 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
                     |
|
THE FUTURE OF JEWISH DAY SCHOOLS It's Friday afternoon at the MetroWest Jewish Day School in Framingham, Mass. That means it's time to learn about the weekly Torah portion, though this being two Fridays before Passover, the focus is on the Exodus story instead.
The performance serves not just to delight the students, but to help them comprehend the story. Siman-Tov is speaking exclusively in Hebrew to the kindergartners and first-graders who make up the student body at this fledgling community grade school. And using Hebrew with some occasional English thrown in, the students—all six of them—are responding to her. With the accelerated proliferation of day schools in recent years, scenes like the one at MetroWest are increasingly common throughout North America. But underneath the wildly successful efforts to create new day schools in Jewish communities large and small lie challenges involving curriculum, faculty and administration, marketing—and, of course, funding. As daunting as these may be, however, many organizations and individuals are thinking creatively about ways to solve them. "Day schools have grown very quickly," says Rabbi Joshua Elkin, executive director of the Partnership for Excellence in Jewish Education (PEJE). "We're in a little bit of a period of catching up with the growth, in the sense that these institutions have become much more complicated, much more expensive to run, and the demands on the professional staff and lay leadership are considerable." The growth of day schools is one of the most dramatic and extolled developments in the Jewish world in the last few years. According to a 2000 study by The AVI CHAI Foundation, 185,000 students were enrolled in 670 day schools in the 1998–1999 school year in the United States. That represents a growth of 20,000 to 25,000 students during the 1990s, the study estimated. Though specific numbers are not available for the years since that study, Elkin says that PEJE has worked with 60 new schools in the past five years.
The growth has been particularly dramatic among non-Orthodox students. The AVI CHAI Foundation study estimated a 20 percent enrollment growth among non-Orthodox students between the academic years 1992–1993 and 1998–1999. At the start of the 1990s, there were only three or four non-Orthodox day high schools in the country, while now there are about 35, says Yossi Prager, executive director of AVI CHAI. "It's basically a new industry for the non-Orthodox world," he says. And among non-Orthodox schools, the largest growth has been in what are called community or transdenominational schools, of which MetroWest is one. Not too long ago, the Conservative Solomon Schechter schools dominated the non-Orthodox day school scene, but today community schools are "the driving force outside the Orthodox world," according to Prager. MetroWest opened its doors in September 2003 with four kindergartners and two first-graders. Despite being new and small, the school offers a curriculum that integrates general and Judaic subjects, and teaches Hebrew—as Siman-Tov's Passover lesson illustrates—through immersion. The school also teaches art and music, and provides one student who is Israeli with separate Hebrew-for-natives instruction. The six-to-five student-teacher ratio may be the envy of any school, but Headmaster Carolyn Keller expresses disappointment at the small number of enrollees and acknowledges the difficulties in establishing a new school. "We're creating a culture of Jewish day school education in this community," she says. "There is a lot of work to be done." But MetroWest is, in many ways, one of the lucky schools. The nascent day school is able to use part of a vacated Framingham public school that closed the previous June. Several local Jewish organizations donated furniture. And being in the Boston area gives the school access to a strong pool of educators, lay leaders and rabbis. Starting a new school is so fraught with challenges, it is a wonder any schools get off the ground. For starters, finding the right teachers and administrators is difficult.
"We have a set of educational goals and aspirations that far outrun the availability of professional educators to fulfill them," says Dr. Harvey Shapiro, dean of the Shoolman Graduate School of Jewish Education at Hebrew College. Many former and current day school students will recognize the all-too-common scenario Shapiro describes: a Hebrew teacher hired because he or she is a native Israeli Hebrew speaker and not because he or she is an experienced educator. "What do they know about cultivating a sense of second-language acquisition for their students at different age levels? What do they know about the development of their students, and creative learning and constructivist classrooms?" Shapiro asks. "We know that the principal reason a person hires a day school teacher to teach Hebrew tends to be—not always, but tends to be—native Hebrew fluency, which is hardly a qualification." The problem is not confined to language instruction. Prager offers this scenario: "A teacher is hired and is going to teach Prophets. Too often, he or she is handed a Sefer Shmuel [Book of Samuel] and asked to cover chapters 1–32, with not much more than a few sentences of guidance." Nor is the problem confined to teachers. Most Jewish day school administrators are not trained in the unique challenges of leading a day school, Prager says. "Running a day school is very different from being a public school principal, because day school principals report to a lay board rather than a district superintendent and usually have significant fundraising responsibilities," he says. "And it's more challenging in many ways than being in a secular private school, because day school principals must manage the competing interests of the Jewish and general studies programs and the whole question of the role of Judaism in the school." Starting a new school is so fraught with challenges, it is a wonder any schools get off the ground. For starters, finding the right teachers and administrators is difficult. To address the pressing need for day school educators and administrators, several initiatives are under way. Among them is Hebrew College's Center for Jewish Day School Education, which was established in 2001 to provide teacher and leadership training, recruit qualified educators, and promote and guide day school curriculum development and evaluation. Another program, DeLeT: Day School Leadership Through Teaching—jointly sponsored by Brandeis University and Hebrew Union College—Jewish Institute of Religion's Rhea Hirsch School of Education in Los Angeles, in collaboration with the Jewish Education Service of North America (JESNA)—offers a yearlong fellowship including academic coursework and a day school internship, where fellows work side-by-side with mentor teachers.
Even for those schools able to hire highly qualified teachers and administrators, what goes on in the classroom constitutes another major challenge. When it comes to Judaic studies, there is little in the way of standards and measurements; unlike in general studies, there are no standardized tests in Judaic studies, nor are there widely used curricula. "There are very few schools these days that would not give a standardized test in English reading and writing knowledge, in history, in science knowledge, but there are many that will not give a standardized test in Hebrew or Jewish studies," Shapiro says. "They don't exist for the type of curriculum they're developing." At least not yet. As with professional development, numerous programs are tackling these curricular challenges, several of them funded by AVI CHAI. JTS, for instance, is developing a set of benchmarks and performance assessment measures for teaching Bible. It will be implemented as a pilot program at a number of schools this year. Underneath the wildly successful efforts to create new day schools in Jewish communities large and small lie challenges involving curriculum, faculty and administration, marketing—and, of course, funding. "If it works, then that can be a model for doing the same for other Judaic subject areas," Prager says. "It's not yet clear whether a broad group of schools will see these as interesting and appropriate for them." In addition, the AVI CHAI-funded NETA program at Hebrew College is developing a Hebrew language curriculum for grades 7 to 12. Guided by curriculum specialists at Hebrew University with support from the College's Shoolman Graduate School of Jewish Education, NETA strives to advance students' Hebrew language proficiency by providing an intellectually rich and sequential curriculum as well as professional development and mentorship for Hebrew language teachers. This fall, NETA is being implemented at more than 50 schools in America, Canada and Australia, reaching approximately 10,000 students. "We hope and expect it will continue to spread to additional schools," Prager says. Even if professional development opportunities continue to grow, and top-notch curricula and standards continue to proliferate, one major stumbling block can still prevent day school education from reaching its full potential: low teacher salaries. Day school advocates often point to working conditions as a reason teachers should choose a career in Jewish education. But the comparison is not entirely accurate. "Usually schools are not competing over teachers who are choosing an inner-city battleground over a Jewish day school," Shapiro says. "They're competing over people who may want to go into public education in the suburbs."
"If we really are what we say we are, which is a people that values education above all else, that has profound implications for the way we treat our teachers," he says. "If the Torah really is an etz hayim, a tree of life, then we should cling to it the same way we should cling to life, which means finding the resources and mobilizing the community." Simply raising teachers' salaries is easier said than done, of course. Though some individual philanthropists and foundations have devoted funds to teacher salaries, Prager says that giving all day school teachers in the country a $20,000 raise would require an endowment of $8 billion—not exactly a realistic goal. Which leaves more creative solutions. Among the ideas suggested:
According to Elkin, research shows that teachers are willing to accept 20 percent less in salary for the benefits of a strong private school environment. "That's the benchmark we encourage schools to match," he says. "At 80 percent of the public school salary, people are willing to forego the additional money in the interest of being able to be in a qualitatively different environment than they would be in a public school or another nonsectarian private school." The next few years will be critical ones for the day school movement, during which communities will see whether the plethora of new schools will be sustained and strengthened, and whether new schools will continue to be created. For his part, Shapiro calls for high standards in teacher salaries.
"A day school teacher needs to be able to earn a $50,000 salary plus benefits soon upon starting, at least in Boston dollars," he says. "We have many cases of day school teachers earning well over $60,000, but we need to get to that point across the board. People who are earning $22,000 a year, there's an expression, zeh lo yitachen, it just can't be." Which brings us, inevitably, to the broader question of finances. Prager describes the problem succinctly: "The fundamental crisis is that rising costs outpace tuition and fundraising." With tuition topping $15,000 a year at many schools, there is a limit to how high it can go. Rabbi Daniel Lehmann, headmaster of Gann Academy-The New Jewish High School of Greater Boston, says the board of directors agonizes about tuition raises. While the school's $19,500 tuition bill may seem exorbitant to some, it is about $5,000 less than what comparable secular private schools charge for an equally high-quality education, he says. On the other hand, despite granting $1 million a year in financial aid at Gann, Lehmann says, "I'm sure there are people not sending their kids to Jewish high schools because of cost." Decreasing the quality of the school's education to cut costs is not an option, he adds, plus newer and smaller schools don't have the alumni base from which most independent schools seek donations. That leaves day school leaders to search for creative business plans and new philanthropic sources to sustain their schools. PEJE, for instance, helps schools understand ways to streamline budgets and pool resources. Elkin says that one untapped resource is grandparents, citing a recent AARP study finding that 52 percent of grandparents help with their grandchildren's education. And then there are foundations, which have adopted the day school cause with unprecedented dedication in recent years. But Prager says that the small number of national foundations cannot provide all that is needed, despite AVI CHAI's generosity toward day schools. "The overwhelming majority of day school needs and costs are local, and they'll have to be met locally," Prager says. "And the question is whether the local communities—the organized Jewish establishment and the local funders and activists—can together realize the potential inherent in the day school movement." The only way day schools will see major infusions of cash, he says, are government vouchers (or other forms of governmental support) and major new individual donors. The former is highly controversial among Jews, Prager says. As for the latter, several Boston-area day schools received a huge boost this fall with the announcement by Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston of a $45 million, five-year grant by several anonymous donors. But this leadership gift—a major step forward in the world of day school funding—remains the rare exception. With budgets tightening, scholarship programs are being squeezed. Though the neediest are still given generous tuition assistance, the middle class often loses out. "It cannot become the educational choice of the wealthy and the poor, which is what many day schools are. The middle income people need to be addressed in a way that is respectful and creative," Shapiro says. Sliding scale tuition systems based on income and vouchers from foundations for needy families are among the potential solutions to this problem. In some places, philanthropists or foundations have offered tuition assistance programs. Shapiro outlined one possible solution: a voluntary tax, in which committed Jewish families would be asked to contribute 10 to 15 percent of their incomes to their Jewish affiliations, including synagogue membership and all forms of formal and informal education. Asking more than that would squeeze out many families, he says; less than that would leave important institutions underfunded. "We know the resources are out there," Shapiro says. "It's a question of how we harness them, how we mobilize them, getting them to work together in a way that will work for that common agenda." One factor that would obviously boost a school's financial wherewithal is greatly increasing enrollment. And to do that, marketing is key: the ability to articulate a vision that is compelling to Jewish families who might otherwise never consider a day school. "If we really are what we say we are, which is a people that values education above all else, that has profound implications for the way we treat our teachers," says Harvey Shapiro. "Over two thirds of the non-Orthodox community doesn't really know a whole lot about Jewish day schools," Elkin says. "And what they do know about them is often really outdated." Jewish day schools are, in effect, independent schools, and they tend to face their problems in relative isolation. To some extent, they are competitors and sometimes act as such. But seeing how many challenges are shared throughout the schools, a group of concerned Boston-area residents have formed a task force, called the Day School Advisory Forum, to help schools work together. Though someday the group hopes to tackle issues such as cost-sharing among schools, its first focus is marketing, says cochair Mike Mufson. It commissioned a market research study, which was conducted pro bono by a leading research firm. "The study found that there is a very large population that would be very interested in a day school education," Mufson says. But, it also found that "schools and communities need to do a much better job of marketing to parents according to their interests." The group is sharing the study's findings in one-on-one meetings with the heads of day schools in the Boston area, and will use the results to create its own marketing campaign. "It would have a significant effect on schools to increase market penetration even by 1 percent," Mufson says. The next few years will be critical for the day school movement, during which communities will see whether the plethora of new schools will be sustained and strengthened, and whether new schools will continue to be created. All eyes are especially focused on the high schools and their future. Having a high school in a community helps spur enrollment in the lower grades, and vice versa. High schools also lend a certain credibility to the day school movement as a whole, forcing people to say "that this education is important enough to have a high school level at great cost and great effort," Elkin says. In addition, during the high school years, lessons learned about values carry added weight as students define goals for college and careers. "The data suggest that the real 'oomph' in a day school education comes from continuity," Prager says. "Children who attend a day school for six years get a very significant Jewish education, but the threshold for maximum impact is nine years of day school education, including the high school years." As for the broad day school movement, Prager says he can envision two divergent scenarios, both realistic. On the one hand, he says, "one could imagine in 10 or 15 years a thriving day school movement that consists of many more students, schools that are of improving quality, Judaically inspiring and serious in both general and Jewish studies." The second option is considerably less sunny: "I can imagine a kind of plateauing—lots of schools remaining pretty good or just good, enrollment flat, with day schools remaining a choice for a relatively small percentage of non-Orthodox Jews." Elkin, for one, believes the former scenario will come to pass. "The day school movement will be larger than it is now," he says. "I think it will be offering a more excellent product. It will appeal across the denominational spectrum. And I believe the day schools as a whole will be more in touch with best practices and the knowledge base that exists out there and the expertise that can help them to continue to grow and be more and more effective."
Michael Kress is the Editor-in-Chief of MyJewishLearning.com and writes frequently in the media about religion and spirituality. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
The school's lone Judaic studies teacher, Lizzy Siman-Tov, tells the story of slavery and redemption, complete with pantomime accompaniment and creative props. A flashlight shining on a twig stands in for the burning bush. A plate of sand, a splash of water and some red food coloring illustrate the first plague—blood—to the students' amazement.
Though few opportunities exist for administrative training, there are some; for instance, AVI CHAI funds a program at the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) to train day school administrators, and it has also paid for day school principals to attend professional development programs at Harvard, the Lookstein Institute and Yeshiva University.
The idea that no day school pays a competitive salary is a myth, Shapiro says. A growing number of day schools offer competitive salaries and benefits. But many do not, he acknowledges. And the issue of raising salaries is too important to ignore.
Gann Headmaster Rabbi Daniel Lehmann says among his chief challenges has been attracting students at either end of the religious spectrum: right-wing Orthodox and left-wing liberal or secularist. To do that, he has had to convince parents and students that the school supports a diversity of religious identities without homogenizing them.