In their recent article in eJewishPhilanthropy calling out the need for the Jewish nonprofit sector to invest more strategically and consistently in their professionals (“A talent investment mindset: The next frontier for Jewish communal innovation,” March 7), Joshua Margolis and Gali Cooks share a simple truth: 

“On a team, people know when they’re being treated like a cost — and they often respond with lower commitment, less initiative, and even growing resentment. But when people feel their organizations value them, invest in them, empower them and develop them, they not only acquire new skills but are more likely to be engaged in their work and motivated to use those skills to do their best work and achieve better results for their organizations, the community and the world.” 

At the DEEP Consortium, a community of providers of high-quality professional development (HQPD) to Jewish day schools and yeshivas, we strive every day to partner with educators so that they come to appreciate their value and their power to shape the next generation of Jews. We believe that, as Margolis and Cooks emphasize, investing in the ongoing professional growth of faculty and leaders is the engine that drives educational excellence and long-term impact on today’s young people. Indeed, research on Jewish educational spaces confirms what the authors suggest: Teachers who engage consistently in professional development are, in fact, more likely to stay at their school and in education.

Unfortunately, these aspirations and the practical benefits they can achieve face pushback on three fronts. For starters, too many school leaders fear that “admitting” that faculty engage in professional development is akin to a concession that the current teachers are not good enough at their jobs and thus need extra help to meet expectations. Likewise, parents frequently subscribe to the same perception that professional development amounts to addressing weaknesses in instruction, and that continuous training and coaching of teachers automatically means the faculty are inadequate. Finally, donors to day schools, as Margolis and Cooks point out, too often operate from the mental model that money spent on staff is “overhead” rather than the most significant investment possible. Even when school administration and faculty are committed to professional development — as many of the school partners that DEEP members work with are — donors shy away from directing funding toward this purpose, not appreciating how HQPD is core to their school’s success.

At the DEEP Consortium, we argue fervently that nurturing a robust culture of professional learning constitutes neither a sign of inadequacy nor superfluousness. Rather, insisting that teachers continue to grow in their practice represents the surest indicator of a school’s educational vibrancy and high expectations. To move stakeholders beyond their flawed understanding of professional development, the DEEP Consortium has taken on two projects aimed at ramping up the field’s investments in their people. We publish an online journal to spotlight exemplars of what HQPD looks like and, importantly, the impact these efforts have  — significant investments that yield even more significant results. Additionally, we have begun to consult directly with day schools through our Concierge Desk, guiding practitioners to implement strategic approaches to professional development that encapsulate what Margolis and Cooks describe as having “growth potential that can appreciate in value over time.”

Through these initiatives and through the daily intensive work of all our members, the DEEP Consortium aims to catalyze the “paradigm shift” that Margolis and Cooks call for: thinking about our professionals — in our case, teachers and school leaders — as the “lifeblood” of the Jewish community. We look forward to the day when our vision of schools that are as committed to their teachers’ growth as they are to that of their students becomes a reality. 

David Farbman is the director of the DEEP Consortium, a project of the Jewish Education Innovation Challenge (JEIC) in partnership with the Mayberg Foundation, Arnee R. and Walter A. Winshall and UnitEd.