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April 03, 1992 - Image 49

Resource type:
Text
Publication:
The Detroit Jewish News, 1992-04-03

Disclaimer: Computer generated plain text may have errors. Read more about this.

EDUCATION

NOAM M.M. NEUSNER

Staff Writer

E

2

veryone — or virtually
everyone — sings the
virtues of a good Jew-
ish education.
Trouble is, few agree
on what that means. In
Detroit's Jewish community,
a good Jewish education can
be a two-hour-a-week ex-
perience in interactive
drama, crafts and "user-
friendly" Jewish history. Or,
it can be an intense study of
Jewish legal minutiae,
Hebrew and ritual obser-
vance.
The problem of standards
in Jewish education is a
growing one. With Detroit's
Jewish Federation rethink-
ing the way it assists Jewish
education in the area, few
school administrators or ex-
perts know what precisely
makes a Jewish school good
or bad. Plus, grant money for
inventive and successful re-
ligious education programs
abounds, but each dollar
comes with the demand of
accountability.
"It is a tough issue and it
deserves to be addressed,"
said Eliot Spack, executive
director of the Coalition for
the Advancement of Jewish
Education (CAJE).
Experts in the field say if
Jewish schools want to im-
prove, they not only need a
way of measuring their pro-
gress, they also need to know
where they want to go.
"People are not always
clear about what they want
to teach," said Rabbi Barry
Diamond, who is the prin-
cipal of Temple Beth El's re-
ligious school. "You don't
see goal-setting in most
schools."
The problem is com-
plicated by what Mr. Spack
calls a "multiplicity of ex-
pectations." With parents,
teachers, administrators and
students approaching Jew-
ish education with different
aspirations and goals, pro-
gress is practically impossi-
ble.

Artwork by Catherine Kanner. Copyright° 1990, Catherine Kanner. Distributed by Los Angeles Times Syndicate.

The Shell Game

"I could put 10 different
people in a room and ask
them for their expectations
of a good Jewish education
and I'd get 10 different an-
swers," said Mr. Spack.
"You have a very undefined
structure of what the com-
munity perceives as these
goals."
What sometimes emerges
as a standard for a good
school can, in fact, have
nothing to do with educa-
tional quality. Professor
Joseph Reimer, a specialist
in Jewish education, said no
evidence indicates that stu-
dent enrollment has
anything to do with a good
Jewish education.
"The national studies
show that post-bar mitzvah
enrollment is a better way of
judging the school," said
Professor Reimer, who
teaches at Brandeis Univer-
sity.

Is Jewish
education
just a
guessing
game?

"You want to stay away
from thinking that bodies in
the building is all that
counts," he said. Instead,
certain basic characteristics
can indicate a school's quali-
ty: whether it has a full-time
principal, whether teachers
work in the school for at
least two years and whether
the school has well-attended
programs for parents.

"These basic characteristics
are also the easiest to
measure," said Professor
Reimer.
Yet success also hinges on
the school's relationship to
its host synagogue, he said.
This finding has implica-
tions locally, since Detroit's
Jewish Federation is seek-
ing to give full responsibility
over former community
schools to congregations.
Instead of running schools,
the Federation's education
arm, the Agency for Jewish
Education (AJE), will pro-
vide educational materials
and training to teachers.
This model is threatened
by what could be an intrac-
table problem in religious
schools. Each synagogue sets
standards according to its
needs —not necessarily be-
cause of educational values.
For instance, local Reform
schools emphasize identity

and affiliation. Conservative
schools want students to feel
comfortable with the syn-
agogue liturgy.
Plus, most observers agree
that even within the de-
nominations there are sharp
disagreements about what to
teach and for how long.
At one local religious
school, teachers are told that
the two things each student
must learn — above all else
— are the Four Questions for
Passover and the three
blessings over the Chanu-
kah candles.
Harlene Appelman, who
directs Jewish Experiences
For Families and staffed the
Federation's education task
force, said there is nothing
wrong with congregational
self-interest.
"Parents can be delighted
when their children read the
Four Questions properly,"
she said. "There is nothing
wrong with that. It may be
because the child can read
Hebrew. It may be because
the child knows what he's
saying. But we can't judge
the value of that experience.
"In order for a school to be
successful, it needs to set its
own standards," she said.
Mr. Spack of CAJE said
that some parents view a
good Jewish education as
essential, but with few
specific goals. For instance,
they might want their child
to marry another Jew. Or,
they might want them to
resist cults. Most frequently,
they want their children to
complete the requirements
to become bar or bat mitz-
vah.
"What we have now is a
surrogate system," he said.
"You have parents saying to
teachers, 'Make my kid a
good Jew.' We don't believe
that is the Jewish model for
education."
At stake in the articula-
tion of goals and standards,
he said, is not only finding
out what works and what
doesn't; rather, by setting
goals, both parents and
teachers will begin to see
that a good Jewish education

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

49

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