by Charles Cohen
You have opinions about day school affordability. Theories, ideas, firmly held preconceptions – they are in your brain, just bouncing around. I myself am currently holding three or four impossible perspectives in my head, and it’s not even breakfast. The Affordability Knowledge Center is not just about me giving you information; it’s also about you sharing your beliefs and experiences with the field.
As a way to kick off this new year, I asked some of our most insightful Jewish thinkers to give a brief insight into how they’re looking at affordability, either specifically for day schools, or more broadly for the Jewish community. Some chose specific strategies that can help schools move forward; others simply broached important questions that can lead you to finding your own solutions.
After reading these short blurbs, feel free to add your own – that’s really the only way we’re going to learn from each other.
- Patrick Bassett, President, NAIS
- Dr. Harry Bloom, Director of Planning and Performance Improvement, The Institute for University-School Partnership, Yeshiva University
- Lisa Colton, Founder and President, Darim Online
- Gershon Distenfeld, Board Chair, Yeshivat He’Atid
- Jeremy Fingerman, CEO, Foundation for Jewish Camp
- Dr. Marc Kramer, Executive Director, RAVSAK: The Jewish Community Day School Network
- Dr. Yehuda Kurtzer, President, Shalom Hartman Institute of North America
- Sacha Litman, Managing Director and Founder, Measuring Success
- Rabbi Asher Lopatin, Rabbi, Anshe Sholom B’nai Israel Congregation, Chicago, IL
- Dan Perla, Program Officer, Day School Finance, AVI CHAI Foundation
- Dr. Bruce Powell, Head of School, New Jewish Community High School
- Rabbi Jim Rogozen, Chief Learning Officer, The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism
- Dr. Amy Sales, Project Director, JData
- Dr. Len Saxe, Klutznick Professor of Contemporary Jewish Studies and Social Policy Director, Steinhardt Social Research Institute and Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies Brandeis University
- Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz, Founder and President, Uri L’Tzedek
cross-posted with PEJE blog
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Kudos to Charles Cohen and PEJE for bringing the Day School affordability conversation to the forefront in this way.
As Dr. Yehuda Kurtzer suggests when he challenges us to “discuss what day school education actually intends to do” rather than discussing its cost, the question of affordability is a technical one, masking a larger adaptive problem. Adaptive challenges are those that relate to changes in people’s values, beliefs, and identities – and to address them effectively, we need strategies and solutions that affect our hearts, and not only our heads. Leadership in this area is about the distribution of loss. What are we willing to give up, and at what pace? Ultimately, our success in addressing this “affordability question” will emerge not from strong intellectual arguments, but from a series of experiments that help us through a period of instability and change that threatens the values behind the way in which our community has operated in the past.
Excellent education – Jewish or otherwise – is a costly proposition. Most of us in the day school world know how to maximize our resources, how to share resources, and how to pitch our product. Affordability includes thinking about new revenue streams and significant endowments. Above all, it depends upon helping community leaders, philanthropists and families shed their ambivalence about supporting “Jewish”.
I echo the sentiments of Maya Bernstein’s comment: “Adaptive challenges are those that relate to changes in people’s values, beliefs, and identities – and to address them effectively, we need strategies and solutions that affect our hearts, and not only our heads.” We have to be ever so careful as to not compromise the essence of our schools, missions and values, while at the same time, keeping pace with the digital age. Also, Dan Perla’s offering about blended learning is another solution on the horizon, as schools begin to take some of their learning online, ultimately reducing costs in staffing. This is catching on slowly in the day school arena, but it is just a matter of time. Most schools spend a significant portion of their budgets on staffing and faculty salaries. And finally, Lisa Colton’s suggestion about doing what you do best and relying on your networks for the rest really resonates with me–how can we break down the silos in the day school field and rely on collective wisdom? It has been said there is “strength in numbers,” I say there is strength in collective wisdom. I am looking forward to weaving networks and strengthening our collective wisdom at the upcoming NAJDS Conference 2013 in Washington, DC.
My son’s preschool director at our shul forwarded this to me. She is aware that I am sending a letter to the president of Federation here in Pittsburgh about the affordability of “living Jewish.” This cost has directly impacted my husband’s and my family planning — even for a family with a pretty good income living in an incredibly affordable city. In the coming years, we are bracing for a huge challenge on the financial front with two children heading to day school, camp costs, and Israel experiences down the road. Then there is shul membership. Kosher food. Saving for college. JCC membership? Can’t swing it. This topic deserves attention and priority. No wonder there are so many of us who are “unaffiliated.” And how ironic that these costs impinge on us practicing the very Jewish values we are aiming to instill in our children. We would love to be able to be more philanthropic, but we don’t have the financial flexibility. And we might also have loved having a third child, but we do not want to subject our family to the financial demands of another Jewish child. WHAT a commentary!