Fortunately one of the teachers set up an e-mail poll to find out what the age distribution of the ATR pool was. To no surprise to me and to many other independent educators, it showed that almost all the ATRs were over 40 years of age. The results are listed below.
Under 40 years of age.................................2%
40 - 49 years of age..................................12%
50 - 59 years of age..................................48%
Over 60 years of age.................................38%
Astoundingly, 86% of the ATRs who responded to the e-mail survey are 50 years of age or older!
Unfortunately, the union will tell you its not age discrimination but salary, seniority, and those frequent earthquakes in Japan, for that matter or any natural disaster under the sun, but not ageism as their basis that there is no age discrimination occurring at the DOE when it comes to the ATR pool.
I shouldn't have to remind our union that our students need"quality teachers"in the New York City public school classrooms. Instead they remain silent as the DOE encourages principals to hire the "cheapest and not the best teachers" and fails to challenge the DOE on their"education on the cheap" policy. This is the Achilles heel of Tweed's claim that its "children first, always" and the union should be running commercial;s to expose it.
To me, "children first" means schools have the freedom to hire those "quality teachers"that are in the ATR pool without worrying about the cost and that means bringing back teacher hiring by units and that part of the budget should be handled by the Central Office and not.the schools who don't have the best interests of the students they are supposed to be looking out for. Instead, these principals hire untested "newbies" and use their students as "guinea pigs" when it comes to instruction. Just look Here. for examples how principals hire now."