For years, Israel’s education system has been struggling under the weight of excessive centralization, bureaucracy, and a growing disconnect between decision-makers and the people actually working in classrooms. Now, for the first time in a long time, a proposed reform may offer a genuine opportunity for change.

At the center of the proposal is a fundamental shift in how the education system is managed: dismantling the Education Ministry’s centralized management structure and transferring responsibility for running schools and kindergartens, as well as employing teachers, directly to local authorities.

Dattel’s reporting describes a system plagued by chronic inefficiency and bureaucratic complexity – one in which decisions made at the national level are often too far removed from the realities and needs of individual schools and communities.

But even this criticism is too generous to the Education Ministry.

The problem is far deeper than bureaucracy or inefficiency. The Education Ministry – the institution responsible for training and recruiting teachers and for educating Israel’s children – has failed spectacularly in both of these responsibilities.

It has grown into an enormous, unwieldy bureaucracy that consumes vast public resources, much of which gets absorbed by the ministry’s headquarters in Jerusalem rather than reaching the classroom. Instead of empowering the people who work within the education system, the ministry has increasingly burdened and undermined them.

This is why I believe the proposed reform is about far more than administrative efficiency. It is about saving the teaching profession in Israel.

The time has come to dismantle the outdated centralized structure of the Education Ministry, transfer responsibility for managing schools and employing teachers to local authorities, and leave the national government primarily with the roles it should perform best: regulation, standards, measurement, and oversight.

This is not simply a matter of opinion or frustration. The urgency of this reform is reflected in the data.

At the heart of the problem are the working conditions imposed on teachers.

Eighty-nine percent of respondents identified working conditions as the single most important factor undermining teachers’ status.

Teachers are treated as an all-purpose workforce onto whom almost every additional responsibility can be piled. They describe working conditions that resemble “modern-day slavery,” combined with a chronic lack of basic resources.

In some cases, teachers do not even have an available chair in the teachers’ lounge during recess. They are expected to purchase basic classroom and arts-and-crafts supplies with their own money – and even pay out of pocket for basics such as coffee and milk.

And instead of being allowed to focus on teaching, teachers increasingly find themselves buried under paperwork: endless forms, reports, documentation, and administrative requirements that consume the time and energy they should be investing in their students.

Even the hours designated for teachers to prepare lessons, plan differentiated instruction, and have time to breathe are repeatedly taken away to cover for absent staff.

The result is predictable: teachers work around the clock. They take their work home, sacrificing evenings and family time simply to keep up with the demands of the system.

The ministry’s failure does not end with working conditions. Teachers are also being left exposed when dealing with increasingly demanding parents.

Some 87.5% of the education professionals surveyed identified parents as a major factor undermining teachers’ status.

Parents may feel entitled to call a kindergarten teacher at six in the morning and demand that she wake their child. They may openly interfere in pedagogical decisions or challenge the professional judgment of educators.

Teachers need their principals – and their education system – to have their backs.

Instead, too often, school leaders and the ministry itself appear more concerned with avoiding conflict with parents than with protecting teachers’ professional authority.

The pursuit of “industrial peace” comes at a high price: the erosion of teachers’ status, authority, and ability to do their jobs.

This is where the proposed reform could become a genuine lifeline for Israel’s education system.

First, every local authority has its own unique demographic, social, and educational characteristics. No institution is better positioned to understand a community and its needs than the municipality serving it.

Local authorities already operate non-formal educational programs. Giving them greater responsibility for schools would allow them to integrate formal and non-formal education more effectively and create a genuine educational continuum for students.

Second, the reform could eliminate one of the most absurd features of the current system: teachers and principals effectively having “two bosses” – the national government and the local authority – each of which can impose different, and sometimes conflicting, demands.

Clear responsibility would mean clear accountability.

If the local authority is responsible for running the schools and employing teachers, bureaucracy can be dramatically reduced. Money currently consumed by the Education Ministry’s sprawling central administration could instead be directed toward schools – improving working conditions, strengthening educational teams, and recruiting the staff schools desperately need.

And there is another crucial advantage.

A successful city needs a successful education system.

That gives local leaders a powerful incentive to support teachers and principals, establish clear boundaries with aggressive or overreaching parents, improve working conditions, and provide educators with the resources and professional backing they need.

This does not mean abandoning national standards or accountability.

Measurement and evaluation should remain in the hands of the National Authority for Measurement and Evaluation in Education (RAMA). The state should continue to establish national standards, monitor outcomes, and ensure that every child in Israel receives a high-quality education, regardless of where they live.

But managing schools is different from regulating them.

The day-to-day responsibility for education should be brought closer to the communities being served.

It should be brought home – to the local authorities.

For too long, Israel’s teachers have been asked to carry an education system on their shoulders while being denied the conditions, authority, resources, and professional respect necessary to succeed.

Decentralizing the system will not solve every problem overnight. But it can fundamentally change who is responsible for solving those problems – and, just as importantly, who is accountable when they are not solved.

It needs an education system that trusts its teachers, supports its schools, understands its communities, and puts resources where they matter most: on the ground, in the classroom.

It is time to pull teachers out of “the new darkness.”

It is time to give back their professional dignity.

And it is time to give the teaching profession in Israel the respect – and the opportunity – it deserves.