At the Torah U’Mesorah President’s Conference on motzei shabbos, a stunning and ambitious initiative was announced: an effort to raise $25 million to assist in raising the salaries of female teachers in frum schools across the United States.
A Torah U’Mesorah representative who spoke to YWN said the goal is to provide an initial monetary stimulus to schools across the country, providing incentive to them to pay their female teachers more, with the ultimate goal of raising the average teacher salary by $10,000-$14,000 over the next few years.
The strategy as described by Torah U’Mesorah is to have schools agree to raise their teacher salaries incrementally, with Torah U’Mesorah providing funds to help cover part of the raise. The hope is that, eventually, the higher salaries will remain permanent – even after the $25 million fund runs out.
More than $12 million has been raised for this initiative thus far, with more donors expected to chip in over the next few weeks and months.
(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)
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18 Responses
hope so
Didn’t someone very famous in the Frum community just die? Where’s the article?
HIGH time! Enough with just supporting rebbeim and kollel yungerleit. Took a SEVERE shortage of teachers to wake up. Otherwise, noone would blink an eye.
Address the root of the problem, not the symptoms!
Whats the plan? 25 million will not do anything meaningful once divided out over people involved and time? And hoping that the school will raise salaries as is stated means raising tuition. I love that we are discussing and trying but would love to understand the comprehensive long term plan?
@questiontime if you heard the story isnt that enough? do you want a disgraceful story to be spread even more?
Use the money for endowments that will continue to cover salaries! Also, TU should make this a permanent fund and encourage people to contribute regularly to chinuch habonos. This way, the money doesn’t pass through a business and there is accountability as to where the money goes.
@J92 Yes. What part of the story isn’t “Yeshiva World News”?
Your tuition just went up.
Ashreichem that you are not covering teh story, in spite of the increased traffic you would surely benefit from. WHatever side you come down on, discussion here won’t be helpful to Klal Yisroel and the Yeshiva World.
Education in this country as a whole is an underpaid resource. The states with the worst public education pay their teachers the least. The three worst villains are Alabama. Mississippi. And Texas.
But we in the frum world are also guilty of the same practices unfortunately. We must pay double for education. We pay taxes to local public schools which OUR kids cannot benefit from fully due to their noncompliance with our own requirements. In some states we get limited benefits from their system such as busing etc. in NY and NJ.
Then after paying taxes to support schools we have little to do with we must pay ever increasing Yeshiva tuition. But often THAT tuition may not be enough to fully cover our teachers salaries.
Local public schools and our taxes thereto SHOULD be able to provide payment for all our so called secular subject teachers. This should include teachers of Hebrew and Yiddish as foreign language teachers if the state has such a requirement. In addition other subjects taught should also be covered by our tax $$$. Gemara is critical thinking and law. If subjects requiring critical thinking are funded by state so must our version. In addition if business law courses are funded why not another law course such as Gemara be included?
It is not OUR fault that their public education fails so badly especially in contrast with our private education that WE are mandated by our strict dictates.
If a state mandates that we follow at least to an extent their curriculum dictates then they should be completely funding such. We ARE in fact teaching some of their so called requirements but in different ways and methods. Law is also civics which may be a state funded requirement.
We only ask for funding equivalent to what the state may provide for public education. If the state requires one course in civics one course in Gemara should be covered. If a course in law then another course in Gemara.
If we have ten courses in Gemara only a few would be covered. At least we would get that benefit.
But if for ANY reason we choose NOT to teach a course we should get exempt from their requirements if we have objections. Such a course might be sex education mandates. Possibly we could substitute our own version of such. Marriage preparation or Kallah courses instead.
We must demand our rights and also be a bit creative for our own needs.
Torah Umesorah and Agudah should both be fighting for these causes and rights on our behalf. If they can have courses in black studies and diversity why not OUR ethnic courses also.
Last but not least….we are we NOT considered a minority? So called minorities outnumber us by quite a bit. And we are also quite disadvantaged. We cannot work in many fields nor will we fit into the culture of many workplaces either. Our businesses are quite often not patronized by outsiders. How many goyim would really purchase much in our own Kosher stores?
We are a niche community with its own specific mandated needs that cannot be compromised in any way
We need Jewish teachers who uphold our own belief system and adhere to our behaviors. And they need to be able to pay their bills and on time.
rabbidovid you are right!
I am waiting for the day s/o starts a campaign to help out the hard working individuals (usually both parents) that work long hours, get NO govt help at all & pay full taxes, get out of their debt from just basic living expenses. In my sons yeshiva every rebbe owns their house, receives foodstamps, medicaid, wic. Before yomtov & a simcha there are campaigns to raise $ for them. Just saying….
Why did all those progressive board members of schools across the country never speak out about the disparity between men and women’s salaries?
As long as married women are expected to support learning husbands, girls will be seeking lucrative jobs, to be the bread-winner in the household.
Getting a woman’s teaching salary is no tachlis. A forward planning girl needs to become a therapist to earn a full parnasa.
As a result, post seminary girls are applying for BA programs, to put on their resume that they are not just looking for a long time learner, but are capable to support by getting a therapist job.
Adaraba, putting on the resume that the girl is teaching – that’s a huge CHISORON, and will disqualify her for serious long time learners.
That depletes the employment pool of post seminary girls as teachers, leaving only married older women, that don’t have young children (babysitting costs take the entire net salary after transportation costs), who are bored and looking to get out and do something.
The entire “wife supports learning husband” implodes into this crisis.
The truth hurts, but the proof is, communities that don’t have this “wife support” system, they have no shortage of girl/women teachers.
Out of town Yid,
I honestly can’t believe you believe anything you wrote. I’ll keep it short. You are welcome to send your children to public school and the govt will pay for it. If you don’t like the system you are allowed to send your children to private school as long as the education is comparable and you pay for it yourself. That’s how America works. If you don’t like it you can move somewhere else that fits your needs.
BTW, Where in the Gemara does it talk about the 3 branches of govt, the Senate and Congress, the Electoral College and how bills become law?
My comments on another article apply equally here.
Check what I wrote at:
https://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/general/2045022/mailbag-should-a-yeshiva-or-bais-yaakov-be-a-private-business.html
Out of town, passing gemorahs for law would not work. It might pass religious neutrality test if you include sharia and das Capital. Not sure we want that. But we should be getting money for secular subjects and spend it to raise next generation of parents who will be able to afford to pay for school
Did he say it did? I have to agree mostly with out of town yid.