The report was clear: Unless the S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation directed more resources to early childhood education, young minds would suffer.
That was in 2006, after a community study indicated serious shortcomings regarding Jewish preschools in the Bay Area.
So, this fall, in partnership with the Jim Joseph Foundation, the federation launched a new initiative focused on making Jewish early childhood education more accessible, affordable and available. And it hired local veteran educator Janet Harris to lead the effort.
“Part of my role will be to facilitate a community conversation and really move us forward in terms of quality,” Harris said.
What does she want to get people talking about?
The biggest challenge, Harris said, is that Jewish preschools struggle to find qualified teachers. Early childhood education doesn’t have a high profile. Neither does it pay very well (average starting salaries are around $20,000), so bright college graduates aren’t enticed by the field.
That problem, which is true of both Jewish and secular preschools, is made worse by the reality that a huge number of teachers and preschool directors will retire in the next five to 10 years. And there are fewer younger educators available to plug the leak.
Recruiting teachers is only step one, Harris said. She also wants to find ways to increase the quality and frequency of professional development opportunities for teachers, so that early childhood educators are constantly involved in Jewish and general learning.
Sending a child to a Jewish preschool is expensive, Harris pointed out, so she’s looking into creating more scholarships to help parents afford the tuition.
Harris is also looking beyond ages 3 to 5, and considering how the community could create a more complete and accessible Jewish pipeline. Studies show that children who attend Jewish preschool (and their families) are more likely to be involved in Jewish life in the future.
“We’re trying to find ways to engage and bring them into Jewish preschools, and help them find a Jewish connection after,” Harris said.
The federation has funded early childhood education ventures in the past, but never at this scale, Harris said.
In the last five years, the federation has directed about $1.2 million dollars in early childhood programs (targeting children from birth to age 5).
The new initiative directs an additional $885,000 for early childhood efforts, of which about 80 percent came from a three-year grant from the Jim Joseph Foundation to support the development of a Bay Area-wide initiative in Jewish early childhood education. Koret and the Levine Lent Foundations also contributed.
In all, the federation has earmarked $2.5 million for early education.
“It’s putting early childhood on the community agenda,” said Ellen Brosbe, early education specialist at the Bureau of Jewish Education. “There’s been talk in the past, but now something is really happening.”
Karen Bluestone, chief planning and program officer at JCF, compared the scope of the early childhood initiative to the Israel initiative that created the Israel Center in 1996.
“Here we are, a decade later, and we have Israel programming all over the community — in JCCs and synagogues — and we have Israel education in our schools,” she said.
Bluestone emphasized that neither JCF nor Harris knows the exact outcome of the initiative (for instance, it might be lead to the creation of a separate, independent organization).
They are in the beginning stages of the strategic planning process, and hope to eventually partner with both the Silicon Valley and the East Bay federations.
“This is something that requires full community engagement in order to find solutions,” Bluestone said.