Is it Really Possibleto Grow Jewish DaySchool Enrollment?

New Research ofChicago Jewish Market Provides Direction

Partnership for Excellence in Jewish Education

Winter 2016

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PEJE believes that day schoolsare essential for fostering an engaged Jewish people for an enduring Jewish future.

To flourish, Jewish day schoolsmust be destinations of choice for students, families, and philanthropic investment.

PEJE is proud to be one of the five North American Jewish dayschool organizations and networksthat are moving toward the formation of NewOrg (temporaryname). NewOrg is committed tosupporting organizational vitalityand educational excellence inJewish day schools, and to enabling a vibrant, visible andconnected Jewish day school field.

By Dr. Harry Bloom, PEJEwww.peje.org© PEJE 2016

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OVERVIEW

Conventional wisdom holds that Jewish dayschools face enrollment challenges because ofdeclining rates of communal affiliation, asdocumented by the Pew Report, and the factthat incomes have not kept up with rates oftuition, reducing affordability for lower andmiddle income families. Still, despite thesepressures, The AVI CHAI Foundation’s dayschool census shows that non-Orthodox enrollment has stabilized in recent years.Whereas during over the 2008-2013 period,non-Orthodox day school enrollment declinedby an average 3% per year, during 2011-2013,the decline slowed to roughly 1.5% per year.

PEJE’s experience through its Atidenu recruitmentand retention program, generously co-fundedby The AVI CHAI Foundation, suggests that thefocused implementation of cutting-edge recruitment programs can actually result inmodest but important enrollment growth.

Using Atidenu and the research outlined here, we can forge a new path toward increasing non-Orthodox day school enrollment growth.

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RESEARCH DESIGN

Because Jewish day schools remain one of the most potentways to ensure a vibrant Jewish future, in early 2014, a PEJE-led coalition of generous Chicago-based funders, including theCrown Family; the Jewish United Fund (Chicago’s federation);and local day schools, set out to explore the potential formore aggressive non-Orthodox day school enrollmentgrowth. Chicago represented fertile ground for such research.Chicago has a rich array of choices of high-quality non-Orthodoxday schools, a creative and highly supportive federation, and a cadreof far-sighted foundations eager to explore promising experimentsto expand the number of families enrolled in day school.

During the first of two phases of the research, PEJE commissionedthe Melior Group of Philadelphia to conduct a qualitative marketresearch study among a carefully chosen population of prospectiveday school families whom the local day schools felt representedprime prospects. These families were asked about their top schoolchoice criteria, their perceptions of how Jewish day schools performedagainst those criteria relative to public and independent schools, thelikelihood of their sending their children to Jewish day schools andthe basis for their decision.

PEJE designed and managed an ambitious market research project designed to answerthree questions:

1What is the potentialsize of the non-Orthodox day schoolmarket relative to its current size?

2Which population segments offer the best prospects for achieving non-Orthodox enrollment growth?

3What are the key barriers to and enablers of growth?

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THE MELIOR FINDINGS suggested two key barriers to increased enrollment.

1Prospective non-Orthodox, Jewishly affiliated families simply did notbelieve that Jewish day schools, that allocate significant learning timeto Jewish as opposed to secular content, could possibly offer a com-paratively excellent secular education as public or private schools thatare solely focused on secular studies. Although respondents valued theJewish educational component of Jewish day schools, they simplycould not contemplate offering their children what they regarded as aless-positive pathway to future success.

2Even those families whose Jewish connections made them primeprospects for Jewish day schools began to consider seriously Jewishday schools too late in their financial planning lifecycle, after they hadstretched to buy homes on the North Shore, Chicagoland suburbanmarkets with high taxes that supported high quality public schools.

At this point, they simply did not see a feasible pathway to budgetingfor private school tuition.

Although respondentsvalued the Jewish educational componentof Jewish day schools,they simply could notcontemplate offeringtheir children what they regarded as a less-positive pathway to future success.

In contrast, families in more urban districts, with lower quality publicschool options, had already, in manycases, developed a financial plan that encompassed the possibility of privateschool tuition, though not necessarilyJewish day school.

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Armed with this research, in the spring of2015, PEJE undertook phase two of theresearch and commissioned MeasuringSuccess to conduct a quantitative studyof the Chicago market utilizing lists provided by the federation, including a PJLibrary membership list, JCC preschooland summer camp lists, and lists frommore than 10 cross-denominational synagogues. Families with young childrenwere asked about their school priorities,their perceptions of how well Jewish dayschools performed relative to both publicand independent schools on those priorities, and how likely they were tosend their children to Jewish day school.

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More than 1,000 totalfamilies, including 300families with childrenaged 0-4, responded.The results were relatively consistent with those of the qualitative research.They also indicated a clear direction for pursuing a day schoolgrowth agenda in a disciplined manner.

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KEY FINDINGS

1Using the most recent JUF census data, when the survey resultsamong the families with children 0-4 years of age were extrapolated to the Chicago Jewish population at large, theypointed to the theoretical potential to double the size of thenon-Orthodox Jewish day school kindergarten enrollment.

2The research identified six market segments with approximatelydouble the propensity to send their children to Jewish dayschools relative to the population at large. These segments includedresidents of two relatively urban Chicago neighborhoods comprisingapproximately 20 postal zip codes, JCC preschool families, JCC summercamp families, PJ Library families, and Conservative Jewish youngfamilies. Among the six growth segments, roughly 20% of familieswere very or extremely likely to send their children to Jewish dayschool versus 11% among the Chicago Jewish population at large.

3Members of the six growth segments believed that Jewish dayschools underperform versus public and independent schools onsome of their top school choice criteria. These criteria include: secular academic performance (Math & Science and English, SocialStudies and History), graduate academic preparation, teacher attention to student needs, and character development. Among thesegrowth segment members, Jewish day schools were almost invariablyassessed as underperforming against public and secular independentschools on secular academics and graduate academic preparation.They were generally assessed to be on par with private and publicschools on teacher attention to student needs. The one area in whichJewish day schools were perceived as outperforming public and independent schools was character development.

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WHAT ABOUT AFFORDABILITY?So far we have not mentioned concerns about affordability. Why? Because the research indicated that concern for affordability rankedlower than the factors mentioned earlier.

Yes, we need to worry about making our schools affordable and ensuring schools are financially accessible. But the research tells us that we should not put concern about affordability ahead ofdemonstrating our schools’ excellent performance on secular studiesand graduate preparedness. Further, if our schools cannot documentthat performance in these areas is superior to public schools and atleast equivalent to independent schools, they will need to improveperformance or the overwhelming majority of non-Orthodox dayschool parents will simply not consider our schools.

Parents care most about the educationalexperience, and if they don’t believe our schoolsprovide it, theydon’t care about affordability.

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ROADMAP FOR POTENTIAL SUCCESS

STEP1Jewish day schools must make a stronger, fact-based case fortheir relative performance in secular studies programs andgraduate academic preparedness. If evidence can be providedabout their competitive performance, it is reasonably likely thatmembers of the growth segments—already twice as likely tochoose Jewish day schools based on the survey results—mightwell increase their propensity to choose Jewish day schools.

PEJE’s experience over the past year working in depth with acadre of 26 Jewish day schools participating in its 18-month Atidenu recruitment and retention program indicates that Jewish day schools, almost without exception, have not rigorously documented their relative performance in secularstudies and graduate preparedness. More commonly, school marketing materials are likely to assert claims of excellence butdo not validate those claims based on objective facts or research.Teaching schools the need for documenting student outcomesand techniques for doing so has been one of several majorstrategies of Atidenu. This process can and should become amajor focus for all day schools.

stronger, fact-based casefor their relative performance

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PEJE and its Chicago research partners believe the research provides a potential roadmap toachieve significant growth in the non-Orthodox day school market.

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STEP 2Once excellence in secular academics and graduate preparedness iseffectively documented, individual Jewish day schools must createmarketing and communication plans that persuasively and persist-ently communicate their strong relative performance.

STEP 3The community must create a central data repository that gathersfacts about day school excellence so that a constant stream of community-wide day school facts and stories can be generated formarketing communication purposes.

STEP 4The community must create and implement a communal market-ing plan to tell the documented story of day school outcomes atthe communal level—in a manner that complements the commu-nication efforts of the individual schools.

marketing and communicationplansstrong relative performance

central data repository that gathers facts about day school excellence

communal marketing plan

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SUMMARY AND NEXT STEPS

Thanks to the Chicago research, we now know conclusively whatprospective families want and what they need to believe aboutJewish day schools’ performance to select them. A two-prongedapproach of better-documented benefits coupled with single-minded communication via every medium at our disposal—web,social media, e-newsletters, public relations, print materials—offers the potential to have a profound impact on attitudes toward our schools and preference for them.

The pathway to growth is definitely clearer. Now we need tohave the fortitude to travel it.

PEJE (soon to be part of NewOrg) will work with our communitypartners - potential funders, the Jewish United Fund, and fournon-Orthodox elementary and middle schools - to design thecontours of a growth pilot. The pilot will:

1Enable the individual schools to document and communicatetheir outcomes more conclusively;

2Ensure that the community is able to document collective dayschool outcomes; and

3Plan a concerted multi-media communal marketing communica-tions campaign to relentlessly and creatively tell the day schoolstory to the identified growth segments.

If this program proves to be successful in strengthening perceptionsof Jewish day school performance and school selection behavior,it may serve as a blueprint for non-Orthodox day school growththroughout North America.

For details about the Chicagoresearch program, pleasecontact Dr. Harry Bloom, harry@peje.org.

50 Milk Street, 16th FloorBoston, MA 02109(617) 367-0001

www.peje.org

© PEJE 2016