The future of Jewish schooling in the United Kingdom
A strategic assessment of a faith-based provision of primary and secondary school education
1/Introduction
Aims of the report
The
growth of Jewish day schools
A
brief history of Jewish day school provision in the United Kingdom
A
'crisis' of Jewish education
Structure
of the report
Education in the British Jewish community has changed radically over the last fifty years. An increasing number of children are now being educated in full-time Jewish day schools, and there has been a rapid decline in the take-up of part-time, supplementary (after school or at weekends) cheder education. Over the last thirty years, communal leaders have called for Jewish education to become the number-one priority for British Jewry. Communal expenditure on Jewish education now amounts to tens of millions of pounds. Jewish day school education has also been affected by a range of government educational policies that have fundamentally changed the provision of day school education across the whole of the United Kingdom. Despite these major changes, and the importance of proposed government initiatives on the future directions of Jewish schooling, there is still little knowledge or understanding of the effectiveness of current Jewish educational provision, in particular the strengths and weaknesses of Jewish day schooling.
This report assesses the current provision of primary and secondary Jewish day school education in the United Kingdom. Its specific aims are:
- to assess the provision of education and performance of primary and secondary Jewish day school pupils in general subjects;
- to assess the provision of education and performance of primary and secondary Jewish day school pupils in Judaic subjects;
- to assess the key strategic issues facing Jewish day schools in the short to medium term;
- to analyse the needs and wants of Jewish parents.
The broader aims of the report involve an analysis of the system (or systems) of Jewish day school education, including a discussion of Jewish day schools in relation to wider national concerns about the role of faith-based education. It considers the overall purpose and effectiveness of Jewish day schools, and whether they are the most effective and efficient way of 'Jewishly' educating children. It discusses whether Jewish schools are succeeding in what they set out to do, and if this is what they should be doing in the first place. It also considers who sets the agenda for how Jewish schools operate and whether that agenda reflects the needs and wants of parents.
In short, this report sets out to analyse the strengths and weaknesses of full-time Jewish day schooling from a policy perspective, and considers whether the different approaches to provision are effective and match 'market' wants and needs. It attempts to answer the key policy question of whether Jewish day schools—as an example of faith-based schooling— work, for the pupils, parents, sponsors, Jewish communities and wider society.
The growth of Jewish day schools
The estimated Jewish population in the United Kingdom has declined from over 400,000 in 1950 to less than 300,000 in
2001. This fall is due to factors such as emigration, low fertility rates and assimilation resulting from the marriage of Jews to
partners from outside the Jewish community. In sharp contrast, recent years have witnessed a rapid increase in the number
of Jewish pupils attending Jewish day schools.
Table 1.1 Growth in attendance at Jewish day schools from 1950 to 1999 (1)
|
Year
|
Number of pupils attending full-time |
| 1950 | 4,000 |
| 1966 | 10,000 |
| 1975 | 12,800 |
| 1991 | 16,000 |
| 1999 | 22,640 |
Table 1.1 shows the rapid increase in attendance at Jewish day schools since the 1950s, using figures based on
institutional records and responses of individual schools. Analysis of the 1995 JPR
survey, which examined the social and
political attitudes of a representative sample of 2,194 adult British Jews, corroborates these figures (see Table
1.2).(2)
Table 1.2 Percentage of British Jews educated in full-time Jewish primary or secondary day schools according to age cohort
| Year of birth |
Percentage of Jews educated in full-time Jewish primary or secondary day school education
|
| Before 1925 | 9 |
| 1926–35 | 10 |
| 1936–45 | 14 |
| 1946–55 | 23 |
| 1956–65 | 30 |
| 1966–77 | 36 |
Table 1.2 shows that, among those born in the 1920s and early 1930s, the percentage of British Jews educated in Jewish day schools was less than 10 per cent. For those born in the late 1930s and after, the percentage attending Jewish day schools has doubled every generation. In 1999 more than 50 per cent of primary-age Jewish children attended Jewish day schools. Thus, in the half-century since 1950, during which the British Jewish population declined by over 25 per cent, the number of Jewish children in full-time Jewish education has increased by around 500 per cent.
As a corollary to the increasing take-up of full-time Jewish day school education, which combines a general and Judaic curriculum, there has been a concomitant decline in the take-up of part-time, supplementary cheder education, which is solely devoted to the teaching of Judaism from a religious perspective. In 1975 there was a ratio of just under 1.5 children in a supplementary school for each child in a Jewish day school; by 1996–7 the pattern had completely reversed, so that for each child in a supplementary school, there were 1.7 children in a Jewish day school.(3)
According to the most recent (1999) figures from the Community Research Unit of the Board of Deputies of British Jews,
22,640 pupils attended 135 UK Jewish day schools (including both independent and state schools at nursery, primary and
secondary level). However, the Department for Education and Employment (DfEE) defines independent schools in a
different way and, hence, there are 49 Jewish independent schools on the Independent Schools' Register, with 8,904
pupils.(4)
The difference arises because schools sometimes create internal subdivisions, with separate
head-teachers for separate
nursery, primary or secondary 'schools'; the Board of Deputies' number of 101 independent Jewish day schools includes
many of these subdivisions as separate schools. Both approaches are valid but, for the purposes of comparing Jews with
other religious or ethnic groups, the DfEE figures should be used. The Board of Deputies' figures are shown in Table 1.3
(with DfEE figures in parentheses).
Table 1.3 Attendance at Jewish day schools, 1999(5)
|
Number of pupils |
Number of Schools |
|
| Type of school | ||
| Nursery | 1,830 | 43 |
| Primary | 11,610 | 46 |
| Secondary |
9,090 |
42 |
| Special
educational needs (SEN)
|
110 | 4 |
| Geographical location | ||
| Greater London | 16,230 | 86 |
| Rest of Britain
|
6,410 | 49 |
| Religious affiliation | ||
| Progressive | 520 | 10 |
| Central Orthodox | 12,030 | 62 |
| Strictly
Orthodox
|
10,090 | 63 |
| Funding basis | ||
| Voluntary-aided (state) | 11,760 | 34 |
| Independent
(private, fee-paying)
|
10,880 | 101 (49) |
| Total | 22,640 | 135 (83) |
A brief history of Jewish day school provision in the United Kingdom
Traditionally, education has been at the top of the Jewish communal agenda. As befits the 'people of the book', education has always been at the heart of Judaism, through the study of sacred texts and the teaching of traditional practices and beliefs. Nonetheless, the importance of Jewish day school provision to the Jewish community in the United Kingdom has waxed and waned, as has the balance between religious and general (or sometimes vocational) studies.
The starting point for Jewish day schooling in the United Kingdom was the establishment of the Jews' Free School (JFS,
later known as the Jewish Free School), founded in 1732. At the turn of the twentieth century, JFS—located in Spitalfields in
the East End of London—had become the largest elementary school in England with 4,300
pupils.(8) In 1871, when 2,600
pupils already attended the school, the Headmaster Moses Angel described it as an institution designed for the anglicization
of immigrant children. Angel argued that such children
| were ignorant even of the elements of sound; until they had been Anglicized or humanized it was difficult to tell what was their moral condition, and many of them scarcely knew their own names . . . Their parents were the refuse population of the worst parts of Europe, whose first object in sending the children to school was to get them out of the way.(9) |
In 1870 the government passed the Elementary Education Act, which established a national education system that
provided official funds to voluntary schools that were mainly run by religious groups (see
Chapter 2), but also set up local
school boards to build schools in areas where voluntary provision was inadequate. From 1880 increasing numbers of
immigrant Jews arrived in the United Kingdom from Tsarist Russia. However, attendance at Jewish voluntary schools across
the country increased much more slowly than at the newly established board schools: of the 6,929 Jewish children attending
schools in 1882, 37 per cent were in board schools; by 1894 there were 15,964 Jewish pupils, 51 per cent of whom were in
board schools.(10) Prior to the 1870 Education Act, children attending non-Jewish schools were exposed to Christian religious
instruction, but from this date the 'religiously neutral' tax-supported state system could educate Jewish children 'just as the
rest of the children of England'. The distinctions between voluntary Jewish and board schools gradually faded, with a
number of the latter in areas where there was dense Jewish settlement being run on Jewish lines. These schools closed early
on winter Friday afternoons and even taught classes on religious Jewish education.
| The existence of a special Jewish sub-system within the State school system was regarded with some justice as a sound solution to the problem of schooling immigrant children. No serious question was raised of the propriety of having State schools 'distinctly set aside for Jewish children'. Denominational education had been the historic foundation of English education, and Jewry was content with equality for its children within the framework of religious teaching given in State schools.(11) |
Nevertheless, while Jewish parents seemed to display little discernible preference between Jewish schools and the state system, they still opted for traditional forms of Jewish religious education via the cheder system: 'Immigrant Jewry did not greatly care who made Englishmen of their children, but they jealously guarded their right to make Jews of their children in their own way.'(12) The cheder system, which was reviled by the Anglo-Jewish establishment because of its shabby settings and its being a barrier to anglicization, continued to thrive.
During the Second World War, Jewish day school education suffered severe disruption. JFS was bombed, and of the seven Jewish elementary schools that had existed in London in 1929, only two remained by 1950.
In 1944, the so-called 'Butler' Education Act was passed, which set out to provide universal secondary education. The
Act offered state support for voluntary full-time day schools under denominational auspices, in accordance with
parental
wishes.
| In the exercise and performance of all powers and duties concerned and imposed on them by this Act the Secretary of State and local education authorities shall have regard to the general principle that, so far as is compatible with the provision of efficient instruction and training and the avoidance of unreasonable public expenditure pupils are to be educated in accordance with the wishes of their parents.(13) |
However, 'British Jewry failed magnificently to take early advantage of these opportunities', with the community much slower to take up the possibilities than Catholics.(14) In a post-war climate marked by an assimilationist ethos, the segregated nature of Jewish schools was associated with immigrant status. Moreover, there were also key communal divisions in the leadership of the Jewish community, which hampered efforts to construct new schools. The Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth, Dr J. H. Hertz, vetoed formal co-operation with the Progressive community. The Jewish Secondary Schools Movement (JSSM), headed by Dr Solomon Schonfeld, would have no truck with the Zionist Federation that was embarking on an ambitious school-building programme. Such public disagreements prevented the ministry of education from allocating funds to Jewish voluntary schools, and it was only in 1954 that this was resolved, with
Schonfeld agreeing to withdraw his objection to the rebuilding of the Jews' Free School.(15)
Parental attitudes began to change during the 1960s, when the Labour government started to abolish selective secondary
(grammar) schools. School standards were deemed to have fallen with the introduction of comprehensive schools, and a
negative reaction to the growing proportion of recent immigrant ethnic minority pupils may also have acted as a spur in
some urban areas for the provision of Jewish primary and secondary schools. Many Jewish children were sent to elite private
schools, but Jewish voluntary schools also became more attractive. The total number of Jewish schools (both state-sector
voluntary-aided and independent) rose from 23 in 1954, 57 in 1975, 70 in 1989, to 135 in
1999.(16)
In interpreting the provisions of the 1944 Act, government policy allowed local authorities to reject applications for new
schools if there were sufficient pupil places available to meet demand. The full implications of this policy emerged in 1974,
with forecasts of falling school populations over the next eighteen years. The reality of these falling numbers prevented
many newly established Jewish schools from obtaining state aid. In any case, many of these schools were associated with the
strictly Orthodox community and might not have met Local Education Authority (LEA) standards. Much political lobbying
was done in the late 1980s for the Conservative government to be more amenable to Jewish requests. The government at that
time was, however, apparently reluctant to create too many precedents that might encourage segregated ethnic minority
religious schools, particularly Muslim ones.
During the 1997 UK general elections, New Labour swept to power under the mantra 'education, education, education',
with initiatives such as the abolition of the 'assisted places' scheme that had provided moneys for parents on low incomes
who wanted to send their children to independent grammar schools. In February 2001, the government released a Green
Paper, Building on Success, which, in a drive to modernize (particularly secondary) schooling through a more
'tailored' approach to education, specifically welcomed the development of more faith-based
schools.(17) The government
proposes to reduce the amount of capital funding costs that faith, voluntary and other community groups need to provide
for the construction of new school buildings. Currently, voluntary-aided schools provide 15 per cent of capital costs and
the government provides the rest. The Green Paper proposes to reduce schools' contributions to 10 per cent, thus
encouraging more such schools to be built. This would seem to match the desire of at least some communal leaders to
increase the provision of places at Jewish day schools. JFS is currently in the process of a £35–40 million move from
inner-city Camden to suburban Kenton (in the London borough of Brent), and an enlargement from an eight- to a ten-form entry school.
A 'crisis' of Jewish education
The growth in the number of Jewish day schools since 1950 was a response by communal leaders in the United Kingdom to
expressed concerns about a 'crisis' in Jewish education. While nineteenth-century educationalists such as Moses Angel
principally worried about the anglicization of Jews, Jewish communal leaders in the second half of the twentieth
century became more concerned with their (re)judaization. Dr Immanuel Jacobovits, Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth from 1967 to 1991,
called for a massive re-alignment of communal priorities towards Jewish religious education. In 1971 he launched the Jewish
Educational Development Trust (JEDT), arguing that British Jewry needed to invest heavily in Jewish education and, in
particular, that it should double the capacity of Jewish schools. In 1992 the JEDT published Securing Our Future (The Worms Report), which argued that there was a
lack of continuity in Jewish education beyond the early teens. It estimated that by their teenage years 60 per cent of Jews no
longer receive any formal Jewish education, and by age 17 only 10 per cent will have 'stayed the course'. The report also
noted that the Jewish educational system was fragmented, with a lack of shared aims and co-ordinated action; it made a
number of suggestions for improvement. In particular, it argued that there would soon be an
over-provision of day school
places at secondary level, so that the community should concentrate on developing 'people not buildings': 'The data that
have been collected suggest that the community will soon be over-provided with day school places, but desperately short of
qualified and dedicated Jewish teachers.'(20)
In 1993, the current Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth, Dr Jonathan Sacks, also
launched a major educational initiative: a 'decade of Jewish renewal' that was to be headed by a new flagship
organization, Jewish Continuity. Arguing on the basis of a 'crisis of continuity' associated with a fear that assimilation and
intermarriage were threatening the survival of diaspora Jewry, he urged British Jewry to develop a coherent global
educational strategy. Jewish Continuity as a distinctive organization collapsed under the weight of infighting between
different religious groupings, but it merged with the Joint Israel Appeal (JIA) charity to become the United Jewish Israel
Appeal (UJIA). The UJIA is now the second largest UK Jewish charity, with an annual expenditure of around £13–14
million, about a third of which goes into formal and informal Jewish education in Britain.
The importance invested in education by communal leaders is also reflected in the overall spending pattern of the
organized Jewish community. The first of the JPR Long-term Planning for British Jewry (LTP) reports,
The Financial
Resources of the UK Jewish Voluntary Sector, calculated that of the 1,910 financially independent
organizations, 337 are specifically educational in focus. Annual expenditure for this sector in 1997 was calculated to be £95
million—72 per cent of which goes on staff costs—accounting for around one-quarter of the total annual expenditure of the
UK Jewish voluntary sector.(21) Nevertheless, these figures do not include government money going to state-sector Jewish
schools: such funds are not classed as part of the voluntary sector, and thus were outside the remit of that report. If such
moneys had been included, or if account is taken of the centuries of investment in Jewish educational institutions (such as
the very high capital costs that have been invested in constructing Jewish day schools over the years), the huge financial
investment in education by the Anglo-Jewish community would be even more evident.
In Chapters 1–3, the importance of education, the system of primary and secondary school education in the United
Kingdom, and the system (or systems) of Jewish day school education are discussed. In Chapters
4 and 5, a 'report card' is
provided detailing performance indicators of the strengths and weaknesses of general and Judaic subjects within Jewish
schools. Chapters 6–8 outline key strategic issues facing Jewish day schools, with a specific focus on the strictly Orthodox
community, and the provision of services to children with special educational needs.
Chapter 9 provides a discussion of
market wants and needs, through an analysis of the factors used by parents to choose between different school options.
Chapter 10 draws the analysis together with a discussion of future issues in the provision of Jewish day school education,
and the strengths and weaknesses of a faith-based approach to education. Also included are a bibliography and a glossary of
educational and Judaic terms used in the text.
Notes
1 Figures based on Jacob Braude, 'Jewish education in Britain today', in Sonia L. Lipman and Vivian D. Lipman (eds),
Jewish Life
in Britain 1962–1977 (New York: K. G. Saur 1981); Jewish Educational Development Trust (JEDT),
Securing Our
Future (The Worms Report) (London: JEDT 1992); and 1999 data supplied by the Board of Deputies of British Jews (note
this will be the subject of a forthcoming report by Rona Hart and Marlena Schmool).
2 Stephen Miller, Marlena Schmool and Antony Lerman,
Social and Political Attitudes of British Jews: Some
Key Findings of the JPR Survey (London: Institute for Jewish Policy Research 1996).
3 Marlena Schmool and Frances Cohen, A Profile of British Jewry (London: Board of Deputies of British Jews 1998).
4 Note that since the time of writing this report, the Department for Education and Employment (DfEE) has become the Department for
Education and Skills (DfES).
5 Data supplied by the Board of Deputies of British Jews.
6 Includes five schools that are both primary and nursery schools.
7 Includes twenty schools that are both primary and secondary schools.
8 Lloyd Gartner, The Jewish Immigrant in England, 1870–1914 (London: Simon Publications 1973).
9 Ibid., 223.
10 Ibid., 227–8. Note that the Jewish population in Britain increased from around 60,000 in 1880 to 300,000 in 1914: Henry Pollins,
Economic History of the Jews in England (London: Associated University Presses 1982).
11 Gartner, 229.
12 Ibid., 231.
13 Section 76 of the Education Act 1944: F. Jacobs and Vivien Prais, 'Development in the law on state-aided schools for religious
minorities', in Lipman and Lipman (eds).
14 Geoffrey Alderman, Modern British Jewry (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1992), 368.
15 Ibid.
16 Although note the difference in methods of calculating the number of schools: the Board of Deputies recognizes 135 schools compared
to the 83 schools recognized by the DfEE.
17 Department for Education and Employment (DfEE),
Building on Success (Norwich: HMSO 2001).
18 Immanuel Jakobovits, The Timely and the Timeless (London: Vallentine Mitchell 1977), 195.
19 Immanuel Jakobovits, Foreword to 'Let my people know—proposals for the development of Jewish education', in Jakobovits, 197; see
also S. J. Prais, 'A sample survey of Jewish education in London, 1972–73', Jewish Journal of
Sociology, vol. 16, 1974,
133–54.
20 JEDT, x.
21 Peter Halfpenny and Margaret Reid, The Financial Resources of the UK Jewish Voluntary Sector (London:
Institute for Jewish Policy Research 2000).
We might as well resign ourselves to the grim new fact of Jewish life: either we intelligently teach our youth what Judaism
means, or else Anglo-Jewry is going to become one of the lost tribes of Israel. Either we will educate them to proclaim 'This is
my God', or they will have no God at all.(18)
Every year our schools are turning away hundreds of applicants, for whom they have no places, simply because the community
defaults on its duty to provide full-time Jewish education for all those who seek it. To ensure Anglo-Jewry's continuity and
growth, we must double our present capacity in the next ten to fifteen years.(19)