Investing In Education

Federation allocations for local schools continue to rise sharply.

HARRY KIRSBAUM
StaffWriter

ir

or the second year in a row,
local Jewish education was
the big winner in the yearly
allocation sweepstakes.
Meeting Tuesday night, the board of
directors of the Jewish Federation of
Metropolitan Detroit approved the
budget developed by its staff for spend-
ing the $29.6 million collected during
the 1999 Allied Jewish Campaign.
Overall, the plan allocates
$11,166,211 for local operations such
as schools, social service agencies and
the Jewish Community Center and
$13,763,500 for programs in Israel
such as the United Jewish Appeal and
Partnership 2000. The balance goes to
offset fund-raising and administration
costs of $3,053,000, a $873,000
reserve for uncollected pledges and
some 20 national agencies such as the

Harry Kirsbaum can be reached at
(248) 354-6060, ext. 244, or by email
at hIcirsbaum@thejewishnews.com .

American Jewish Committee, the
Anti-Defamation League and the
Jewish War Veterans.
The meeting was not open to the
press, so it is not known what ques-
tions, if any, the board raised about
the spending plan.
The largest single new allocation in
the budget is $158,000 to the Alliance
for Jewish Education of Metropolitan
Detroit, a Federation-sponsored entity
that is to draft a coordinated overall
vision for local Jewish studies, accord-
ing to Howard Neistein, Federation
director of planning. He said the
funding decision grew out of a study
last year by a national agency, Jewish
Education Service of North America.
JESNA called for greater emphasis on
creating the infrastructure for an inte-
grated education plan.
Neistein also noted the priority
given to day schools, which had an
overall increase of 11 percent. The
720-student Hillel Day School is to
receive $509,000, with $604,000
°Dinab to the 743-student Yeshiva Beth
Yehuda; $397,300 to Akiva Hebrew

Day School with 251 students, and
$115,071 for 100 high school stu-
dents at Yeshiva Gedolah.
Yeshivas Darchei Torah, the 282-
student Orthodox school, gets $75,000
in its first Federation allocation.
The umbrella Agency for Jewish
Education of Metropolitan Detroit
received $1,222,600 in the budget,
which is a four percent increase for
increasing special education grants, said
Judah Isaacs, executive director. The
agency has been working with 16 con-
gregational, nursery and day schools
that have a special education profes-
sional on staff, he said. AJE will use the
funding to help recruit educators and
pay part of their salaries. The increase
allows the agency to work with seven
additional schools, he added.
In line with the national movement
to boost teen trips to Israel, the
Michigan/Israel Connection received
$393,500 — a 15 percent increase — to
hire a teen mission coordinator and give
away more scholarships for trips to Israel.
With an expected decline in the num-
ber of new refugees moving to the area,

Neistein said, the budget for domestic
resettlement efforts dropped 45 percent.
But he noted that the money would
move to other agencies serving that pop-
ulation, like Jewish Apartments and
Services, to include bilingual translators
and group workers in the facilities.
In Oak Park, the number of [JAS]
residents is close to 50 percent
Russian-speaking, and they're not
going to be English speaking,"
Neistein said. He added that a signifi-
cant increase going to Jewish Family
Services will help "Russian newcomers
no longer considered refugees, as well
as other indigent older adults who
need assistance."
The budget gives Jewish Apartments
and Services $202,693, a 39 percent
increase that includes a $17,500 grant
for food subsidies for indigent residents.
Meal costs range from $93 to $104
per month for one hot kosher meal a
day, five days a week. The subsidy
would reduce the costs by $25 a
month and help an additional dozen
residents, said Marsha Goldsmith
Kamin, JAS executive director.

Endorsing Day Schools

National report urges greater funding to enhance Jewish day schools.

JULIE WIENER
Jewish Telegraphic Agency

New York
n its strongest statement to date, a
group of Jewish communal lead-
ers is urging greater national and
local support for day schools.
A report released last Friday by the
United Jewish Communities and its
educational arm, the Jewish Education
Service of North America, stated, "No
Jewish family that desires to send its
child(ren) to a Jewish day school
should be prevented from doing so
due to financial reasons."
The report called on local federations
to provide increased financial resources
and other forms of assistance for all
forms of Jewish education, "with special
emphasis on support that helps to
ensure day school viability and vitality."

I

7/2
1999

6 Detroit Jewish News

Hailed by many as the most power-
ful antidote to the Jewish community's
assimilation and intermarriage woes,
day schools provide a Judaic and secu-
lar education for an estimated 212,000
children in North America, or about
40 percent of all children involved in
some form of Jewish education.
Once primarily the domain of the
Orthodox movement, which operates
660 of the 810 Jewish day schools in
North America, day schools have earned
increasing support from other Jewish
religious streams in the past decade.
However, while the demand for day
schools is rapidly growing, these insti-
tutions face a host of financial chal-
lenges. Most of them function with far
less money budgeted per pupil than is
the case for public schools.
Some day schools have large
deficits, while others survive financial-

ly only by charging tuition so high
that low-income and middle-class
families don't consider them an option
for their children.
Many schools complain that finan-
cial constraints limit their ability to
recruit qualified personnel or focus on
improving the quality of their academ-
ic programs.
Most federations have increased
their support for day schools in recent
years and some are also creating size-
able endowments for them. However,
community allocations still comprise
less than 10 percent of most day
schools' budgets, according to a 1997
study commissioned by the Avi Chai
Foundation, one of several large foun-
dations that provide funding and
advocacy for day schools.
The JESNA report urges federa-
tions to foster partnerships with foun-

dations, individual philanthropists,
educational organizations and the reli-
gious movements not only to increase
funding for Jewish day schools, but to
raise the quality of instruction and --
encourage more Jewish families to
consider enrolling their children.
The report is the product of a 39-
member national "blue ribbon task
force. Created in late 1997, it is made
up of national federation leaders, repre-
sentatives from day school advocacy
groups, such as the National Jewish
Day School Scholarship Committee,
and foundations, including Avi Chai
and the Partnership for Excellence in
Jewish Education. The latter is an effort
by major philanthropists to support the
development of new day schools.
The driving force behind the 1997
resolution, George Hanus of Chicago,
participated in the task force and praised