Hundreds Attend YU Jewish Job Fair Seeking Communal and Educational Careers 

Yeshiva University’s Center for the Jewish Future (CJF) and Institute for University-School Partnership hosted their annual Jewish Job Fair on YU’s Wilf Campus on February 28. More than 50 Jewish day schools and 20 community organizations from across North America, including the Orthodox Union, Nefesh B’Nefesh, Repair the World and others, participated in the event, which was free and open to the public, with YU students and alumni given one hour of priority access.

“Our annual Jewish Job Fair is a natural outgrowth of our mission to support and strengthen Jewish communities and organizations around the world,” said Rabbi Kenneth Brander, David Mitzner Dean of the CJF. Read the rest of this entry…

At YU School Partnership Conference, Educators Are the Experts

More than 70 Jewish day school leaders from 62 schools gathered on Yeshiva University’s Wilf Campus this week to pool experiences, ideas, connections and resources in a uniquely structured conference that put participants, rather than experts or speakers, in the spotlight.

Organized by YU’s Institute for University-School Partnership (YU School Partnership), the two-day convention, “CFG 2012,” ran from November 11-12 and built on previous Critical Friends Groups (CFG) which have been meeting regularly under YU School Partnership guidance for three years. Each group is a professional learning community of educators, administrators or school staff who come together in person and online to improve their practice through collaborative learning. Read the rest of this entry…

YU School Partnership Builds Infrastructure of Support and Mentoring for New Teachers in 15 Schools

With alarmingly low teacher retention rates in schools across North America, especially among new hires, more and more Jewish day schools and institutions are recognizing the need for increased support for new teachers. But the Yeshiva University Institute for University-School Partnership has found a new way to create strong, effective educators—and it starts from the top down.

From June 24 – 27, representatives from 15 Jewish day schools came together on YU’s Wilf Campus for a summer institute as part of the New Teacher Induction Program, an effort led by the YU School Partnership with a generous grant from the Jim Joseph Foundation.

Instead of focusing on new teachers individually, the program works with school leadership and faculty to build a comprehensive system of support and mentoring within each institution. Read the rest of this entry…

Cynthia Wachtell on New York State’s Flawed Public School Standardized Testing

Here is a modest proposal. Let’s have private school students take the same standardized tests that public school students now take each year.

Dr. Cynthia Wachtell is the director of the S. Daniel Abraham Honors Program at YU.

While we are at it, let’s require private school teachers to be absent from their students’ classrooms for the same number of days as public school teachers, who now must serve as conscripted graders for the standardized tests. Read the rest of this entry…

Mayor Cory Booker: “Use Your Faith to Help and Inspire Others”

On the evening of May 8, students, faculty, staff, alumni and members of the greater Yeshiva University community filled Lamport Auditorium to hear Cory Booker, mayor of Newark, New Jersey, discuss “The Role of Religion in Education and Public Life.” The event was the final installment of this year’s Great Conversation Series of the Zahava and Moshael Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought.

Rabbi Dr. Meir Soloveichik and Mayor Cory Booker discuss “The Role of Religion in Education and Public Life” at the final Straus Center event of the academic year.

The conversation—led by Straus Center Director Rabbi Dr. Meir Soloveichik—bounced around from discussing how Booker’s personal faith influences his daily life, issues regarding the importance of improving education, and the nature of faith in the public square in America. Throughout the conversation, the mayor sprinkled his words with pointed anecdotes, quotes of important figures like the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi, and—to the crowd’s delight—passages from biblical and rabbinic literature in English and in Hebrew. Read the rest of this entry…

Straus Center Presents May 7 Discussion with Newark Mayor Cory Booker

Newark Mayor Cory Booker and Yeshiva University’s Rabbi Dr. Meir Soloveichik will discuss “The Role of Religion in Education and Public Life” on Monday, May 7, 2012. The event begins at 8 p.m. and will take place in YU’S Lamport Auditorium, Zysman Hall on 2540 Amsterdam Avenue in Washington Heights. It is free and open to the public.

Mayor Cory Booker will discuss the role of religion in education and public life at the May 7 Straus Center event.

The discussion is part of YU’s “Great Conversations on Religion and Democracy” series, convened by the Zahava and Moshael Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought. Booker’s presentation will mark the fourth and final talk this academic year in the “Great Conversations” series. Previous guests were Senator Joseph Lieberman, Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, chief rabbi of the British Commonwealth, and former Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey.

“Mayor Booker is one of the most inspiring and thoughtful stars on the political scene today,” said Soloveichik. “I am honored that he will be joining us for what is certain to be an exciting, thought-provoking and entertaining evening.”

Mayor Booker, in his second term, is a force for change and urban reform. Reflecting his commitment to education, his administration was recently awarded a challenge grant of $100 million from billionaire and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg to improve Newark city schools. Among other recent notable achievements under his leadership, Newark has committed to a $40 million transformation of the City’s parks and playgrounds through a groundbreaking public/private partnership. The administration has also doubled affordable housing production and drastically reduced crime in the city.

The Straus Center is named in honor of Moshael J. Straus, an investment executive, alumnus and member of YU’s Board of Trustees, and his wife Zahava, a graduate of YU’s Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. The Center’s mission is to help develop Jewish thinkers and wisdom-seeking Jews by deepening their education in the best of the Jewish tradition, by exposing them to the richness of human knowledge and insight from across the ages, and by confronting them with the great moral, philosophical, and theological questions of our age.

Please RSVP to strauscenter@yu.edu. For more information, please visit www.yu.edu/straus.

Day School Leaders Pool Knowledge and Ideas as Part of YU School-Partnership’s Critical Friends Groups

Fourteen principals, heads-of-school and assistant principals from Jewish day schools across the country came together to share experiences, reflect on their own practice and hone their leadership skills at a retreat organized by Yeshiva University’s Institute for University-School Partnership on November 13-15.

The groups represent two of six YU School Partnership’s Critical Friends Groups that convene for annual in-person retreats and continue to meet virtually and at other conferences regularly. In contrast to traditional models, that bring in experts to train participants, the Critical Friends Group approach recognizes that school administrators are themselves experts in the field and taps into their inherent ability to create solutions and innovative progress by pooling their knowledge and talent.

“These programs are pivotal for leaders, and in turn, for the schools and communities which they service,” said Dr. Scott Goldberg, director of the YU School Partnership. “It is the school leaders who set the bar and that is why the YU School Partnership and supporters of Jewish education have a responsibility to provide an outlet for sharing new ideas and successful techniques.”

For the three-day retreat, each participant composed and presented a case study to their peers, presenting opportunities to brainstorm, receive feedback and expand their thinking on issues that confront many Jewish day schools on a regular basis.

“School leaders are often isolated from their colleagues because of time constraints and politics,” said Dina Rabhan, director of recruitment, placement and induction at the YU School Partnership. “What emerges from the Critical Friends conferences is a deeper appreciation of the power of convening and, more importantly, a collective commitment to continue the learning as a cohort to further support and develop their leadership skills.”

Collection of Azrieli Research on Orthodox Day School Education Combines Theory with Practice

Since its inception a decade ago, Yeshiva University’s Azrieli Graduate School of Jewish Education and Administration has pioneered serious research in Orthodox Jewish day schools in North America. The Azrieli Papers: Dimensions of Orthodox Day School Education, the school’s first volume of collected works, published by the Michael Scharf Publication Trust of Yeshiva University Press, showcases that research—in areas as critical and varied as educational psychology, differentiated instruction and school infrastructure—for an audience that includes parents and lay professionals as well as academics.

“We anticipate that this book will be a valuable reference tool in our own classes as well as in academic and professional programs elsewhere,” said David Schnall, dean of Azrieli and the book’s co-editor, whose contribution compares the right to an education in Jewish tradition and in American constitutional law.

“It is also intended as a reference tool for educators and school leaders, “added Schnall, “as well as for those involved in cognate institutions of Jewish education such as summer camps, youth programs and synagogues. Because of its readable style and focus on practice, parents of day school students would likely benefit from many of the articles and the expertise they represent.”

Some individual works in the Azrieli Papers were originally published as a special issue of Tradition magazine and place a heavy emphasis on the combination of theory and case studies. The mix is rare in a field which until recently has offered few hard facts or numbers for scholarly analysis. Made possible with the support of Henry and Golda Reena Rothman, the book is divided into sections using unique and creative resources to discuss topics as diverse and substantive as school structure, student psychology, educational philosophy and curriculum.

For example, a chapter by Dr. Lawrence Schiffman, a world-renowned expert in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Vice-Provost of Undergraduate Education at YU, examines the use of advances in archaeology as a tool for teaching Jewish studies. Azrieli’s holistic view of student-centered education is also highlighted in chapters by Dr. David Pelcovitz, Gwendolyn and Joseph Straus Chair in Psychology and Jewish Education at Azrieli, regarding at-risk behavior in children, and Dr. Rona Novick, University Professor in Education, about positive school culture and the problem of bullying in day schools.

“This book represents the confluence of theory and practice,” said Dr. Moshe Sokolow, associate dean at Azrieli and co-editor, whose chapter demonstrates the use of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik’s writing in developing a day school curriculum for tefillah [prayer]. “Jewish education can be improved,” Sokolow noted, “through research and development. Azrieli is uniquely situated to advance it in this way because our faculty and students engage both in practice in the field as well as research and theory.”

“One of the charges in writing The Azrieli Papers is the importance of combining serious practice with research,” said Dr. Jeffrey Glanz, Raine and Stanley Silverstein Chair in Professional Ethics and Values at Azrieli. “We’re trying to be practical for practitioners, teachers, counselors and rebbeim, but we want to show people there is also research and serious quality academics behind it.”

Glanz’s contribution is a game-changing piece about inclusion theory. It argues for the integration of students of all abilities in one class room, from the gifted to those with special needs, contrary to the prevailing belief that different environments are needed to educate students of differing levels.

“In our society we separate students who are not the norm,” said Glanz. “Children with mild retardation or autism, for example, are often excluded, and other children are not exposed to them. An inclusive model, both philosophically and practically, overcomes those prejudices. The extent to which we can mainstream students in the class and school is to benefit to all students and is the morally right thing to do.”

School Partnership’s YUTeach Fellowships Provide Mentoring and Support for Young Educators in Jewish Day Schools Across the Country

As part of its mission to bolster the Jewish day school movement, the Institute for University-School Partnership at Yeshiva University once again placed recent college graduates in communities across North America to begin their careers as educators.

The YUTeach Fellowships will place young educators in Jewish day schools across the country.

With support from the Legacy Heritage Fund Limited, 17 young teachers will participate in the Legacy Heritage Teacher Training Fellowship, a two-year program that provides fellows with support and mentorship within their host school, in addition to conferences, webinars and check-ins with staff at the Azrieli Graduate School of Jewish Education and Administration throughout the academic year. Over three summers, teaching fellows will also earn a master of science in education at Azrieli through a full-tuition scholarship.

Three additional teachers will be sponsored through the GiveBack Fellowship, a program that identifies dynamic graduates to assist with student activities, observe classroom teachers and provide support in other aspects of school programming. These fellows will also participate in a summer training session at Azrieli, receive close mentoring at their host school and attend conferences and monthly webinars relating to Jewish education.

The YUTeach Fellowships—comprised of the Legacy Heritage Teacher Training and GiveBack programs—provide “much more than a placement in a school for an aspiring teacher,” said Scott J. Goldberg, PhD, director of the YU School Partnership. “They offer a supportive structure in which to grow as a new teacher and a transformative experience for the students who are inspired by these young energetic educators. Schools asked us to get them teachers, and we’ve sent them much more.”

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“The fellowship seemed like an ideal entry into teaching because of the structure and the guidance it provided, in addition to the network and the courses at Azrieli,” said Raffi Rosenzweig, a Legacy Heritage Fellow who taught chumash and Jewish History at Dallas’s Yavneh Academy for the past two years. “As someone who had always enjoyed informal education but had no experience in a formal setting, I was hesitant at first to make the switch. That first summer before I started teaching I was in class at Azrieli and got that kind of professional training before I started, which helped me learn about the best practices in the field and how to implement them.”

Raffi Rosenzweig, left, a Legacy Heritage Fellow, has taught at Dallas’s Yavneh Academy for the past two years.

Aryeh Wasserman, a first-year Legacy Heritage teacher fellow who will lead gemara classes at Kohelet Yeshiva High School in Philadelphia, appreciated the program’s support in placing young teachers in their first positions. “When an institution like YU recommends you, it gives these teachers who want to make a difference and have the desire to grow into great teachers the chance to do so while we’re still young,” said Wasserman. “The fellowship really supports a culture of young, innovative teachers who want to bring their excitement to Jewish youth.”

That excitement is shared by the schools. “Having a fellow means everything to us because we are constantly looking for new talent,” said Raizy Wilk, a teacher and administrator at Maimonides Academy in Los Angeles who will be mentoring Rabbi Ouriel Hazan and Malka Nutkiewicz, two fellows at her school this year. “We want teachers who understand where our students are coming from emotionally, psychologically and religiously and who are dedicated to becoming the best professionals they can be and that’s what YU looks for in a fellowship candidate. By partnering with YU, we provide the most exciting and innovative experience for our students.”

The Legacy Heritage Teacher Training and GiveBack Fellowships are open to students from all colleges. Visit the YU School Partnership’s Web site at www.yu.edu/azrieli/schoolpartnership for more information or to apply.

Leaders in Jewish Education to Convene for North American Jewish Day School Conference

More than 600 leaders and educators at Jewish day schools across the spectrum of Jewish practice will convene February 6 – 8 in Los Angeles for the North American Jewish Day School Conference, exploring issues and approaches changing the face and direction of Jewish day school education for the new decade.

From making special education a priority within the Jewish day school framework, to harnessing technology to enhance and strengthen curricula and classrooms, to maintaining financially sustainable institutions of quality, the conference will address issues relevant to a day school movement committed to transmitting knowledge, enhancing practice, ensuring a vibrant future and solidifying its place on the educational landscape.

The conference is a joint initiative of the Institute for University-School Partnership at Yeshiva University, the Solomon Schechter Day School Association, RAVSAK: The Jewish Community Day School Network and PARDeS: The Progressive Association of Reform Day Schools. This is the second year that the organizations, representing the arc of Jewish movements and educational approaches, have joined to organize the conference and explore common issues.

“This conference, representing a collaboration among Reform, Conservative, Orthodox and Community day schools, and now in its second year, is already established as a paradigm for silo-busting in the Jewish community,” said Dr. Marc Kramer, executive director of RAVSAK. “Our common denominator is the recognition that Jewish day schools are the most significant venue for Jewish continuity. So it is that we convene to examine the essential emerging issues for Jewish schools.”

The theme of the conference is The High Performance, High-Tech Jewish Day School of the Very Near Future, underscoring how Jewish educational professionals are transforming their individual institutions – and the day school movement itself  – into inclusive venues of educational quality and value utilizing proven, effective and emerging approaches.

“The registration of hundreds of schools and organizational leaders for the second annual North American Jewish Day School Conference is testimony that our first gathering was a success and that convening the field focused on Jewish education is an integral part of our collective work,” said Dr. Scott Goldberg, director of the Institute for University-School Partnership. “This year’s conference, focusing on schools of the future, reinforces our partnership with schools and the field at large in advancing Jewish education today and for generations to come. Educators and leaders will once again have the opportunity to network and learn from each other and experts, gaining the knowledge, skills, and dispositions to lead our schools in the 21st century.”

Nearly 70 sessions and workshops will focus on the provocative issues, ideas, challenges and opportunities facing Jewish educational leaders building the day schools of the future, and including the promises and pitfalls of Israel education, new technologies and philanthropic support.

Jewish education for students with special needs occupies a significant slice of programming at the 2011 conference, reflecting trends toward inclusion as a Jewish value to be reflected in day schools, offering children with special needs a community option for formal Jewish education.

The North American Jewish Day School Leadership Conference is sponsored by the AVI CHAI Foundation, the Center for Initiatives in Jewish Education, The Covenant Foundation, ERB, the Partnership for Excellence in Jewish Education, The Kohelet Foundation and several anonymous funders.

A full schedule for the conference is viewable at the conference website, www.jewishdayschoolconference.org.