Preparing for College in Kindergarten.

This past summer The Economist had an article about private schools that flew in the face of everything we're seeing in the Los Angeles day school community: the Economist wrote that despite the recession, private schools were doing just fine, thank you. Of course, if you look at the Jewish Day School world, the information is just the opposite: the recession threatens the very existence of schools throughout the country. Hence, PEJE's decision to refocus itself toward a macro vision of promoting best practices instead of a micro vision of helping specific schools.

In his recent blog, Pat Bassett, the head of NAIS, notes the distinction between parochial and independent schools, writing:

"So, what we’ve found in the US and Britain is largely a fierce commitment to private schools, even during hard times. This commitment is especially true for independent schools in the US — schools whose attrition is near normal nominal rates, in stark contrast to enrollment attrition in parochial schools, where attrition has become in many locales debilitating, as the system’s funds have dried up and where the socio-economic base doesn’t have the family reserves to sustain children in the schools" (emphasis added).

Bassett writes that while "at the deepest level", parents remain committed to the values of an independent school, something more is going on: parents are also deeply interested in the college preparatory aspects of the program, even at the elementary school level. Bassett states:

"So, what is driving the loyalty to independent schools? At the deepest levels, NAIS believes that independent school families appreciate the value-set of our schools, see the peer attitudes/ kid culture as affirming of an orientation necessary for success, appreciate the culture and climate the faculty instill in terms of “knowing and valuing” each child, and, in this particular moment of economic uncertainty, accordingly commit to whatever it takes to keep their children safe and secure in a familiar and working educational setting. In short, parents seems to have concluded, “Let’s sacrifice as needed to keep the kids in their school so we at least don’t have to worry about their well-being, while we sort out how to hold the rest of our economic lives together.”

But Bassett also notes that commitment to independent schools involves something more than just a commitment to certain values. Indeed, parochial schools are all about values education, but they are struggling. Bassett thus states:

"All NAIS schools that I know of are "college-prep" schools, including the elementary schools, and the Montessori and Waldorf schools, and even the LD schools, by which I mean that parents choose our schools because they want their kids to go to college and to be successful there . . .So we shouldn't be at all defensive about being "college-prep" as one of our primary calling cards; we should be much clearer in our marketing of all schools, including elementary schools, that “college-prep” is what we do, in additional to a myriad of other no less important but less easily trackable outcomes" (emphasis added).

I think that Bassett has it right. I have been in countless meetings with community members and others who downplay academic rigor and mock those parents who want their kids to attend the "best" college for their children. They say that "getting Johnny into the best college" isn't important, but knowing about tikkun olam is.

But this is disingenuous. Both are equally important. Our parents (and many of these same parents who mock academic rigor) send their children to private schools precisely because they hope that it will both help their kids get into the best college for their students and provide a values oriented environment. I think that discounting academic rigor is a big mistake; one of Kadima's strengths, historically, is that our program is academic, is rigorous, and does prepare kids for college. We shouldn't shy away from this; we shouldn't be afraid to say that Kadima is an academic institution.

Yes, we must never forget that our schools are based and committed to certain sacred and Jewish values; and we must never forget that forging a sacred community for our parents and children is essential for our success; however, at the same time, we must also never forget that our parents, in the end, send their kids to private school because they want their kids to reach their highest academic potential. We must make sure that our program both provides values and academic excellence.

At Kadima, we're striving to do just that.