A higher standard

Jewish day schools hold high expectations for their students

BETH OLSON
Staff Writer

No Child Left Behind. AIMS. School Report Cards.

Much attention has been given in the Arizona media to the new wave in education - a standards-based approach that outlines what is to be taught at each grade level and then requires assessment of those standards.

And while public school teachers report that heavy reliance on curriculum standards and assessment has cut down on creativity in the classroom and creates a "teach to the test" mentality, the local Jewish day schools feel they're able to meet - and exceed - the standards while providing programs rich in academic, Judaic, technology and fine art content.

The Arizona Department of Education's Arizona Academic Standards provides a set of state-mandated standards to be met at each grade level in each academic area.

The Jewish day schools report using these standards to ensure that students are covering the same units as students at the same grade level in schools across the state. In addition, the schools use what Janice Johnson, headmaster of the Jess Schwartz Jewish Community High School, calls the "top-down approach."

"We'll take a look at what the expectations are for the Ivy League schools, and then we build our curriculum down from that. So, that's our goal and then we work down until we fill all the pieces in, so every student has an opportunity to have all of the requirements that are necessary in order to go to one of those schools," she explains.

Likewise, the middle schools assure that their students meet the expectations for the college preparatory high schools.

"We have the responsibility to prepare students so that they can be accepted to the high school of their choice, so we certainly want our students to be prepared and ready to be very successful at Jess Schwartz," says Jill Kessler, head of school at Pardes Jewish Day School.

The King David School has a cyclical process of review for curriculum. The school recently completed an update and revision of the science and social studies curriculum at the school, according to Esther Feuerberg, head of school. The language arts and math curriculum was revised last school year and will be reviewed again next year.

"The curriculum is not supposed to be a stagnant document," says Feuerberg. "It's supposed to be a document that is ... revised and updated and changed on a regular basis."

King David has utilized the services of an education and curriculum consultant for the past three years. Part of her role is to visit the classroom, and review lesson plans and goals to assure that what is being taught in the classroom aligns with the school's curriculum standards.

"That's where teachers' input is most critical - not only by way of what they need to teach, but also by way of how it's being taught," explains Feuerberg. "Enrichment materials are usually incorporated, remediation materials are usually incorporated, and outlines of goals and expectations in measurable accomplishments and achievement have to be built in as well."

Feuerberg says the Judaic curriculum is also reviewed each year, and she has established a goal for a new Judaics coordinator at the school to create written Judaic curriculum guidelines for each grade level.

Likewise, Kessler says Pardes has an overview of the curriculum that is available to the public. It includes the standards for math, language arts, science, social studies, Judaics and Hebrew. The school is in the process of creating an overview of the Hebrew and Judaic curriculum for the middle school.

In addition, says Kessler, it's important to review the curriculum at other schools.

"We look at what independent private schools are doing because it gives you a wonderful measure and way to gauge whether your curriculum is keeping pace and that our rigor is the rigor of other schools as well," she says.

At the Tri-City Jewish Community Center Day School, the curriculum is also developed in-house following the state standards, according to Ilene Blau, JCC executive director. The three teachers at the school work collectively to ensure continuity in the curriculum.

One of the benefits of attending a small private school is that the curriculum need not be limited to teaching to the tests that measure the state standards.

"As a private school with smaller class sizes, we are very fortunate that we can accelerate the curriculum that is sometimes being given in area schools, because we're not having to do test prep for all of the testing that some of the state schools - public schools - are mandated (to do) because of No Child Left Behind," says Kessler. "What happened is in so many schools (No Child Left Behind) has reduced curriculum to just focus on core areas that are going to be tested."

Jess Schwartz recently began the Program of Interdisciplinary Learning. Teachers work in pairs or small groups with teachers from other disciplines to create lessons that teach students to make connections between what they're learning in one class and another. For example, a recent assignment about the Holocaust required writing an essay in English class based on information learned in a history class.

"We all know that the best way to really learn information is to be able to take that information and transfer it to a variety of situations. So the more opportunities you allow for students to do what we call 'create authentic tasks' - create projects and make things and have discussions and really pull things together - the more opportunities they have to do that, the better they'll really understand the knowledge, and then they can transfer that to a variety of situations throughout their lives," says Johnson.

Kessler says Pardes employs the same techniques.

"You don't just want skill and drill, where it's a worksheet-driven environment," she says. "You want curriculum that engages kids. You want curriculum that helps children make patterns and connections across the curriculum, because we know from the brain research that's been done in the last two decades that when you integrate your learning, when you help students make those patterns and connections, they retain that information. It's not just a skill that they memorize and then forget three weeks later."

Part of monitoring their students' performance compared to students at other schools is through standardized testing. King David, Pardes and the Tri-City JCC all report administering the Stanford 9 test to students each spring. This is the same test given to students in public schools. Private schools are not required to administer the AIMS (Arizona's Instrument to Measure Standards) test, although the Tri-City JCC does.

"I think it's very important for the parents to know in a private school in particular how their students measure to the state norms because when they're sending their child for a private education, they want their child to do the very best of their ability," says Blau.

"Private school parents are consumers," says Kessler. "They are paying for this education when it's something they could be getting free, so they basically want to know how (are) their students stacking up, how is the school stacking up."

Feuerberg says next year King David will begin administering a test to determine their knowledge and understanding of Jewish content.

At the high school, freshmen, sophomores and juniors take the PSAT, while seniors take the SAT and occasionally the ACT college entrance exams.

At a time when fine arts and physical education programs are being cut or reduced in the public schools, private independent schools are able to continue to provide music, art, technology, physical education and Spanish instruction.

Each of the schools offer after-school sports programs, and a variety of extracurricular activities including drama, chess, music, cooking, karate and more.

Last year, Jewish News reported on the challenges the Jewish day schools face with meeting the needs of special education students ("Meeting children's needs," Jewish News, May 30, 2003).

Since that time, Feuerberg says the Council for Jews with Special Needs has continued to provide support for the day schools.

"They are providing someone to come into our classrooms, make some observations and give input to the classroom teacher as to how to work with the students ... suggesting strategies, suggesting intervention techniques, suggesting how to individualize to a certain extent for the student's special needs," she explains.

King David has two-and-a-half staff positions responsible for remediation and enrichment with the students.

"In addition to remediation and enrichment by way of individualized instruction that is being done in the classroom, there is a pull-out program where youngsters who have either tremendous talents and need to be enriched or some deficiencies and need to be remediated, are pulled out on an individual or small group basis and they work with our academic specialists in both general studies and Judaic studies," explains Feuerberg.

Johnson says the high school's programs also include remediation and enrichment, as needed. The school offers an individualized four-week summer school program for students who need to get caught up, as well as dual enrollment classes at Arizona State University for gifted students.

Kessler says that Pardes is a finalist for a PEJE (Partnership for Excellence in Jewish Education) grant that will provide a learning resource teacher for the school for the upcoming school year. She anticipates being notified in June whether the school will receive the grant.

A representative of the Phoenix Hebrew Academy could not be reached for comment for this story.

Home