The dawn of a new decade has brought with it a flurry of retrospectives assessing the first ten years of the 21^st century.  Clearly, there’s been much to cause discouragement, anxiety, and concern.  But, as we at JESNA look back on the past decade in Jewish education, we also find much to celebrate.  In fact, it’s been a pretty good decade for Jewish learning, not without its challenges and disappointments, but one marked by many exciting developments, new ideas, and promising directions.

So, in the spirit of the new decade, with perhaps a touch of the Oscars thrown in, here is our JESNA “Top Ten” list of achievements, developments, ideas, and trends in Jewish education worthy of note and gratification (in no special order).  And, since we’re Jewish, we decided to be  generous and throw in an 11^th just for good measure.

Please feel free to share your own list and let us know what you think of ours. [contact Rika Levin at rlevin@JESNA.ORG ]

• Birthright Israel – Birthright Israel has demonstrated that big ideas can generate big successes:  200,000+ young people encountering Israel for the first time in an experience that for many has been life changing.  The “home run” that all new program initiatives seek to emulate.
• Funding Partnerships to transform critical sectors of Jewish education – Beginning with the Partnership for Excellence in Jewish Education (PEJE), the decade saw the coming to the fore of funder-driven initiatives to bring new ideas and energy to arenas such as day school, early childhood education, complementary education, camps, and Jewish innovation.
• Consumer-centric education – This is the age of choice in Jewish education: individuals and families choosing among multiple options to find the most meaningful and appropriate educational experiences.  This imposes new demands on our institutional infra-structure to place education’s “consumers” at the center of their thinking and to put in place concrete mechanisms, like the Los Angeles BJE’s Jewish Education Concierges, to assist and guide these consumers in making choices that work for them.
• The rise of the innovation sector – The past decade has seen an explosion of innovative people, projects, and organizations creating new modes and venues for Jewish learning and engagement.  Equally important, endeavors like Bikkurim: An Incubator for New Jewish Ideas and a growing number of others have emerged to nurture and support this innovation sector.
• Congregational educational change initiatives – It’s definitely not your father’s (or mother’s) Hebrew school any longer, as more than a dozen national, regional, and local initiatives involving hundreds of synagogues collectively have begun to transform the landscape of supplementary education, bringing new vision, energy, and leadership to an often disparaged arena.
• The revitalization of Jewish camps – Cognoscenti have long recognized the unique power of Jewish camps to nurture lifelong Jewish engagement.  In the past decade this power was rediscovered, and new investment, spearheaded by organizations like the Foundation for Jewish Camp and the Grinspoon and Avi Chai Foundations, has elevated the prominence and performance of Jewish camps and spurred growth and innovation across the field.
• Online Jewish learning – Technology is transforming how we work, play, communicate, and learn, and Jewish learning is no exception.  From MyJewishLearning.com to Twitter, the technological revolution is coming to Jewish education, empowering learners, challenging teachers, putting new resources at our finger tips, connecting far-flung classrooms, and bridging time and space.
• PJ Library – Educators have long known that the family is our first and most powerful teacher.  With the simple idea of giving Jewish families books to read to young children at bedtime, The Grinspoon Foundation’s PJ Library program has brought a seminal Jewish experience into tens of thousands of Jewish homes and spurred communities to invent new programs to help these families continue their Jewish journeys.
• Jewish service learning – Today’s young people want to be “hands on” when it comes to repairing the world.  Jewish service learning programs for teens and young adults have blossomed to build the bridge between Jewish activism and Jewish education.  AJWS, Avodah: the Jewish Service Corps, Panim, Jewish Funds for Justice, Areyvut and a host of others are helping young people to learn and apply Jewish values to make a better world.
• “Public Space” Jewish education – If some Jews are reluctant to come to Jewish institutions, why can’t we bring Jewish experiences to them?  That’s the premise behind a growing number of initiatives that take Jewish learning and experiences to where Jews are, whether it’s the aisles of supermarkets, the lounges of bookstores, the board rooms of corporations, or the campuses of public and private high schools.
• A focus on outcomes – In an era of limited resources, it’s vital to make sure that all of our educational investments are as effective as they can be.  But to do so, we need to look beyond the programs to the learners themselves and to be clear about the outcomes we seek and the results we’re obtaining.  Clarifying outcomes and developing measures to assess them is enabling us to make better programs and, we may hope, laying the groundwork for even greater investment in quality Jewish education.

 

Chevre,

How many of you have been in the position of facilitating the creation of a mission statement for a non-profit institution?  Or, even worse,  how many of you have been participants in the process of creating a mission statement for a non-profit organization?:)

Below, you will find some words of wisdom penned by Nancy Lublin in the current issue of Fast Company.  I invite you to read the article and see if it resonates with you.  At the beginning of the article,  Lublin quotes four mission statements telling us that two are from Dilbert and that the other two are "real."  Write back and let me know which ones you think are the work of Scott Adams (Dilbert) and which ones are "real."  You will earn many bonus points if you can name the two companies whose mission statements are quoted.

Enjoy.

 

 

Chevre,

Many people, including me, have expressed some skepticism about the use of Twitter for educational purposes.  I have multiple Twitter accounts and rarely use them for such "high level" activity.  But much has been written about the added value of using Twitter for education, including conferences.

So, I am asking you to volunteer to be part of an experiment that focuses around a Limmud session at next week's Annual Conference of the Alliance for Continuing Rabbinic Education (ACRE).  Rabbi Shai Gluskin is going to facilitate a Limmud session focusing on a provocative text from Bava Batra 21.  Rest assured that the primary method of text study at the Conference will be one that has shown its effectiveness for 2,000 years--hevruta. But we want to see the potential value that Twitter can provide by adding more voices to the discussion than are normally heard.

That is where you come in.  We invite you to read the text and tweet your responses to the questions in advance of the Conference.  To find the text and questions, go to the Limmud tab in the 2009 ACRE Conference section of the ACRE website (www.allianceforcre.org).

For veteran tweeters, please use the hashtag "acrecon."  For those of you who did not understand the instructions in the last sentence, please go to the Bava Batra and Twitter tab in the 2009 ACRE Conference section of the ACRE website for basic instructions about the use of Twitter.  It's actually very simple to do.

So, please help us out in this experiment.  I look forward to sharing the results with you.

Moadim L'Simcha

 

Chevre,

The Jewish calendar dictates that we spend some of our time in serious introspection before and during the Yamim Noraim.  It seems like such an easy assignment.  All we have to do is figure out what we did wrong last year, try to make amends to those we may have harmed, and resolve to work on changing those negative behaviours in the upcoming year.  If it is so easy to do, why do we go through the same routine every year and why haven't I made the obvious, needed changes ?:)

This blog focuses on the theme of change, primarily how to facilitate it, in a "normal" environment.  This last year was not "normal!"  Most Jewish organizations were forced to make significant, difficult changes to their organizations with less than desired time to contemplate which changes were needed and how to implement them.  Many people felt lost in this tidal wave of bad, economic news.

But a new year is almost upon us.  Summer has intervened.  The Dow Jones is up 10.8% for the year.  The Avi Chai day school census shows an overall growth in day school enrollment.  Fewer day schools closed than some predicted.  More scholarship money was found than thought possible.

I, in no way, am trying to minimize the human and institutional suffering that we have endured.  Many talented, outstanding individuals have lost their jobs and not all have found new employment. The months of pain seemed like years.  But my question for you is, "Where are we today?" 

In the confines of my office talking to a few Jewish educational leaders around the country, this is what I am sensing in the broadest of terms.   It appears that the "worst is over."  People have resigned themselves to their current situations and are trying to figure out how to make them work.  Morale, which sunk to its nadir, is crawling upward.  People are seeing "good signs" in places where none existed six months ago.  There is a new enthusiasm for "the calling" of Jewish education.

Please let me/us know how things are progressing for you and your institutions.  Are my perceptions totally "missing the mark?" The more comments we get, the richer a snapshot we will collect. 

To all of you and your families, a Shana Tovah U'Metukah.

I am pleased to post a copy of this article written by our colleague, Dr. Jonathan S. Woocher Chief Ideas Officer, JESNA and Director, Lippman Kanfer Institute. The growing burden of day school tuitions has, as Gary Rosenblatt recently noted, ironically focused new attention on supplementary Jewish education. Families who firmly believe in the value of day school education, but are now facing virtually insurmountable challenges trying to pay for it, are wondering whether it is possible to find at least some of what they seek for their children in revamped, intensive supplementary programs. They join many other families with children already in such programs, and others trying to decide whether to enroll their children at all, in asking whether supplementary education can provide a meaningful and satisfying Jewish educational experience. It’s a good question, and an important one for these families and the future of the Jewish community as a whole. First, the good news: The last two decades have seen a growing movement across North America to improve and even transform supplementary Jewish education. National and local initiatives have mushroomed and have become increasingly sophisticated and effective in helping synagogues – the primary providers of supplementary education – create more dynamic, engaging, and impactful programs for educating children and families. A number of alternative models quite different from the “Hebrew schools” we’ve come to know and often hate have been implemented, some by synagogues, some by other types of educational entrepreneurs. The New York Jewish community has been the setting for some of the most ambitious efforts to “re-imagine” congregational education, and will be the beneficiary of even more extensive initiatives in the future. Nonetheless, the vast majority of the efforts we have seen thus far suffer from one serious limitation: they start with the producers of supplementary education, not its consumers, as their primary focus. Here’s why this is a problem: The “market” for Jewish education today is diverse and growing more so. Research confirms that parents want to be active choosers of the type of Jewish education their children will receive. The current system provides some options (the big choice being between full-time (day school) and part-time (supplementary) Jewish education). But, when we look at the options currently available within the supplementary domain, we find that there are not as many as a first glance might indicate. Yes, there are many synagogues offering supplementary programs, but these turn out to be largely variations on a theme. For good and sensible reasons, synagogues by and large offer programs that cover a pretty standard curriculum (holidays, Torah study, prayer, Jewish values, some history, and rudimentary Hebrew) in roughly similar ways. Looked at up close, there are certainly important differences in specific content, program organization, and teaching. But, compared with the range of possible foci and emphases, the vast majority of today’s programs occupy a relatively narrow niche – one that serves well an important segment of the overall potential market for Jewish education, but still leaves substantial populations that are either poorly served (the education doesn’t really match what they seek) or unserved altogether (a significant number of children get no Jewish education at all). Take our day school family now seeking an intensive supplementary program, perhaps one that meets 8 or 10 hours per week, rather than the typical 4 or 5, that emphasizes serious Hebrew literacy, either for purposes of conversation or text study in the original. Or, take a very different, but not uncommon family whose Jewishness is primarily cultural, not religious, or focused on social justice and activism. Perhaps the family has a child who is passionate and gifted in the arts and wants to approach her or his Jewish learning through this lens. Perhaps the family is an interfaith one, and seeks a Jewish educational program that is uniquely sensitive to their life issues. With effort, some of these families might be able to find a suitable supplementary program (they exist, but not everywhere). But, wouldn’t it be far better if they didn’t have to work so hard? What it would take is an approach to providing supplementary education that is market-driven and community-coordinated. Such an approach would begin by “mapping” the current landscape – what does the market look like, who is being well-served, where do gaps exist, what programs already exist, what assets are available to develop new programs. Then it would set out, working with existing providers and potential new ones, to build a “system” that would offer as many high quality options as the market can support. Such an approach would not in any way displace synagogues from their roles as primary providers – though it might free them to think creatively about new ways to configure their programs, e.g., several congregations combining to operate a set of magnet schools with different curricular emphases or meeting times that would be available to all their members. Nor would this approach make less necessary or valuable the work taking place today aimed at helping providers ensure that they deliver the highest quality Jewish learning experiences. What it would do is enable us to engage more children and families in Jewish learning, with greater satisfaction, and with greater impact. At the end of the day, that has to be our goal. At JESNA, we believe that every family that wants to send its children to a quality day school should be able to do so. And, we want the same for those choosing supplementary education. It will take some creative thinking and a lot of collaboration. But, it’s doable, and we’re working now with our partners in central agencies across North America to make that vision a reality.

Just recently published, Learning and Community - Jewish Schools in the Twenty-first Century is the ethnographic study of ten supplementary Jewish schools that deliver a "reasonably effective Jewish education,"  edited by Jack Wertheimer.  It is the follow-up to and a deeper,  fuller description of the 10 schools that formed the basis for Wertheimer's, "Schools that Work:What We Can Learn from Good Jewish Supplementary Schools 2009."  One chapter I found particularly interesting was the one that described "Tikvah Synagogue."

"Tikvah Synagogue" is the one small school (enrollment around 50) in the study.  The statistic that surprised me the most about Wertheimer's recent supplementary school census was that almost 60% of supplementary schools have fewer than 100 students.  Honestly, this was a "red flag" for me since in the 19 years that I served as an educational director I never ran a school with fewer than 300 students, and when the numbers dropped that "low" there was much concern.  How do/can small schools sustain themselves and provide a good education?  And if the number of small schools is growing, what do we need to do to ensure their success?

Susan Shevitz and Marion Gribetz suggest that there is much that can be learned from their in-depth observation of "Tikvah."   They argue that instead of seeing "smallness" as a liability, it can be a potential asset.   They argue that congregations and schools can exploit their size so that:

• "People, both young and old, are known to others and a sense of caring pervades the environment;
• Everyone matters and people feel a sense of personal responsibility
• Individuals' knowledge and talents are used to teach others; and
• Everyone feels a stake in the community."

"Tikvah" decided to become a "Shabbat community" and Shevitz and Gribetz argue that this response was based on pragmatism and religious idealism.  It served the community's educational needs by demonstrating the centrality of prayer, learning and community in Jewish life.  And this congregation resisted the pressure (and its inability) to teach "everything."  Most of the pieces of their curriculum cohere, especially since Shabbat is neither theoretical nor occasional to the students.

 Other keys to success in "Tikvah" include the following:

• It values sophisticated knowledge, usable skills and enduring understandings.
• It promotes education for today as well as for the future
• Jewish living and learning are valued by others 

This is not to imply that "Tikvah" does not have its challenges (Read the book to see them detailed).  What I find most interesting is that this particular school has been able to "succeed" by capitalizing on its small size but that its areas of success are the same ones that so many large schools try to reach, often unsuccessfully.

I found this chapter heartening and thought-provoking.  I now turn to you and ask you to let me know about the successes and challenges of small schools in your community.

Chevre,

Despite my gentle prodding, most of you prefer to comment privately to me about issues raised on this blog.  I hope that over the course of time blogging will become less daunting? and more of you will share your good thoughts publicly.  

In a recent post I asked readers to share their comments about Jack Wertheimer's newest report on Complementary Jewish Education, "Schools that Work:What We Can Learn from Good Jewish Supplementary Schools 2009." One common response, stated in the vernacular, was "Been there, done that."  I have spent some time mulling over that answer and offer the following observations.

1)  For those of us who "live" this work on a daily basis it is easy to understand that comment.  Some of us are key informants to these studies and meet and discuss these issues regularly.  These reports confirm our beliefs.  They might even be self-fulfilling prophecies.  For those folks these reports elicit a "duh" response.

 2) For those of us who are practitioners, working on the ground and trying to develop and maintain "good Jewish Supplementary Schools," these findings can be very revealing,  helpful, practical and assuring.  For those folks these reports elicit a "ahah!" response.

3) No matter which group we fit into (and I haven't listed many other possibilities between the two ends of the spectrum), what is important to remember is that this report and JESNA's most recent report on Complementary Jewish Education, Making Jewish Education Work: Complementary School Change Initiatives-Lessons Learned from Research and Evaluation in the Field, are examples of research-based reports.  For too long we have been relying on anecdotal evidence and our own wisdom to describe and prescribe potential approaches and solutions.  What's so bad if many of the findings of the two reports cited above are the same?  Shouldn't that give us greater conviction that research is showing us the way(s) to go?  

4)  It takes time for leaders to fall into the "duh" camp.  I have been the "sage on the stage" and the "guide on the side" in many different settings trying to help disparate groups confront the issues in these reports.  And I am here to report that today's "conventional wisdom" and the shared language used by so many leaders in this field is not at all what the situation was a short four years ago.  We have all grown together in our efforts to grow this field.  And, at times, the road was bumpy.  And I am certain that will be the case in the future, as well.

 Finally, I look forward to reading research reports 3-5 years from now about good practices and lessons learned from "alternative" form of Jewish Complementary Education.  It will be interesting to see how our conventional wisdom today about this topic compares with what is going to happen in this burgeoning sub-field.  I have a feeling that there will be a lot more "Ahahs! than "Duhs" when that next chapter in our history is researched and written.

 

What do you think?

 

Friends,


I urge you to look at the home page of the JESNA website:

www.jesna.org

You will find, front and center, a statement from JESNA calling for the Jewish communal leadership of North America to preserve the important agencies working in Jewish education.

Perhaps you will be able to make use of this article in some way in your communities; at the very least, you will know that JESNA stands behind you and the work you do and will continue to advocate for the field.

Another new book I received during Pesach was a copy of Douglas Reeves' "Leading Change In Your School."  Any book about change that begins with

"Here is a simple recipe for leading change.  First, pour a truckload of evidence into an ungreased container.  Stir in a crockful of inspirational rhetoric.  Add two heaping portions of administrative imperatives.  Finally, dump into the mix precisely one ton of fear.  Bring to a boil."

 is a book that I will want to read :)  Reeves, in a clear writing style that many of us have grown used to while reading his columns in Educational Leadership, offers insights and recommendations in four areas:

• Creating conditions for change, including assessements to determine personal and organizational readiness for change (see below)
• Planning change, including cautionary notes about strategic planning
• Implementing change, including the importance of moving from rhetoric to day-to-day reality; and
• Sustaining change, including the need to reorient priorities and values so that individual convenience gives way to a shared sense of the greater good.

Among the many entertaining but thought-provoking sections of the book is one titled, "the seven popular myths of leadership."  Reeves' list is:

1. Plan Your Way to Greatness
2. Just a Little Bit Better Is Good Enough
3. We Want You to Change Us...Really
4. People Love to Collaborate
5. Hierarchy Changes Systems
6. Volume Equals VOLUME
7. The Leader is the Perfect Composite of Every Trait

Lest you think that Reeves' hypothesis is that change is too hard to lead and there are so few change initiatives that work, he does feature stories about "unknown" teachers and administrators who have been very successful change leaders.

 As I mentioned above, Reeves offers an assessment tools for personal change readiness and organizational change readiness.  He also provides rubrics  to score each assessment and a change readiness matrix used to interpret the combined scores of both tools.  If you are like me, and like to engage in deep introspection about myself and my organization, then I recommend you try out these tools (they are available as a free download at www. ChangeLeaders.info)

 

 

Change Readiness Assessment -- Organization

 

 

 

The Change Readiness Assessment considers the capacity of the organization and the leader to engage in significant change.  In the left-hand column, identify three significant changes that have occurred within the past five years in the organization.  For each column to the right, enter a score, from zero to ten, with ten representing the highest level of change effectiveness. 

 

 

Organizational Change	Planning: Clear, detailed, effectively communicated	Sense of Urgency:  Widespread sense of immediate need for change	Stakeholder Support:  Employees, clients, community understood and supported change	Leadership Focus:  Senior leadership made the change their clear and consistent focus long after initiation	Impact on Results:  The change had a measurable and significant impact on results
1.
2.
3.

 

Total for Change #1:  _____  Total for Change #2 _____   Total for Change #3  _____.  Total for the two highest changes:  _____

 

Change Readiness Assessment – Personal

 

 

Now consider three personal changes that you have made in the past five years.  These changes could represent a strategic or behavioral change at work, or a change in your personal life, such as an improvement in your diet, exercise routine, or personal relationships.  Evaluate each change on the criteria listed below from zero to ten. 

 

Personal Change	Planning: I planned in advance the steps I would take and knew clearly how to make the change	Sense of Urgency:  I knew that the price of failing to change was much greater than the price of changing	Personal Support:  My family and friends knew I was making a change and supported me	Personal  Focus:  I devoted time to initiating and maintaining the change despite my busy schedule	Impact on Results:  I can measure the results of the change, and they are clear and significant
1.
2.
3.

 

 

Total for Change #1:  _____  Total for Change #2 _____   Total for Change #3  _____.  Total for the two highest changes:  _____

 

Examine the Change Readiness Matrix and mark the intersection between Organizational Change and Leadership Change readiness.

 

The Change Readiness Matrix

 

Ready for Learning

            The leader demonstrates a history of successful change, with a strong capacity for planning and executing change.  The organization can learn from the leader’s personal and professional example.  Before undertaking a new change initiative, however, the leader must attend to the learning needs of the organization.  Specifically, the organization may need work on planning, communicating, and executing change.  Moreover, the organization must create an evidence-based culture in which a clear and compelling case for change leads to a sense of urgency by every stakeholder.  Finally, a commitment to clear and public data displays must be in place so that the results of the change can be widely shared, reinforcing the commitment and hard work of every person contributing to the change effort.

 

Ready for Resistance

            When neither the leader nor the organization has a history of successful change, then the most likely result of any new change initiative will be resistance, anger, undermining, or simply ignoring the effort.  Without stakeholder support or leadership execution, these organizations will simply “out-wait” every new change initiative and the leaders who attempt to implement them.

 

Ready for Frustration

          When an organization with a strong history of change is led by someone who is either reluctant to engage in systemic change or who lacks the personal capacity to do so, then there is a strong potential for frustration.  Each time the organization gets ahead of the leader, and the ensuing change fails to be supported by senior leadership, change becomes less safe.  Eventually, the organization will stop taking the risks and migrate to the left-hand side of the matrix.  The next leader will inherit an organization with severely compromised change readiness, and it will time to rebuild trust and regain change capacity.

 

Ready for Change

          When both the leader and the organization have exceptional change capacity, then it is a model of resilience.  This organization can adapt to environmental and cultural shifts, change strategies and form, innovate in services and resources, and create an atmosphere of excitement and engagement. 

 

Upon reflection, I find that it was a nice coincidence to receive this book and the Jack Wertheimer report on Supplementary Schools one day apart.  I look forward to discussing each book separately and how they intersect in the work that many of us do.

 

Chevre,

 It finally arrived in the mail on the seventh day of Pesach.   Many of us have been waiting for a long time for the latest report authored by Jack Wertheimer titled, Schools that Work:  What We Can Learn from Good Jewish Supplementary Schools 2009.

In 2007 a team of ten researchers--five academics and five experienced educators with backgrounds in school administration--observed 10 complementary schools reputed to be effective, "as defined by the quality of formal study and positive Jewish experiences they provide, the clarity and thoughtfulness of school objectives, the development of a community of practice to translate learning into Jewish living, and the coordination of key personnel in the pursuit of those goals."  (Wertheimer, page 3) 

The report draws larger conclusions about the traits of good schools, the enabling factors necessary for them to succeed and the continuing challenges they face.  It also offers six recommendations to policy-makers "interested in improving supplementary Jewish schools."  (Wertheimer, page 7).

 At this point I don't think it appropriate for me to comment on the substance of the report.  I want to give you the opportunity to first read it.  Then  I do want to hear from you about the points on which you agree and disagree.  And, although I do understand the "excitement" of trying to uncover the real names of the schools highlighted, let's not use this forum for that speculation.

 To whet your appetites I offer just one of the policy recommendations that I look forward to discussing with you:

 "...highlights the absence of sufficient champions for the field of  Jewish supplementary education.  It is easy to blame the national educational and denominational organizations or the central agencies for the anarchic state of affairs, but upon closer inspection it is evident that these institutions lack the capacity, the personnel and the authority to help schools.  Funders will have to assume responsibility as partners with educators for developing the field, as they have in other arenas of Jewish education."  (Wertheimer, page 7)

Enjoy your reading.  All ADCA members should be receiving hard copies of the report in the mail.  I assume it will be available for viewing on the Avi Chai website shortly (www.avichaina.org).