By Anna Marx
[This is the ninth in a weekly series of posts from a coalition of institutions across the continent devoted to nurturing the emerging transformation of congregational and part-time Jewish education. The series is curated by the Leadership Commons at the William Davidson Graduate School of Education of The Jewish Theological Seminary.]
We are sitting on a goldmine of opportunity. Right now, there are hundreds of thousands of families across North America who are signed up, ready, and eager for meaningful, life-changing Jewish education.
Hundreds of thousands of kids are enrolled in part-time Jewish education programs across North America. Right now. In the 21st century, a time of infinite choice and unlimited demands on their attention, these families have made an incredible decision – they have chosen Jewish education for their children.
They’re enrolled and ready. So what’s the problem? We, the larger Jewish community, aren’t giving them the best we have to offer. We aren’t investing in these kids.
The context that synagogue educators live in today is one in which the prevailing narrative around part-time Jewish education is incredibly negative. We’re told again and again that these educational programs don’t stack up next to other educational offerings like camp or day school. The problem with this negative conversation, one that has been going on for much too long, is that it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. Let’s take a look at three key factors that are part of, or even products of, this narrative:
1. Funders are backing away from this field, looking instead for the educational programs that are valued and trusted in our community. As funds decrease, support systems and materials begin to disappear from these programs. Who suffers from the lack of funding? The students.
2. Talented educators are seeking jobs outside of the part-time sector. Rightly so, they want jobs that offer prestige among their colleagues. Who suffers when we struggle to attract excellent educators? The students.
3. Parents are buying into the idea that part-time education can look only one way. Ironically, they expect a model of Hebrew school that looks and feels similar to their own experience. Educators then struggle to offer different models because parents don’t appreciate or accept these models as legitimate forms of education. Who suffers from the lack of experimentation and innovation? The students.
Hundreds of thousands of children across North America receive their primary Jewish experiences in part-time educational settings. But we have created a system that struggles to serve them. Here’s a new narrative I’d like the Jewish community to try out for a while:
“We, the leaders of the Jewish community (funders, professionals, and volunteers), are committed to ensuring that every single child whose family chooses a Jewish education – of any kind – receives the highest quality educational experience we can possibly offer.”
To get started, let’s battle each of these issues head on.
1. Mega–Invest in Part-Time Education
Education is expensive. Excellent education is even more expensive. It takes people, space, time, materials, ongoing assessment, professional development, marketing, scholarships, and much more. Schools are rarely self-sustainable through tuition dollars alone. I spoke to the founder of one particularly innovative program recently. He told me that only 25% of his budget comes from tuition and fees. Everything else must be raised.
We need funding to support the operation of programs, attract excellent educators, offer professional development and provide other support services for professionals, technology, curriculum, and more. To learn the most effective ways that make a difference in our learners’ lives, we need investments that invite risky experimentation. Many experiments fail. That’s great. So long as we’re failing forward, we move forward. But in our current conditions of extraordinarily tight resources, educational leaders are afraid to experiment and fail. Let’s give them a safety net and let them bring dreams to reality.
2. Create Exciting Innovation Positions for Educators
With support for funding and consulting, we could create fellowships and positions that demand change and experimentation. These positions are about much more than a title change. They must be real positions with innovation explicitly included in the job description. We would train educators both to make change and to support congregations to embrace and expect change.
3. Invest in Parents
It will not be enough to ensure that the children receive excellent learning experiences. We must make a concerted effort to provide meaningful impact on whole families. This goes beyond family education. Parents themselves need to be brought into the conversation many of us have been having for decades. We must invest in parents learning about what is in store for their kids. We need to empower parents to take on leadership roles in envisioning a bright future for their kids’ education. And this begins with helping parents to see that the Hebrew school of their past is not the Hebrew school of their kids’ present and is most certainly not going to be the education we have to offer in the future.
Hundreds of thousands of kids are enrolled and waiting. They’re waiting for us. There isn’t a moment to lose.
Anna Marx is the project director of Shinui: the Network for Innovation in Part-Time Jewish Education, which represents ten North American community agencies: Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Toronto. She is also chief strategy officer of Jewish Learning Venture in Philadelphia.
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We do have isolated examples of part-time pre-Bar/Bat Mitzvah Jewish schooling that works. I know that that’s true. But I continue to be struck by the general pattern where such schools show little impact and where Jewish camp, trips to Israel, campus engagement (Hillel, Chabad, Jewish studies, and more), and post-college alternative Jewish experiences (e.g., Base Hillel) almost always evince lasting impact precisely in the areas they emphasize.
I’m not convinced that the vast majority of the hundreds of thousands of parents are seeking meaningful education for their elementary school age children.
In light of all this, we still should not give up on part-time education. But we do need to set reasonable goals, like maximal participation in post Bar/Bat Mitzvah Jewish experiences.
You are always clear and direct. Anna I admire you always. I agree that expanding the definition of student to include the family unit is imperative. No matter the dollars invested if we only invest in children we are trying to build an airplane with one wing.
But more money for part time Jewish education is not the answer.
I believe money sets agendas as well as funds staff and program.
Now money is needed to reset the Jewish educational agenda. It is time to set an agenda not about “education”. We have tried to reframe the field with words like experiential education and yet we keep recreating what has been with two few changes.
I’d suggest our work can benefit from a very different framework. What does our work look like if we accompany children and adults on their life and Jewish journeys; on connecting desire and purpose with evolving communities; and on empowering and supporting people to shape their own experiences?
Can there be money for the reset? Children and parents are at the door. That’s the good news. But let’s stop using the language, tools and frameworks of education. You don’t learn to be Jewish in today’s world.
More than a better part time education is needed.
Education no matrer how good wont achieve the goal.
Can we use a new set of tools and frameworks to support people at the door?Let’s stop talking education and imagine money to engage in the vulnerable sacred work of helping grow a whole human..as a Jew in spirit, in relationship, and with purpose. If this is our frame how will the future look different?
In response to Steven M Cohen’s comment made below:
Yes, we do want young people to do more Jewish activities beyond Hebrew School and to take part in the powerful experiences during their formative adolescent years of Jewish camping, high school peer trips to Israel and youth groups or Hebrew High and later participate in Jewish life on college campus…
BUT if the Hebrew school experience is bad- many will be a lot LESS LIKELY to attend more activities Jewish in nature if the one thing they experienced so far was negative.
(Why do “more Jewish” if what I did so far I didn’t enjoy?)
Therefore it behooves us to try to make Hebrew Schools as positive as possible so post Bar/t Mitzvah teenagers will want to do more Jewishly- in the way of Jewish camping, high school peer trip to Israel and more- ultimately paving the way to becoming active in Jewish life when they reach college.
We have to realize that success in preventing assimilation lies in looking at the long term development of each child- Jewish identity building is a life-long process and each step is important along the way.
Day school is not the answer for every Jewish family in every city. Sleep-away camp, even with first-time scholarship help, is out of reach for a growing number of families who are still in economic freefall from the recession. The number of parents who must now work two or more jobs to make ends meet is growing, even in Jewish communities. This is the new normal for more people than some may realize.
If we’re only going to serve families who can afford — or are willing to kill themselves to pay for — Jewish education, we will lose more people than many institutional leaders would like to admit. Part-time Jewish education may be the ONLY doorway into Jewish communal life for many of these families — don’t close this door and tell these families that they must somehow “prove” their dedication to gain access through another doorway! We lose these families at our peril.
Anna – Here! Here! your points are well taken.
Two thoughts on context and market.
Parents will pay a lot for music lessons, sports, college prep classes, and a variety of things for their children. Coupled with that is a set of expectations about the quality of the experience. Our synagogues and other part-time programs need to take the same approach- and establish the appropriate value proposition. Innovation is good, but it is only a part of the perception of value. We are often so afraid of losing people that we forget that what keeps participants is the understanding of that value – e.g. that is why camp works. Usually, high standards and expectations help establish value.
Related is the reality that currently there is no real way for families to judge the quality of the alternatives. Your focus on the student is the correct one. If I could ignore the politics of our community, I would set up an online rating system for all of our programs and make the information public to facilitate family choice in Jewish education. If we invested in discussions with families while children were in pre-school and we were able to give them tools to make decisions about Jewish educational choices it would help. There are massive vehicles like PJ Library that could be used to help facilitate this conversation with families.