itorials
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Making The Grade
E
very Allied Jewish Campaign donor
should care about the learning
benchmarks that a new umbrella
group says it will propose for local day
and supplemental schools.
Jewish education, especially during the highly
impressionable adolescent and teen years, is the
keystone to Jewish continuity. Students, parents
and the general community are entitled to seek
/- and achieve schools of excellence, ones that mea-
sure up to meaningful evaluation standards.
The four day and 17 supplemental schools
that now receive allocations thanks to the Jewish
Federation of Metropolitan Detroit's Allied Jew-
ish Campaign provide a Jewish education to
7,000 children. Collectively, the allocations are
significant: $1.5 million to the day schools and
$500,000 toward supplemental school scholar-
ships, most of which go to students affiliated
with synagogues.
As the new group — the Alliance for Jewish
Education — digs into its mandate, it must
make the quality of the schools its foremost con-
cern. The 40-member committee, made up large-
ly of Federation and Agency for Jewish Educa-
tion representatives, will succeed only if it taps
not only its strengths but also those of top
N national consultants in Jewish education and
' other stakeholders in the Detroit Jewish commu-
nity.
The Jewish Education Service of North Amer-
ica (JESNA), which last year gave poor grades to
/-
IN FOCUS
some of the Agency for Jewish Education's largest
support programs, is urging federations to tie day
school funding to educational quality — a rec-
ommendation we'd extend as well to supplemen-
tal schools.
While we're glad Federation hasn't tried to
micromanage any of the schools, Campaign
donors increasingly want proof of a positive
return on their generous annual investments.
So the burden falls squarely on the Alliance, as
Federation's emissary to develop a visionary plan
— with measurable goals, norms and guidelines
— to critically assess Judaic studies programs.
Alliance leaders say such a plan is the bedrock
of Federation's response to the stinging results of
the JESNA critique. Good intentions aside, the
Alliance now must deliver on the plan, preferably
in time_for-thed„.9.99-2000 school year.
An objective school assessment boasting learn-
ing benchmarks surely would aid Federation in
awarding school allocations. The assessment
would join student enrollment, anticipated rev-
enue and financial need as factors to consider.
In the end, any school assessment ought to be
meaningful. It ought to include both anecdotal
and statistical measures of quality And it ought
to be a tool to chart an improvement course for
each school.
If the assessment is to be credible, it also must
be publicly available. Excellence is measurable,
and schools that seek excellence will welcome
such accountability 1-1
Spinning Pollard
t would be a blessing if we could make a
decision on Jonathan Jay Pollard's fate
based on facts, not on anonymous
sources. And we would heave a sigh of
relief if we no longer had to listen to ardent
Pollard supporters tell us that what he did was
not that bad because he gave away (sold really)
secrets to a friendly country that Israel should
have had anyway. The plight of Mr. Pollard, the
convicted spy for Israel, is back in the news as
President Bill Clinton undertakes the review of
his life sentence, promised during October's
Wye River negotiations. And, this week's New
Yorker magazine contains a story by investigative
reporter Seymour Hersch providing fresh allega-
tions that, among other things, a cocaine-
addicted Pollard stood to make a lot of money
and greatly harmed U.S. security.
Clearly, the air is dense with spin. In anony-
mous interviews, government officials tell us
that Mr. Pollard's acts did perhaps the most
damage to U.S. intelligence assets than any
other case in U.S. history, and that his release
could still compromise national security. Yet,
they offer little evidence.
Mr. Pollard's most passionate supporters say
his treatment is grossly unfair, and offer a dizzy-
ing array of explanations, most tinged with con-
spiracy theories, but none backed up with hard
information. They fail to address the fact that
some of those most opposed to his release have
been good friends of the American Jewish com-
munity and staunch supporters of Israel.
That said, the government's unwillingness to
be more forthcoming about Mr. Pollard's sins
bolsters the zealots who see his plight as proof
that Jews and Israel are still despised. In turn,
the wild claims of these Pollard supporters only
add to the distrust among other Jews who may
support commutation simply because Mr. Pol-
lard has done enough time, 12 years, but reject
the notion that he is the victim of a cabal of
government anti-Semites.
As the President prepares to make his deci-
sion, what we need is more information, not
more charges and countercharges. We would
like more information about exactly why it is in
the national interest to keep Mr. Pollard in jail,
but we are not inclined to believe claims that his
long incarceration is the result of bad faith by
the U.S. government.
Only with a deeper understanding of all the
facts can responsible Jewish leaders make
informed and just decisions about the case.
❑
Up With
Music
Doug Cotler
brought his expres-
sive voice and
upbeat presence to
the Kahn Jewish
Community Center
in West Bloomfield
on Sunday, Jan. 10,
as part of a JCC
Encore Series fami-
ly concert. His
interpretations of
liturgy and songs
about Jewish events
and heroes have
made him a popu-
lar entertainer in
contemporary Jew-
ish music.
LITTERS
Increase School
Accountability
The movement toward requir-
ing educational accountability
and quality assessment as dis-
cussed in "Assessing The
Schools" (Jan. 8) is long over-
due.
The massive investment by
the Jewish Federation in day
schools has been accompanied
only by management over-
sight — trying to assure prop-
er business practices are in
place. It is time we demanded
schools meet educational per-
formance measures and link a
student population's perfor-
mance on standardized tests
to Federation allocations.
Schools that produce educat-
ed children should be the
institutions that receive corn-
munity resources. Schools
with poor scores should be
removed from community
funding.
However, day schools are
not the proper starting point.
The first priority for perfor-
mance tests should be the
synagogue-based religious
schools. This year, synogogue-
based education, for the first
time, will receive significant
Federation funding. We must
be assured our dollars are well
spent.
Each synagogue brags
about the high quality of the
religious education offered
students. Yet the schools vary
widely in such aspects as the
qualifications of teaching
staff, the number of instruc-
tional hours per week and the
rigor of the education offered.
It is impossible to compare
one synagogue to another,
even within the same denomi-
nation. To compare, for
example, Temple Israel's edu-
cational program to that of
Temple Emanu-El is extreme-
ly difficult for no baseline
measures exist.
Perhaps the best investment
for Federation would be to
fund the development of stan-
dardized performance mea-
sures. Any synagogue having
students who fall below a
given minimum on the stan-
dardized test would be barred
from receiving scholarship aid.
1/15
1999
Detroit Jewish News
29