The reason, by the way, that you don’t have enough older or career teachers expressing their opinions is the well-founded fear those teachers have of losing their jobs. The reason I am willing to write as much as I have written on this site is actually because I no longer fear this.

Second, I know Ms. Jones personally and I can tell you she struggled with her decision to leave the classroom. However she felt she could make a greater impact as a curriculum coach. This is something I hear from many younger teachers (those who have worked under 10 years). Many early career educators leave the classroom because our profession is not currently designed to encourage us to continue teaching AND seek out additional leadership opportunities and our impact on students. Educators that want to expand their impact face the difficult choice of continuing to teach but not being able to expand their influence or leaving the classroom. Instead of criticizing individuals who make the second choice, we should focus our energy on fixing a system that isn’t designed to develop educators full potential while encouraging them to remain in the classroom.

Third, it sounds like you believe that currently we do not have enough older or career educators expressing their opinions, either here at bluff city ed or in the collective teacher voice movement. If you meet our contributor guidelines by either working in or are directly connecting to the education profession I would love to publish a piece that discusses this deficit as long as it is solutions oriented and talks about the valuable contribution that long term career teachers can offer to the greater education discussion. Please reach out to us by email or fill out our contributor form if you are interested in writing such a piece.