NSW Jewish education report suffers from insular focus on Jewish schools

JULIE SZEGO: By conceding that its remit was limited to Jewish schools, the Gonski report has ignored the key question of why more families are turning to public schools for a Jewish education

LAST YEAR INFLUENTIAL FIGURES in Victoria’s Jewish community launched the Jewish Schools Project, a plan to tackle what they say is a looming crisis in Jewish education as day school fees soar and enrolments flatline. The Project kicked off with a discussion paper spelling out the crisis and flagging four possible solutions.

At the time of the paper’s release, I heard rumblings a similar report was underway in NSW where Jewish schools are likewise under existential threat from high fees, demographic trends and assimilation.

The NSW education review was to be steered by businessman David Gonski, whose landmark schools funding report a decade ago ushered in what was touted as a fairer system that would end the nation’s “divisive” debates about educational inequity.

The new report— let’s call it the NSW Jewish community’s Gonski report— was released last week. It is entitled, Survive to thrive: Securing the future of Jewish education in New South Wales. “Jewish education” in this context refers to Jewish day schools, five in particular: Emanuel School, Kesser Torah College, Masada College, Moriah College and Mount Sinai College.

Nearly 43 per cent of Jewish school-aged children in NSW attend Jewish schools, five per cent less than these schools’ full capacity. The report flags half a dozen “big ideas” to help the schools address “enrolment fragility”, including a grants scheme to recruit more kindergarten children.

Basically, the Gonski report reprises the themes explored in the Melbourne paper. This fact alone is both surprising, and disappointing because the Melbourne report caused an unexpected commotion.

I criticised the Melbourne report in this publication for its insularity, its refusal to consider, even in passing, the notion that the 40 per cent of families outside the day schools might have positive reasons for being there and that instead of moralising about their choices, instead of chiding them for creating a “vicious circle” that makes public schools yet more attractive to Jews, the community could beef up its educational outreach.

I wrote that piece, as I write this one, as an unapologetic advocate for public education. I believe children gain lifelong lessons from being in classrooms that reflect the society they live in.

I believe — more to the point, the OECD believes — that educational segregation between rich and poor kids imperils Australia’s economic growth, and social cohesion. I’m also passionate about Jewish education, which I believe can be richly imparted outside of Jewish day school settings.

I wasn’t the only one who criticised the Melbourne paper. On social media people were pushing back against the paper’s reflexive day school chauvinism. Some suggested the community would be better served creating “"Jewish schools” in the state system.

Responding to the report in The Australian Jewish News, Gabi Crafti, president of the United Jewish Education Board — the Victorian organisation providing outreach programs and cited, somewhat bafflingly, in the discussion paper as a “key stakeholder”— warned communal leaders not to make “simplistic” assumptions about why families shun day schools and insisted Jewish education was a “broader conversation” than the financial viability of four schools.

Thereafter the convenor of the Jewish Schools Project, Alan Schwartz, acknowledged the paper should have been more inclusive of other perspectives. He said diverse voices would be part of future discussions in Victoria.

It seemed to me that communal leaders had been taught a lesson about the perils of talking about people as if they’re not in the room, so to speak. But apparently the controversy didn’t reach Sydney.

The Gonski report at least explicitly describes its remit as limited to Jewish schools. The only acknowledgment of an educational ecosystem outside day schools comes in the context of a proposal to create an umbrella group, the Jewish Education Alliance Sydney, which would also benefit “those education providers outside of the Jewish day school system”.

While a sense of urgency permeates the Melbourne report, Sydney’s report is thick with statements such as: “In a complex environment combining secular and religious instruction under heavy State and Federal Government policy oversight, Sydney’s Jewish day schools must strike a fine balance to provide engaged learning, development and growth opportunities for both students and staff.”

Meaning what - exactly? That it’s tough being a Jewish school these days?

And this: “While the NSW Jewish day schools have endeavoured to maintain the lowest possible fees for as long as possible, and are priced lower than many other private independent schools … they ultimately provide a private, independent, Jewish education and, as with all private independent schools in Australia, the costs of attendance are therefore high compared to essentially ‘free’ public schools.”

I think this means: private schools charge fees. Because they’re private schools.

Linguistic abstraction is usually a sign of authorial nervousness. I did get the impression the defence of Sydney’s Jewish schools lacked the swagger of Melbourne’s effort. Indeed, Gonski identifies a perception among parents that other independent schools offer a “better product”, including better results, than the Jewish schools. (No such anxieties surround Melbourne’s Jewish schools, which ritually jostle for the highest rungs of ATAR league tables.)

Meanwhile, the report tells us, other families are “choosing a government school, as they can still experience a sense of the Jewish community without the fees”. Does this mean no public school families see their choice as better value for money, “a better product”? Or did the researchers on whose data the report is based simply assume people concerned about educational quality don’t go looking for it at government schools?

It’s always been my understanding NSW public schools offer “a better product” than their Victorian counterparts, but perhaps it’s still not considered good enough to be a drawcard.

Otherwise, the report tosses around ideas for boosting the performance and reputation of Jewish schools to an extent that made me feel the public schools were being unfairly talked down. One idea involved approaching universities with “an agreeable program” to attract ATAR points for student admission.

Finally, we arrive at what I referred to earlier as the report’s intriguing aside. It appears as a suggestion for securing more federal money. The community would establish a UK-style “charter” or “community” school, “which are government schools run by a particular religious group or, alternatively, a group with a particular educational focus.”

“The establishment of an equivalent concept in Australia – a public school run by one or more of the Jewish day schools – would alleviate the pressure of charging fees to fund a large portion of expenses and result in a school open to many more Jewish children,” the report asserts.

This is a radical idea, albeit one the Catholic education sector chews over from time to time.

Here, instead of colonising a public school and making it a de-facto Jewish school — as some folks in Melbourne want to do — we take a Jewish school and turn it into a public school. Does the report float this option as tactical surrender or as spiritual transcendence?

I can’t tell. I’m also unsure about the fine print. Would this mean that schools could no longer charge fees, that their resources would belong to the state and their doors theoretically open to everyone?

Would the community go for this?

READ
NSW Jewish education review proposes six ‘big ideas’ for the future