2
EDUCATION
AUGUST 2011
The Jews we leave behind
The community needs to revamp education to reach all children
I
n psychotherapy, the YAVIS client is
“Young, Attractive, Verbal,
Intelligent and Successful.” YAVIS
clients have the best prognosis, yet
remain the longest in
treatment. Therapists
like such highly motivated clients and eschew
those who are less engaging. Likewise, in Jewish
By
education, we focus our
Leonard
attention on those who
Saxe
are most highly motivated. Both resources and opportunities are
directed to the children of the most
highly engaged families, and we provide
relatively few resources to those who
need Jewish education the most.
In North America, our flagship
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Jewish educational institutions are fulltime day schools, and they garner the
bulk of resources devoted to Jewish
education. Nearly 190,000 elementary
through high school students are served
by day schools, according to data gathered by Marvin Schick for the AVI
CHAI Foundation. It is difficult to
estimate the cost of this system, but it
is likely to be $2 billion to $3 billion
annually.
Day school education is near-universal for children from Orthodox families, but fewer than 4 percent of children from non-Orthodox families participate. Instead, most children from
non-Orthodox homes receive formal
Jewish education in part-time schools,
which educate up to 250,000 children
and adolescents in any one year. The
total cost of day school for the nonOrthodox population is, however, nearly double the cost of part-time schools
that serve a significantly larger portion
of the population.
Although much of the cost burden is
shouldered by parents and the comparison of investments is not quite fair
because day schools provide secular and
Jewish education, the disparate investment is still a dilemma. Jewish education cannot just be the concern and
responsibility of Jewishly engaged parents, but must be handled from a communal perspective. If our educational
institutions and resources remain
focused on the most highly motivated
parents, we undermine the vitality of
American Jewry.
Investment in day schools notwithstanding, we need to invest in both formal and informal education that will
assure education for all of the children
of our community. Beyond dollars, we
also need to invest time: to rethink,
restructure and retool the system of
Jewish education.
Collaboration is needed across sectors
– early childhood education, day and
part-time schools, day and overnight
camps, academic and campus programs,
and the like. Collaboration across sectors
that serve different age populations is
also needed. Jewish education should be
lifespan education; artificial termination
points, for example after bar/bat mitz-
Childhood photos courtesy of Tal Avitan
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My home life in Sderot was very troubled, so I grew up with AMIT as my family. As
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3
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vah, need to be eliminated. The
of Jewish education reflects our
putative system of Jewish educaemotional assessment.
The community is not well served
tion is fragmented and, as a
Organizations, and even the phinumber of commentators have
lanthropists who fund them,
when its educational institutions
noted, Jewish education operates
seek validating information.
in silos. These silos make it diffi- are simply competitive programs
They eschew rigor for easier
cult to connect with families and in a Jewish catalog.
approaches that cost less to
ensure continuity.
implement and are more likely
If the Jewish community
to yield positive answers.
to support effective efforts and to stimutreats education as a set of distinct and
Assessors of educational outcomes
late innovation and reform.
“autonomous” experiences, it is not surface a fundamental dilemma, the soTo do such studies, outcomes need
prising that we have a set of competing
called “selection artifact.” The most
to be compared – before and after an
Jewish educational institutions. What
highly motivated gravitate to the most
educational intervention as well as
would it take to integrate these instituintense settings, and the success of
across groups. Too often, understanding
Continued on Page 4
tions and, more important, ensure that
we are providing effective, well-funded
education for all, not just those who
seek intensive Jewish education? How
do we create highly motivated Jews who
seek Jewish education opportunities?
An answer requires thinking about
Jewish education in new ways, starting
with systematic information. We need to
gather information that will help us
understand “the lay of the land” of
PARENTING THROUGH
Jewish education and give us the tools to
A JEWISH LENS
assess our educational efforts. Nuanced
In this 10-week program:
data are needed – both at the instituClasses begin the week
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of October 24, 2011
tional and individual levels – that will
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and children are served at various stages
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in their life journeys. The current Jewish
Free on-site babysitting at daytime classes;
education system is like an aircraft flying
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through clouds without radar. The techRegister
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nology exists to gather better knowlFor more information, contact: Elisha Gechter at 617-559-8733
edge, and it is essential to apply these
or egechter@hebrewcollege.edu.
tools to enhance the accessibility, reach
Interfaith, GLBT and single parents are welcome.
and quality of Jewish education.
An adult learning program of
One way to understand better what
can be accomplished is illustrated by a
system my colleagues and I at Brandeis
University have developed. JData
(www.JData.com) is a sophisticated
institutional data collection system that
gathers detailed information about each
sector of Jewish education in North
America, from early childhood education through Jewish studies at universities. It allows users to conduct their own
analyses of the information. In numbers
and graphs, JData gives us a picture
that includes information about which
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institutions provide Jewish education
and how many children participate.
Knowing the institutional landscape
For busy adult learners: explore core texts from the Hebrew
is, however, only one way to understand
Bible, and from the rabbinic, medieval and modern periods.
the system of Jewish education. We also
Classes begin the week of October 24, 2011.
need evaluative data that assess how
Tuition varies by site.
well the system functions. Descriptive
For more information, contact:
data that tells us what is done is insuffiRaylea Pemstein at rpemstein@hebrewcollege.edu,
cient to know how to allocate resources
617-559-8708 or visit www.hebrewcollege.edu/meah.
and improve educational programs.
Outcome data are needed that measure
learning and its effects. These data can
An adult learning program of
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being used wisely and can be used both
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these institutions in providing Jewish
education is a result both of who studies
there and the program. An objective
assessment of the contribution of the
family and setting – and their interaction – is essential.
Providing Jewish education for all
will require, first, that we connect the
disconnected institutions that form the
backbone of the system. Day schools need
be part of the system of Jewish education,
not simply serve a particular segment of
the population. They need, for example,
to find ways to make their physical plants
and teachers available to serve the community at large. Similarly, our network of
informal Jewish education needs to find
ways to connect to both day schools and
part-time schools. The community is not
well served when its educational institutions are simply competitive programs in
a Jewish catalog.
Ensuring more broadly utilized and
effective Jewish education also means
providing parents and communal bodies
with the systematic information that can
be the basis of decision-making. We
need to rationalize communal allocation
of resources and link it to measurable
outcomes. Data can help us create a
more integrated system of education
that provides high quality education for
all ages and interests. Undoubtedly, it is
a challenge to find the resources to support an integrated system of Jewish education, but better collection and use of
information can assure that the system
uses its resources well.
Parashat Va’etchanan, this week’s
Torah portion, includes the Sh’ma, and
the injunction to teach our children:
“Take to heart these instructions with
which I charge you this day. Impress
them upon your children” (Deuteronomy 6:6-7). The community has a
fundamental obligation to ensure that
its children are educated – we have no
choice but to use the best tools available
to assure this task is accomplished.
Leonard Saxe is Klutznick Professor of
Contemporary Jewish Studies at Brandeis
University and director of the Cohen
Center for Modern Jewish Studies and the
Steinhardt Social Research Institute.