Barack Obama, 47, is older than John Kennedy was at his swearing-in. Bill Clinton, too.

Indeed, by comparison, a newly sworn Teddy Roosevelt was a baby at 42.

But despite the silver already encroaching on his temples, no one sees in Obama anything other than the picture of youthfulness, new eyes for a nation tired of the same old, same old.

Indeed, look around and see a youth movement sweeping the country.

Kirsten Gillibrand, appointed Friday to New York’s open U.S. Senate seat, is 42. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindall is 37.

In the National Football League, Josh McDaniels (Denver) and Raheem Morris (Tampa Bay), both 32, have taken head-coaching jobs held by long-running and long-successful predecessors.

But education is the arena on my mind here, and rejecting the fallacy that seniority in the field automatically trumps youth. It shouldn’t.

One much-talked-about example is Michelle Rhee, hired at 37 as chancellor of the notoriously dysfunctional District of Columbia schools.

A Time magazine profile reveals in her a singular — indeed, infuriating to some — focus on what students are doing, how they are reacting in class. It describes how she developed an ongoing dialogue with an at-risk high schooler who e-mailed her with a suggestion for his school, never expecting to hear back.

In her purposefulness, in some ways Rhee seems as much of a savant as an administrator. Will she succeed or flame out?

All I know is that too much of our education system is not student-based but system-based. To alter that dynamic, new eyes can never hurt.

Waco Independent School District trustees opted for youth over years in making Roland Hernandez, then 38, superintendent in 2006.

Hernandez in turn hasn’t hesitated to hire young administrators. Fourteen of his 31 principals are 45 or younger.

“Youthful leadership brings about new energy and new life to recharge and revive a larger group,” Hernandez told me. He is quick to add that veteran educators can have youthful traits that make them every bit as nimble with new approaches and every bit as energetic. But Hernandez said he likes the passion that comes with a younger person’s sense of “having something to prove.”

One of Hernandez’s recent hires, Lake Air Middle School Principal Hutcherson Hill, looks far younger than his age of 40.

Some bemused observers have told Hill that, based on his appearance, “I should still be going to school rather than leading the school.”

Actually, this is his second principal job. Before, he was an assistant principal.

Passion to succeed, he said, is something a young administrator brings to the job.

Admitting that one must earn respect from employees older than one’s self, Hill said that “if you can articulate well, they start looking past your experience and your appearance and start seeing the vision you are trying to implement.”

As a taxpayer and as a parent, at least in principle, I like the ground-level perception that comes with being youthfully inclined (regardless of age).

Whether 37 or 60, such a person is better able to focus on the children served, they who sometimes barely register on the dial in the quest to standardize and homogenize what education is.

John Young’s column appears Thursday and Sunday. E-mail: jyoung@wacotrib.com.