A Call to Rebuild the Jewish Educator Pipeline

Netta* has been babysitting for our four energetic kids for a few years. She brings them activities she’s planned out in advance, they have running trivia games with her, and she has a natural way of speaking that recalls Dr. Becky. Instead of “let’s go brush teeth,” or the Ima special, “brush your teeth NOW,” Netta finds a question or a challenge, “who can brush for the longest time?” or “would you try a bubblegum-watermelon toothpaste combo?” such that the kids actually practice dental hygiene, happily. Entrepreneurial caretakers, she and her teenage friends also run a highly-anticipated backyard camp in the summer. When I asked her if she’d consider going into teaching, she said she doesn’t know, but probably not. She says she’s more likely to pursue occupational therapy (OT) after seminary. Her friends, a whole group of child-whisperers, are likewise not considering chinuch as a career.

Meanwhile, a Judaics principal, Shula*, is teaching 7th grade social studies, high school Tanach, a Judaics elective, and subbing for a Hebrew teacher who is out sick, all because there is a dire teacher shortage. When will Shula implement a new-and-improved Hebrew curriculum for middle schoolers, coach a struggling teacher, or help with seminary placements – the actual job responsibilities she has as an administrator?

Right now, too few young people are entering the field of education to sustain Jewish schools in the US. Educational summits focused on quality suggest schools implement best-practices like non-frontal teaching methods and measures to support learners of all abilities. To do any of this, we need more teachers. But even a packed classroom and the most traditional lecture-based teaching model will become unsustainable if we cannot fix the educator pipeline, and quickly.

How Did We Get Here?

The teacher shortage is not just a Jewish issue—it affects schools across the country. COVID-19 and increasing demands on educators have driven burnout and attrition in both public and private schools. Meanwhile, stagnant salaries and rising costs of living have made it increasingly difficult to support a family on a teacher’s salary–even two, leading parents to steer their children toward more lucrative careers.

Other professions—especially in white-collar fields—have been adapting to our internet-based world by offering remote work and flexible hours when possible to attract and retain employees. Teaching, for the most part, remains a rigid, full-time, in-person job. In Orthodox communities, this has led many young people, who, like Netta, may have otherwise been inclined to pursue teaching, to choose more flexible careers in PT or OT instead.

And let’s speak candidly; there’s the respect problem. Parents’ unrealistic expectations, low salaries, and a broader decline in appreciation for caregiving professions have eroded the admiration once afforded to teachers. When students see their teachers underappreciated, they naturally wonder: Why should I go through training to develop expertise, only to be underpaid and undervalued?

Consequences for Jewish Education

The teacher shortage is already impacting Jewish schools across the spectrum, but if we don’t turn the trend around, it could get worse. Some of the negative consequences of having a dearth of quality Jewish educators include,

• Schools are forced to retain ineffective teachers. With no backup options, underperforming educators remain in the classroom.
• When teachers are out, students lose learning time. A qualified Hebrew or limudei kodesh substitute is often unavailable, leaving students with little more than a babysitter.
• Mismatch in religious outlooks. While the educator shortage is impacting all Jewish schools, haredi teachers are often placed in Modern Orthodox schools, and Orthodox teachers in more left-leaning schools. Brilliant as some of these individual educators may be, they may not align with a school’s religious or educational philosophy, as Rabbi Yitzchak Blau explores in The Haredi Option (Conversations, Issue 43). We want educators to serve as role models and feel confident that school and classroom messaging is aligned.
• Reliance on shlichim is not a long-term fix. Israeli educators on short-term visas can be wonderful, but they are temporary. Heavy investment in their professional development isn’t cost-effective, and turnover every two years disrupts continuity.
• Administrators are pulled into classrooms. As in the example above, with too few teachers, school leaders must cover classes instead of focusing on fundraising, curriculum development, and long-term vision.

The result? Overburdened teachers, overstretched administrators, and students who miss out on the education they deserve.

What Can We Do?

The good news is that everyone—parents, educators, administrators, and funders—wants better outcomes. We can turn the tide by making Jewish education a more attractive and sustainable career.

The Jewish Day School Educator Pipeline Playbook, a collaboration between Prizmah and JEIC, lays out many concrete strategies to recruit, train, and retain Jewish educators. Three critical areas stand out:

Elevate the status of teachers.
If teaching is seen as a fallback option rather than a respected profession, we will never attract top talent. First, we must find ways to pay teachers more. As educator and thought leader Hillel Rapp recently suggested, there are several models to do this, including bonus pay for mastery of subject matter. Even if we’re not talking about salaries, we should make sure they’re not paying for classroom materials. Pearl Stroh, Chabad ELC Director, coaches other school directors that providing appropriate classroom budgets for teachers shows them respect and ensures they are well stocked. This way they are not spending their own money or constantly making requests on parents, something teachers in the field report is demoralizing.

On a communal level, we should be publicly honoring educators through events, media coverage, and other kinds of awards and recognition. An Educator Shabbaton celebrating outstanding teachers, for example, could send a clear message that educators matter. Profiling teachers on prominent podcasts and in media sends the message that, as a community, we are interested in the insights of education professionals.

A simple but effective example of this kind of recognition: At Ramaz Upper School’s high school open house, star teachers are invited to teach classes for prospective parents. Parents who interact with their kids’ teachers through these sample classes are increasingly bought into the school. Students see their parents excited about the subject matter they learn, and they see them treating teachers with admiration.

Create onramps into the field.
When do people decide they want to be educators? Is it in high school? At camp? In college? During a mid-career itch? Whenever it is, we need clear leadership and training pathways for people to get involved in education and, for those for whom it is suited, into classrooms.

Programs like Chabad’s Teach for Lubavitch give young adults real teaching experience early on, sparking interest in education. The Chinuch Incubator at YU actively recruits and trains future educators. There were other attempts at Teach for America-style programs, where training took place, boot-camp style, and education continued both in the classroom and during the week. I think it is time to revive and expand Teach for America-style programs across the spectrum of Jewish education.

Alongside organized training, the Prizmah/JEIC report suggests offering financial incentives like forgivable loans for education and/or housing for those who commit to teaching in day schools.

Increase flexibility and support passion projects.
In terms of flexibility, while some teaching positions are necessarily full-time endeavors, others could be part-time or hybrid. Prizmah and JEIC recommend auditing time spent on class prep, parent- and student-teacher meetings, and faculty meetings and considering how some of those responsibilities might sometimes be done from home during school hours.

Passionate adults in 2025 are often pursuing entrepreneurship opportunities in addition to teaching. Schools should try to use this to their advantage, either by encouraging it, building in flexibility for enrichment, or providing microgrants for teachers to do certain types of passion projects with their classes.

Jewish Culture High School combines passion-projects and teaching onramps by employing recent college graduates to teach while being mentored at one of the startups hosted on campus.

Finally, the idea that Judaics educators love Jewish learning should not come as a surprise to anyone, but schools like SAR build on this love by offering a beit midrash program, where teachers are given the opportunity and resources to learn for part of the day and teach for the other. What a great way to enhance the whole school environment, combining a model for our students with perk for teachers to continue pursuing Torah knowledge.

Our Responsibility

We can have the best curriculum, cutting-edge pedagogy, beautiful facilities, and engaged, capable students eager to learn. But without passionate, well-trained educators—without teachers at all—Jewish day schools and yeshivot cannot achieve their mission.

We have our work cut out for us, but many of the answers have been mapped out in the pipeline research. Parents, school administrations, and community leaders need to make changes, small and large, to attract more capable, educated, role models to the profession. If we are successful, maybe Netta—and other talented young people like her—will consider careers in education after all.

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*Names have been changed.