Celebrating Excellence: A Challenge to Jewish Educators

Publication Date: January 1993

Publisher: Jewish Communal Service Association of North America

Author(s): Gerald B. Bubis

Research Area: Education

Keywords: Education; Teachers; Religion

Type: Report

Coverage: United States

Abstract:

The Jewish community must clarify what it expects of Jewish educators and Jewish education. The educators have received a series of mixed messages. What should be taught? What are hoped-for outcomes? The community must sanction the measurement of outcomes. There must be clearer sanctions for professionalization. What does it truly mean when you say you are a Jewish teacher? Are criteria a matter of standards, of certification, of content clarification? What is the reward and the benefit system? One can understand the anger of the Jewish educators who are being "celebrated" and praised on the one hand while their salaries are being cut to balance budgets on the other. It is time to build. It is time to act.