"The achievement gap is the civil rights issue of our time—which is why it may be necessary for us to destroy a large part of the Black middle class in order to achieve our goal of closing said gap."

In Boston a charter school will very likely take over Marshall Elementary, one of the city’s largest. Thirty two percent of teachers at the Marshall are African American vs just 14% of teachers at the charter, UP Academy. More striking still, not a single teacher at UP is over the age of 40. Reader: I feel old just typing those words so I can only imagine how you must feel reading them—old, old, old, and whatever the opposite of “fresh” and “innovative” is. You may be forgiven for uncorking your wine box just a bit early today.

As for Massachusetts’ other charters-on-the-move, the mini empires of excellence and innovation that are aggressively expanding through the state’s urban areas, their teaching staffs are incredibly young and  overwhelmingly white, even as the students they teach are almost exclusively African American and Hispanic.

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Interesting.

The Army defines age discrimination at the 40 year old mark as well.

I think there is an entirely separate and good conversation to be had about how age plays a role in education, work force, Army, politics, etc.

what happens in the army at 40?

nothing much...close to retirement? but that is the age they decided on.

It's not just the Army -- it's the Age Discimination Employment Act:

http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/age.cfm