teachers
 |
Half of the teachers working in American classrooms today could retire over the next decade, according to a report from the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future, a non-profit, non-partisan advocacy group based in Washington, DC.
Because many teachers today are near 50, and because the median age for teacher retirement is 56, the group predicts a steep falloff of teaching professionals as this generation of boomers heads into retirement. Many principals are also boomer vintage and will retire in the coming years. (See their graphic on page 2 for a stark image of an aging profession.)
The report additionally cites declining demand for education, as the overall proportion of families with children continue to fall to new lows in the nation’s demographic mix. What this fortells for New York City is uncertain — but steady teacher attrition might be compounded if a generation of teachers elects to exit the classroom.
Subscribe to 
For many of us who work with families of children with special needs, this can only be seen as very bad news. Many of these teachers should be supervising and mentoring the next generation of teachers, special education and general education, math and reading, science and art and music — and perhaps if many of them had been treated better by their school systems, they would not feel the need to retire so young. I know teachers who have given so much since they were 22 and out of college who are so gifted but would not teach another minute in public schools once they could retire at 55. What a loss for the generation of school students and new teachers who would benefit from their wisdom and experience.
Comment by Anonymous — April 7, 2009 @ 12:03 pm
Not to diss the many able and older teachers out there, but I disagree with Anonymous that the loss of older teachers is necessarily bad news for those of us with a special-needs child.
My son has a diagnosis that is still new to many in the field –PDD/HFA — and many older teachers have no experience with recognizing, let alone teaching, a child like him. (In fact their traditional methods could do more harm than good.) I’d prefer that they NOT be mentoring those who are coming up now.
Comment by janny226 — April 7, 2009 @ 12:14 pm
I will be glad if some of the older teachers in my son’s school retire along with the principal. It is quite obvious that several of the long time teachers are no longer really interested in teaching. Hence my child (along with his class) is basically sitting and reading by himself most of the day or working on worksheets, no real teaching is taking place and he is receiving no feedback on his work. Maybe some younger teachers with fresh ideas and a willingness to actually teach and provide feedback is what the public school system needs.
Comment by parent — April 7, 2009 @ 5:17 pm