<HTML>Caveat emptor.
The standards that are addressed by "proficiency" can be unsuitable for
Yeshivot unless accompanied by additional "achievement" based standards.
Proficiency, per se, means facility in speech and communication (certainly
not to be sneezed at) and are not directly applicable to many
objectives--like reading comprehension--which are the mainstays of day
school Jewish education.
Considerable thought must still be given to apportioning curricular time
and focus between these two different sets of objectives. The division
could be disciplinary: some subjects, perhaps Jewish thought and history
and hilkhot life-cycle, can emphasize proficiency standards, while others,
like Tanakh and tefillah, require greater achievement. Or the distinction
might be chronological: younger students should acquire greater facility
in speech and listening comprehension, as opposed to older students whose
textual needs are greater.
While we are grateful to the World Council for Torah Education for taking
this bold initiative, we need to exercise restraint before jumping to
conclusions. The desire to produce evidence that all the time we spend on
Hebrew achieves tangible, objectifiable, results is understandable and
even laudable. We should not rush headlong, however, into an adventure
with the potential to significantly alter the way and the why of what we
teach.</HTML>
