I love my Google Reader, if for no other reason than it keeps me reading interesting things. This morning I found a post at The Doc is In very interesting. The post was about Michigan's teacher untion attempting to coax retirement age teachers to opt for retirement, something they might not have chosen due to the awful economy.
For a young teacher, I would be excited about that development. I am excited and eager to get into the classroom. While it does mean a loss of veteran experience, I think it creates an opportunity for young teachers that might otherwise have been denied that chance. My comment referred to whether those veteran teachers, with one eye on the door, would be the quality teachers that our students need? If they are staying because they feel like they don't have any other option, then do we really want them?
Of course you lose some good teachers. But I also think this opens the door for some teachers to exit stage left when they should have years ago. It makes me think of this blog posting that hit my Google reader recently from NYC Educator (yesterday maybe?). Really? Do we want people who don't care enough to show up staying in the profession? Granted there are probably quite a few in the middle ground (good pedagogy, experienced), but we'd lose the eyes on the door folks.
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