See the survey questions here.

For this issue of the journal we conducted a survey of day school educators. Using SurveyMonkey (www.surveymonkey.com) we created a simple anonymous questionnaire, which we sent to 185 educators. We received 65 responses, yielding a response rate of 35%. The questionnaire focused on three related aspects of Jewish studies (all somehow connected to the broader question of assessment) and looked at each of them from three different perspectives. The three aspects were the use of tests, the assignment of homework, and the maintenance of academic standards parallel to those which exist in General studies. The three perspectives were teacher perceptions of the school’s attitude toward each of these, teacher perception of what other teachers were actually doing, and teacher perceptions of what the parent body in the school desires.

While the survey is revealing, it should be thought of as a pilot rather than as a thorough, scientific study. The results yielded by the pilot survey raise important questions that a more rigorous study should investigate and suggest avenues for further exploration. While teachers’ perceptions of each of these areas is interesting, that raises questions about whether those perceptions indeed reflect the realities within their schools.

The overall results generated by the survey are fairly interesting, in that an overwhelming majority of schools from across the ideological spectrum support the notion of academic standards in Jewish studies, including the assignment of homework and administering tests, and that the parents in those schools generally support that emphasis. Those aggregate numbers, however, do not reflect many of the subtleties which emerge from looking at individual responses. For example, in every category of question more than 75% of the respondents agreed that their school supports academic standards in Jewish studies parallel to those in General studies (including assigning homework and giving tests), that the majority of teachers in their school implement it, and that the parent body supports that value as well. Looking at individual responses, however, reveals that in nearly half of the schools there is resistance to some aspect of those academic standards, whether in the area of tests or homework, or whether from parental support or faculty implementation. Also interesting was that the percentage of schools not supporting high academic standards in Jewish studies did not break along ideological lines, so that 17 out of 35 community schools reported weak support in at least one area of academic standards, 9 out of 19 Orthodox schools reported weak support, and 3 out of 8 Conservative schools reported weak support.

Also interesting was the question of whether the respondent believed that assigning homework or giving tests in Jewish studies raises the seriousness with which students relate to their Jewish studies. There was no correlation at all between the respondents’ answers to this question and whether their schools encouraged those standards or not.

Missing from this survey are important demographic data, which would be critical for a more in-depth understanding of the topic. That data would include breakdown by school ideology, school size, the size and nature of the community in which the school is located, the nature of the competition from other neighborhood schools, education level of the parents, and more. Also missing from the survey was an analysis of the reasons for emphasis, or lack of emphasis, on academic standards. Was the determining factor ideological, a result of parental pressure, different training for Jewish studies and General studies teachers and administration, or the result of some other factor?