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1
Jewish Education Is In Crisis.
Who Cares?
ny effort to increase
the number and quali-
ty of Jewish educa-
tional leaders in North
America must be initiated
against a generally somber
backdrop: There is a person-
nel crisis in Jewish education
of massive proportions, one
which is both quantitative
and qualitative, worldwide,
cross-denominational, and
which affects every level of
educators. Any serious at-
tempt to strengthen Jewish
educational leadership must
begin with an awareness of
this crisis and its ramifica-
tions.
The current dimensions of
this crisis can be character-
ized in terms of several clear-
ly visible phenomena:
1. There is a shortage of
qualified personnel for all
types of positions within the
educational system — teach-
ers for both day and sup-
plementary schools, special-
ists of various kinds, school
and agency administrators.
At the beginning of each
academic year, some posi-
tions are unfilled and others
are filled by individuals
without the requisite
qualifications.
2. The persistent shortage
of personnel reflects the in-
creasing difficulty of recruit-
ing talented individuals to
enter Jewish education as a
career: only about 150 indivi-
duals are currently enrolled in
bachelors and masters level
programs in Jewish education
in the United States. The
communally sponsored
teacher training institutions
(Hebrew teachers colleges)
have all virtually abandoned
teacher training for lack of
candidates. Jewish education
is perceived as a career of
relatively low status and low
remuneration.
3. The reluctance of tal-
ented individuals to seek
careers in Jewish education
reflects the working condi-
tions they are likely to
encounter. Within the supple-
mentary school system full-
time teaching positions are
Despite
protestations to
the contrary, the
Jewish community
has not come to
grips with the
basic problem. A
leading Jewish
educator offers
some solutioins.
DR. JONATHAN WOOCHER
Special to The Jewish News
virtually non-existent. Only 8
percent of supplementary
school teachers teach twelve
hours or more per week.
Hence, there is no point in
training for such positions.
Nearly all Jewish teachers —
even those who do teach full-
time in day schools — are
poorly paid (average salary
for a day school teacher is
around $20,000 a year.) Bene-
fits which are routine in most
positions (e.g., pension and
health insurance) are often
unavailable; materials and
resources are frequently less
than first-rate; the atmos-
phere in schools is poor; rela-
tionships with administrators
are often tense. If teaching is
the backbone of education as
a profession, and if it is from
the ranks of teachers that
educational leaders should
emerge, the Jewish educa-
tional system is so con-
stituted as to cut off the
supply of potential leadership
from the outset.
4. Since quality people are
reluctant to enter and often
do not stay in the field, pro-
fessional standards are dif-
ficult to maintain. The vast
majority of Jewish teachers
have no Jewish teacher cer-
tification of any sort. In
supplementary schools, 42
percent of teachers have five
or fewer years experience and
more than half have no formal
Judaic training beyond the
high school level. Incentives
for professional growth and
for maintaining standards are
minimal. Those professional
development programs which
do exist are generally un-
systematic and haphazard.
5. Perhaps most damaging
is the low esteem in which
Jewish education, and espec-
ially teaching, appears to be
held by the Jewish communi-
ty. Despite its protestations
of priority status for Jewish
education, the community
has not come to grips with
the personnel crisis in any
substantial way. This failure
sends a message which is
reinforced in numerous other
Continued on Page 16
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
9