A white paper about school and community-wide efforts in North America to make Jewish day school more affordable to middle-income families. By Charles Cohen

Introduction

This White Paper examines the affordability strategy of targeting “middle-income” families. From Los Angeles to Boston, from Birmingham to Milwaukee, schools and communities have confronted the middle-income challenge. Efforts have been championed by donors, school leadership, and Federation staff. They have been integrated into preexisting financial aid processes, and they have been branded as new, innovative responses to the Great Recession.

From these programs some useful guidelines emerge, framed below with a few key questions. Answering each of these questions will help ensure that your middle-income strategy meets your community’s, schools’, and families’ needs. The examples set by existing programs show us that setting data-informed goals, delineating the middle-income population in your school or community, and investing in an aggressive marketing plan, are all essential components to a successful middle-income strategy.

What is the “middle-income” challenge?

Rising school budgets have caused families to require financial aid who, until recently, did not need it. In the early 1990s, independent school tuition already made up a substantial portion of family budgets: The median independent school tuition was almost 20% of median family income. Today, the burden is even greater: Median tuition is more than 35% of median income.¹ The following chart shows the income decline relative to tuition growth.²

The Great Recession exacerbated the problem by slowing salary growth, for those who were lucky enough to remain employed, even as school expenses continued to rise. That income-tuition disparity has meant that more families need financial aid, and schools have struggled to handle the additional requests. Many of these families are in the middle-income range and are not used to struggling to make ends meet. However, because of the growing tuition burden, they may seek support for the first time. This can be a very difficult mental hurdle; if you are a donor to every other organization with which you are affiliated, it is extremely difficult to turn around and ask for help from your children’s school. Oakland Hebrew Day School Head of School Rabbi Ari Leubitz calls this the “unique psychology of middle-income families.” As a result, middle-income affordability has become a serious concern for Jewish day schools and communities.³

The “barbell effect”⁴—students from higher-income and lower-income families disproportionately represented among the student body, with a paucity of students in the middle- income brackets—is another way to look at this challenge. The barbell effect is problematic in two ways. First, it can be a challenge to your school’s mission if, like other day schools, your school has the goal of enrolling every child who wants a Jewish education. An absence of middle-income families would indicate that some families who would otherwise enroll their children have chosen not to do so, a sign that the school is not achieving its mission.

Second, the barbell effect impacts a school’s health and resilience. Middle-income families are able to afford some or even most of their tuition expense. But if those families do not feel comfortable requesting financial aid, they may transfer their children to a different school, and there is no guarantee that they will be replaced by a family who can pay full tuition. The growing threat of losing middle-income families has been the catalyst for creating financial aid strategies directly targeting those families.

If rising tuition rates are the source of this problem, why not simply cut costs and stop increasing tuition? Schools, like any other business, must meet rising costs if they want to provide an excellent product. They have to pay their employees a living wage and provide benefits. Too much cost-cutting can lead to a decline in perceived value and families deciding to leave the school. This can become a “vicious cycle”:⁵ Attrition lowers aggregate tuition income, leaving less money to spend on educational quality, which leads to a decline in perceived value, and so on. Schools are therefore left with a perennial challenge. They can cap costs, and potentially hurt their perceived value, or continue increasing tuition, and put more pressure on families’ and/or schools’ bottom lines.

What exactly is “middle-income”?

“Middle-income” is not synonymous with “middle-class.” In 2012, the Pew Research Center defined “middle-class” as three-person households with total incomes between $39,418 and $118,255.⁶ By contrast, in 2006, the National Association
of Independent Schools (NAIS) determined that the low-end salary of its “middle-income” parent body was approximately $92,000,⁷ well into the top third of the “middle-class.”

What should you consider when creating a middle-income targeted strategy?

Here are the key questions you should ask as you consider how to address your school or community’s middle-income challenge.

What is your goal?

“Schools should ask, ‘What is our primary purpose for financial aid?’ Define your goals first: with your board, your head of school, the administrators, and faculty.”
—Mark Mitchell, Vice President for School Information Services, National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS)
Communities and schools have used different goals as the basis for choosing a middle-income strategy. Here are examples of how a community and a school used data to set goals for their programs.

Boston’s Discover Day School: Using data to prioritize among several strategies

In 2006, anonymous donors gave Combined Jewish Philanthropies (CJP) a $45 million Peerless Excellence Grant “to support a system of excellent and accessible Boston-area Jewish day schools in the context of CJP’s community-wide agenda.”⁸ Part of the Grant went to establish the Initiative for Day School Excellence, a systemic intervention into Boston’s Jewish day schools targeting access and educational quality. To determine the right first steps in addressing affordability, the Initiative’s lay and professional leadership went through a substantial data collection effort beginning in 2007 that included a community needs assessment, focus groups, and information directly from Boston’s day schools. Based on what they learned, CJP decided to focus its affordability strategy on middle-income families. Next, they began work on a campaign to raise $75 million to endow the project.

Unfortunately, when the recession began just one year later, the affordability effort had to be substantially scaled back. The leadership decided to pilot a smaller project—Discover Day School—in 2010.

Discover Day School is an initiative that gives middle-income families 25% of tuition (up to $6,000) for three consecutive years at any of Greater Boston’s 11 elementary/middle schools for their first child attending day school.⁹ Families must choose between the Discover Day School grants and the standard financial aid offered by their school of choice. This allows families to decide which program is right for them.

CJP is currently going through a detailed evaluation of the program. In the two years since Discover Day School was launched, CJP has made some important changes based on the data it has already collected: The grant limit was increased from $4,000 to $6,000 because of rising tuition costs; schools can now set the middle-income limits based on their own parent body; and CJP provides participating schools with a small marketing budget to establish word-of-mouth campaigns to promote Discover Day School.

Community Day School, Pittsburgh, PA (CDS): Listening to parents

CDS did not have excessive attrition in 2008, nor was enrollment out of line with previous years’ numbers. But in exit interviews, Head of School Avi Baran Munro started hearing that more parents were opting out because of cost and that the financial aid they received was not enough to keep them enrolled. These families tended to be in a wide range of income, approximately $50,000 to $275,000. This was broader than just “middle-income” because it also included families with specific financial constraints.

In partnership with a major donor, CDS created the SEED (Supplemental Education Endowment Dollars) Fund—a separate pot of money the school could distribute to families in addition to their standard financial aid gift. According to CFO Bari Weinberger, the SEED Fund fills a portion of the gap between what the tuition assistance committee determines a family can afford and what the family believes it can afford.

Launched in 2009, the SEED Fund has been an essential recruitment and retention tool. The Fund is not considered a separate program, nor is it promoted as such. It has allowed CDS to be more flexible in financial aid discussions, and that has reduced attrition and helped increase kindergarten enrollment. The SEED Fund has helped as many as 35 families afford tuition for 54 students in a single year. In a school with an enrollment of 274 in 2011-12, those students represented almost 20% of the entire student body.

Data collection does not have to be a massive undertaking. Even a series of one-on-one meetings can be a productive research effort if they give you the information you need, like whether your middle-income families are being priced out, or how to address your middle-income challenge. The objective is collecting the right data: information that will allow you to measure the impact of your strategy on your intended market. Determine what you want to accomplish with your financial aid system before considering how to support all of your families, including those in the middle-income range. Setting goals based on the data you collect is critical for structuring your initiative and selling it to prospective donors.

Who are the middle-income families in your school/community?

All middle-income ranges are not identical. They differ from community to community, and even school to school. Defining your middle-income range will allow you to calculate how many families fit your definition and how much it will cost to expand current financial aid to meet their needs. The range also will be framed by your potential market: Are you looking to retain current parents or attract new families? Here are two examples of middle-income definitions and the strategies they produced.

Oakland Hebrew Day School (OHDS): Learning from the field and its own community

OHDS’ board took up the issue of affordability in 2010. Their goal was to maximize retention. This allowed OHDS leadership to focus on current parents—about whom they had substantial demographic and financial data—rather than prospective parents, about whom they knew comparatively little.

Board members researched affordability strategies that had been designed to improve retention. They also considered anonymous data from their own families receiving aid (income range of applying families, number of children in each family, etc.). This information allowed OHDS’ leadership to determine which ideas made the most sense for their community and led to a new, multi-tiered financial aid system that provided more options to families, particularly those in OHDS’ middle-income range—$230,000 to $300,000.

OHDS’ financial aid process was renamed Kulanu (“All of Us”). It has three components: 1) standard financial aid (“flexible tuition”); 2) a sibling discount of $500 per student per year for each additional child enrolled after the first child; and 3) the Tuition Accessibility Program (TAP), which provides between $1,800 and $3,000 to families within the designated middle-income range and depending on number of children enrolled at OHDS. In 2011-12, 13 families received TAP grants.

Los Angeles’ Builders of Jewish Education (BJELA): Using multiple data sources to paint a picture of the Jewish day school parent body

The BJELA collaborated with the Jim Joseph Foundation to create the Jim Joseph Foundation High School Affordability Initiative in response to particular environmental challenges: “[T]he exceptionally high cost of living in Los Angeles; the escalating annual Jewish high school tuition fee, which currently is an average $28,989 for these five Los Angeles high schools; and limited financial aid dollars available at the participating five high schools.”¹⁰ The Initiative’s focus was on prospective as well as current families. The goal was to “stabilize and incrementally increase the enrollment of students from middle-income families attending five Jewish high schools.”¹¹ Understanding the broad demographic of prospective families required more information. To define the potential market, BJELA staff took data about average salaries in LA from California’s state budget office and adjusted it using information collected from the LA Jewish community. BJELA then determined how many families might potentially participate in their Initiative. Based on that data, they set the middle-income range at $150,000 to $300,000.

The clear range and online application have made the program easily accessible to prospective families. Already, the Initiative has helped lower tuition for almost 200 students, including 120 new participants in 2011-12. Grants for those families ranged from $2,500 to $13,700.

How much will it cost?

Three components determine the cost of a middle-income strategy: the number of participants; the amount of money they will receive; and your marketing plan. Defining your middle-income range and eligible families was discussed above; this section focuses on how much families should receive and what to consider for your marketing strategy.

How much should families get?

Your criteria depend on your school and community and what you hope to accomplish. The Helen Bader Foundation in Milwaukee, for example, simply wanted to increase financial aid. The Foundation’s grants are limited by the number of applying families and the total funding available—about $500,000.

Other middle-income strategies—those at Golda Och Academy or OHDS, for example— vary the size of their grants by the grade in which students enroll and how many children a family has enrolled in the school. This flexibility helps the schools achieve their objectives of retaining larger families or those transferring children in from other schools.

Depending on their goals, many schools and communities interviewed provided a range of discounts to their respective middle-income families either as grants, tuition discounts, or tuition caps. Whatever you choose, the financial incentive should be sufficient to meet your goals, but not so substantial that full payors end up questioning the value they get for their higher tuition costs.

Sometimes, a small grant can be just as meaningful and impactful as a larger award. For example, one day school CFO says that “if a family takes the time to fill out all of the financial aid paperwork, they feel they must need something. In those situations, we may give them some nominal amount, even if they’re not eligible.” Your goals can help you shape both your financial aid strategy and how you promote it to potential participants.

How important is marketing?

Information about your program must reach your targeted demographic, whether that is a small niche of families or the entire Jewish community. Creating a marketing plan that includes traditional as well as social media, formal advertising as well as your current parents’ social networks, will help ensure that your target population hears about this new opportunity to enroll their children at your school.

Pittsburgh’s Jewish Day School Council created the “First Year Free” initiative in 2011, which provided families with a free year’s tuition if their child transferred to a Jewish day school from a public or non-Jewish private school in grades 3-11. The largest cost was not from the additional 11 students: None of the three schools were at full capacity, and the additional expense of bringing public school students up to speed in Judaic subjects was relatively small. Rather, the biggest part of the budget was taken up by marketing. Two donors gave a total of $50,000 for the Council to promote the project. Those funds were used to hire a consultant who created a comprehensive promotion plan: billboards, a Day School Council website, press releases to Jewish and secular news outlets, etc. These efforts drew community attention to the program and the schools, and increased inquiries and visits to each school. The importance of a strong marketing campaign was reinforced in 2012. That year, the schools chose to run the program again, but did not aggressively promote it. Without a similar marketing push, the schools recruited just four new students through the initiative.

Unless they opt for a substantial, multi-pronged campaign like the one in Pittsburgh, community organizations—federations, local or national foundations—that attempt middle-income affordability initiatives may struggle to reach their intended audience. Community organizations often do not have direct access to aid recipients in the same way that schools do. But many have found effective ways to promote their efforts. Some direct prospective parents to an online calculator (Boston’s Discover Day School, BJELA’s Jim Joseph Foundation High School Affordability Initiative), while others use schools as conduits to promote their initiatives (Milwaukee’s Helen Bader Foundation).

Whether your middle-income program is for one school or several, your marketing plan should allow parents to easily access information about it. That will minimize confusion and encourage more people to use the program.

How should your middle-income-targeted initiative fit into your financial aid system?

Again, it depends on what your goals are. Many community and school leaders interviewed for this White Paper noted the burden placed on families by the scholarship process. They said that it can be invasive, humiliating, and complicated. Several middle-income strategies were crafted with those challenges in mind. Some of these programs allowed families to disclose less personal financial information in exchange for smaller grants or tuition discounts. Others were almost completely removed from a school’s general financial aid process.

Middle-income-only programs

Distinct programs concentrating on middle-income families to the exclusion of lower-income families, like those in Los Angeles, Boston, and Oakland, have some advantages. They can be more easily sold to donors as separate, innovative projects. Also, communities investing in multi-school efforts can more easily track their investment and the program’s impact if each school creates a separate budget line and list of outcomes for the initiative. Middle- income-focused programs also can be an effective way to keep scholarship costs down. A school can offer more families aid if they distribute smaller amounts. In fact, some Jewish day school experts have recommended that schools focus primarily on middle-income families.¹²

Mark Mitchell has seen independent schools implement middle-income-targeted programs. He writes that “in the past three years, as the percentage of enrolled students receiving need-based aid has increased (a combination of a weak economy and the income/tuition growth disparity), the average grant has decreased.”¹³

As schools pay more attention to middle-income families, though, lower-income families may not receive enough aid to allow them to remain enrolled. So instead of creating middle- income-focused strategies, Mitchell has seen schools succeed in retaining more families when they use the middle-income challenge as a catalyst for re-imagining their entire financial aid process.

Some Jewish day schools are trying to do just that. In addition to the CDS example above, Golda Och Academy in West Orange, New Jersey, also has transformed its financial aid process—from dollars distributed all the way down to the terminology used. Head of School Dr. Joyce Raynor says that they changed their system because “we want people to feel like they’re ‘real people’ saving for retirement or other Jewish experiences. We want families to live full Jewish lives.”

The challenge is that concerns about dignity and the wherewithal to “live full Jewish lives” affect every family applying for financial aid. Schools reshaping their financial aid process for one group of families have an opportunity to help their entire parent body.

Integrated programs

Independent-school experts generally are not in favor of initiatives exclusively focused on the middle-income population. Both Marc Levinson at Mid South Independent School Business Officers and Mark Mitchell at NAIS say that schools should opt for integrated financial aid strategies. Levinson says that independent schools exclusively targeting middle- income families have not had the same success as more comprehensive strategies. Mitchell also warns against a limited approach, particularly if higher income levels also correspond to less disclosure. “Families with higher incomes generally have more complex financial situations,” he says.

BJELA’s experience is illustrative: While its Initiative was meant to reach more middle-income students over time, general financial aid has grown faster than anticipated because of the Great Recession. Despite helping middle-income families, then, the Initiative has relieved less of the financial aid burden than expected on participating schools, because they have had to spend more on grants to lower-income families.

Of the community and school efforts researched, Helen Bader Foundation and CDS’s programs stood out as truly integrated:

• While funds come from separate budget lines (and in the case of the Helen Bader Foundation, entirely different organizations), they are not promoted as separate programs.
• There is one application process for everyone, regardless of income level.
• Every applicant is required to provide the same financial documents and information.

Your leadership may feel that a separate program is necessary, given your goals or the severity of your middle-income challenge. Here is an example of a school with a distinct middle-income tier that used a separate program as a catalyst to change its entire financial aid process.

Golda Och Academy: “Flexible” tuition and GO Grants

Golda Och Academy has two separate scholarship tracks: GO Grants, with set amounts of financial aid that vary among different grades, and its standard financial aid process. As a useful model of transparency for prospective parents, Golda Och adapted a chart from the Solomon Schechter Day School in Boston that reflects the different options available to families depending on their income and the number of children they have enrolled in the school:

“Flex tuition” is Golda Och’s terminology for financial aid. Many independent schools and universities have switched to similar language: “Index tuition” and “sliding scale” are other examples. These replace “aid” and “scholarship” language, which can put off middle-income families. On one hand, the chart is a way for the school to transparently present financial aid information to parents. That can go a long way to easing any anxiety lower- and middle-income parents may have about accessing that aid. That clarity, though, may not be as well-received by higher-income families, as some families are explicitly “not eligible” for financial aid.

This speaks to a particular challenge of helping middle-income and even higher-income families, one pointed out by Macy Kisilinsky, board president of Hillel Academy in Pitts- burgh. According to Kisilinsky, Hillel Academy does not limit financial aid to families below a certain reported income. First, he says, “some income, particularly for entrepreneurs, isn’t going to appear as adjusted gross income on a tax return.” Second, each family faces different circumstances. A family with a substantial income also may have sizable debt obligations or other expenses. A chart, or a system with well-defined parameters, may not work for everyone. Schools must balance the desire for clarity with the need for flexibility.

Summary

• Set goals based on data collected about your parent body. Whether your information comes from parent surveys, national census information, focus groups, or dozens of one-on-one meetings, it will be essential as a basis for setting any goals to take on the middle-income challenge.
• Determine what you mean by “middle-income.” Whether you use a definition that fits across multiple schools or is specific to one school, defining the problem will help you choose a solution and set a budget.
• Create an aggressive marketing plan. This will encourage the targeted population to learn about your financial aid process and help you highlight your school’s success.
• Even if you want to create a strategy that is only available to middle-income families, it is worthwhile to reexamine your entire financial aid process and improve it for everyone.

Middle-income-targeted strategies can be an effective tool to combat the barbell effect and help families who are asking for support for the first time. They can attract more middle-income families and help retain those families in your school. If you broaden your goals, what starts as a targeted initiative may transform your entire financial aid process to benefit all of your families.

¹ Mitchell, “Financial Aid Outlook,” NAIS TrendBook (2011-12).
² Batiste & McGovern, “The Equity and Justice Outlook: Socioeconomic Diversity,” NAIS Trendbook (2012-13).
³ Perla, “Middle Income Day School Affordability: A Case Study,” AVICHAI Foundation (May 2012).
⁴ Mitchell, “Demystifying “The Barbell Effect”: Financial Aid and the Middle Class,” NAIS (May 2006).
⁵ Litman, “Secrets of the Virtuous Cycle for Jewish Day Schools,” Measuring Success (Session given atPEJE and Jewish Day School Conference March 3, 2011).
⁶ Statistics from “The Lost Decade of the Middle Class: Fewer, Poorer, Gloomier,” Pew Research Center, (August 2012).
⁷ Mitchell, “Is the Middle-Class Squeeze for Real?” Independent School (Winter 2006).
⁸ Kardos, “Initiative for Day School Excellence,” (January 2007).
⁹ See the Appendix for more information on the middle-income programs listed in the White Paper.
¹⁰ Edwards and Prum Hess, “Middle Income Day School Affordability out on the Western Frontier,” eJewish Philanthropy (December 2011).
¹¹ “Jim Joseph Foundation High School Affordability Initiative Theory of Change,” Evaluation and Training Institute (2009).

Appendix

Download this White Paper as a PDF.

By Charles Cohen and Daniel Perla

Introduction: What is “iCap”?

In 2011, Solomon Schechter Day School of Boston (SSDS) board members saw a surprising anomaly in their school’s financial aid data: More two-children families were applying for aid than families with three or more children. This suggested that there were few larger families enrolling their children in the school. Some SSDS leadership believed that these larger families were not even applying because they were put off by the total aggregate cost of enrolling multiple children. Board president Andria Weil cited this as the fundamental problem with SSDS’s (and indeed, many other schools’) financial aid process: Regardless of income, families with more children were required to pay significantly more in tuition. This challenge also made recruiting more difficult: It is much easier to convince a family to enroll another child if they already have one in the school than to identify and attract an entirely new family.

SSDS leadership began looking for alternatives to their existing scholarship process that would directly address the dearth of larger families applying for financial assistance. They considered the issue from a family’s perspective, examining the income range of families applying for financial aid, paying particular attention to multi-children families. Leadership concluded that their standard financial aid process was meeting the needs of its lower-income families, but it did not account for the needs of SSDS’s so-called “middle-income” families with multiple children—those earning $200,000 to $400,000.¹

The board’s solution was iCap: a program that would cap a family’s total tuition expense at 15% of its adjusted gross income (AGI), regardless of number of children enrolled in the schools. The 15% cap was set after consulting local independent schools that had considered a similar model for serving their respective middle-income families.

Financial aid programs that cap tuition at a percentage of family income have become a popular discussion topic in the Jewish day school field.² While there is no set guideline about what percentage of AGI should be allocated to tuition, heads of school and independent-school experts interviewed for this article suggested that, for middle-income families, a range of 12%-18% of AGI was customary.

In a letter to parents, SSDS laid out iCap’s goal: “To enable current and prospective families to anticipate their maximum future tuition obligations and confidently enroll their children at Schechter year after year, regardless of the number of children in each family.” In its first year of implementation, 10 families with 28 students at SSDS are participating in the program. In addition, the overall number of multi-children families enrolling students in the school has increased from 27 to 34.

How has iCap affected SSDS’ bottom line?

Assuming those 10 families, by paying more than 15% of their AGI, would have paid full tuition for all 28 students, the program has cost SSDS about $180,000. Head of School Arnie Zar-Kessler says that the cost has been covered by a larger-than-usual across-the-board tuition increase and higher enrollment stemming from an aggressive recruitment effort.

The cost to the school has been limited by iCap’s eligibility guidelines: Only those multi-children families earning up to $400,000 can access the program. Despite that ceiling, no full-paying family has left the school.

Because the program is so new, it is unclear whether it is a long-term solution. Enrollment and tuition increases may not be sufficient in subsequent years to cover the cost of many more families using iCap. SSDS is evaluating the program as it is implemented to ensure that it remains a sound financial aid model. Based on the early results — attracting new families, and retaining every full-paying family — SSDS leadership has been pleased with the program’s success.

Should my school implement an AGI-based tuition cap?

What is your goal?

If your goals are similar to SSDS’s—attracting and retaining middle-income multi-children families, and giving families reliable tuition information on which to predict their own budgets for the next several years—then an AGI-based tuition cap makes a lot of sense.

Be sure that an AGI tuition cap addresses the actual challenge, not merely a symptom. Collecting the right data will allow you to determine whether an AGI cap is the right strategy. That may include information about how your school pays for and allocates financial aid, or how their tuition burden affects your school’s families. The relevant information will help you choose the right program for your school and your parents.

What is the right cap for my school?

While two Jewish day schools have implemented a hard AGI tuition cap (SSDS and Hillel Academy of Pittsburgh), other schools use a percentage of AGI as a useful guideline in financial aid. One school uses 10%-12% as a reasonable range; another tries to limit tuition to just 10% of AGI.³ To help schools understand the impact of their tuition on middle-income families, the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) laid out the cost to full-paying families as a percentage of their AGI, as seen in this chart:⁴

Assumptions: Family of four, two parents, two children, one in a tuition-charging school, parents age 45, both work, one earns $25K, COLA = 1.000

It may be helpful to work backwards from your current tuition; what percentage is your tuition of the average family’s salary? If you do not collect financial information from all of your families, it may be worth a quick survey to determine the general AGI range in your parent body. Otherwise you can try to use the financial aid data you already have, and add what you know generally about your school’s families, to create a broad range from which to set an AGI limit. The more information you have about your parent body, the better your program will fit their needs. The possibility of paying less tuition may be enough to convince your families to share more personal financial data.

Who should be eligible for the program?

Is your program meant to help middle-income families? Or do you want to include your entire parent body? While the extent of the program should conform to your goals, it may also be constrained by the estimated cost. SSDS more than covered iCap’s cost by attracting more students and raising tuition. However, it will take more than one year to determine whether the program is meeting its long-term objectives of sustained enrollment growth and improved retention.

Hillel Academy of Pittsburgh wanted to improve its entire financial aid process. Its AGI tuition cap is part of a sliding scale tuition model. There is a minimum tuition threshold, and families pay up to a maximum of 18% of their AGI (when the program began in 2004, the limit was 13%). As a result, the program actually yielded more annual tuition income in the first couple of years because school leadership could more accurately determine what each family should pay. Once the new baseline was set, though, the program did not yield any excess tuition income.

If your financial aid is not calibrated to what parents can actually afford, you are not collecting as much as you can from some parents and may be overburdening others. An AGI tuition cap may have the dual benefit of making the financial aid process easier for your parents and increasing tuition income. Just as knowing more about your families and your school will help you determine the right level for your AGI percentage, this information will help you understand how comprehensive you can make the program.

Summary

In its first year iCap has attracted multi-children families to SSDS and given families more information about their future tuition costs. If you want to implement a similar program in your school, consider these important steps:

• Be clear about the challenge you are trying to address.
• Collect the right data from your parents and your school budget.
• Set an AGI cap that fits your families’ needs.
• Eligibility should be defined as much by your families’ needs as your school’s budget.

¹ See the Affordability Knowledge Center’s White Paper on middle-income strategies for an in-depth analysis of “middle-income.”
² Klapper, “The Moral Costs of Jewish Day School,” Jewish Ideas Daily (May 2012); Mendelsohn, “Day School Tuition Should be Income-Based,” The Forward (November 2011).
³ Schools requested anonymity because they used AGI percentages as guidelines rather than formal boundaries for financial aid considerations. As a result, some families may pay a higher percentage of their income than the school’s targeted AGI.
⁴ Gruber & Hammond, “Admission & Financial Aid Trends: What Every School Leader Should Know,” NAIS (2012).

Download this White Paper as a PDF.

Day of Action 2012 – November 15, 2012

Register online now:

• NY-NJ Day of Action - November 15
• NY Gala Dinner – November 15
  Featuring Cory Booker, National School Choice Advocate Newark Mayor
• Leadership Shabbat - November 16-18

We’re working on tuition affordability six days a week.

We need your help just one day in November.

Join us for a day of advocacy in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, or Florida during the OU Convention Week of Action

OU Contact: Jesse Hervitz
Deputy Director of Political Affairs
(917) 510-3726; hervitzj@ou.org

JLCSC Contact: Elliot Schreiber
South Florida Chapter Director
(305) 791-7038 ; Elliot@federationforchildren.info

For Immediate Release

The Orthodox Union (OU) and the Jewish Leadership Coalition for School Choice (JLCSC) are pleased to announce a joint, non-partisan voter registration campaign in South Florida.

The purpose of the campaign is to increase the level of participation and engagement by Jewish Floridians in the upcoming federal, state and local elections.

Florida’s Jewish community is certainly mindful that the presidential and congressional election will impact key national policies – including U.S. policy toward Israel, the economy, and the healthcare system.  However, many Jewish voters often overlook important issues decided by state and local governments. Such issues as tuition scholarships for their children and critical aid for Jewish day schools are often directly influenced by elections at the state and local level.

Jesse Hervitz, Deputy Political Director for the Orthodox Union has made the Jewish day school community’s involvement in state and local government one of the OU’s main focuses in South Florida.

“There are many issues of importance in state and local governments on which the Jewish community’s voice must be heard.  This will not take place until our community as a whole makes the most of their civic responsibility. Through this joint effort we strive to empower our community to take action and have a say in the political decisions that most affect their daily lives.”

Sept. 10^th through the 24^th will be designated for Voter Registration in local organizations, synagogues, and schools. At these locations, voter registration forms,  instructions, and eligibility resources will be available.

Elliot Schreiber, Director of the South Florida Chapter of the JLCSC noted the potential impact of the Jewish community in local races, as it pertains to issues of importance to the local Jewish schools.

“A number of races of importance to the Jewish communities in North Miami and Miami Beach were decided upon by only 800 or so votes. The Jewish community needs to understand how important each vote is. We need to get more involved and send the message that our community values this fundamental American right and takes it seriously

Many American parents are passionate about providing their children with opportunities to participate in sports and develop as great athletes. A recent article in the Financial Post posed the question “Are your kids’ athletic dreams worth breaking the bank for?” For parents of elite athletes, the costs can be astronomical. Such parents designate “tens of thousands of dollars of their household budget to help their child’s athletic career blossom, a sacrifice that impacts everything from daily spending to retirement.”

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Background

Since arriving in Portland, Oregon in December of 2005 to serve as rabbi of Congregation Kesser Israel, the educational challenges of our community have been a primary focus of mine. In the course of addressing these challenges, our community has had the opportunity to explore several creative venues to provide Jewish education. The primary purpose of this article is to share a “field update” regarding one of those venues, namely the use of an on-line state funded charter school known as Connections Academy. I hope that this article will be beneficial both as a means of sharing our work with other communities, and as a furthering of the conversation as to how the broader Orthodox community can effectively address the tuition crisis.

I would like to begin with a history lesson (from Oregon of course!) which is useful in articulating my approach to our local challenges. Several months ago, I visited the award winning Tillamook Cheese Factory, located in the coastal town of Tillamook, Oregon. During my visit, I learned that the original pioneers arrived in the late 19^th century with the intent of farming the land. They invested significant time and resources into clearing out the dense forest, only to discover that this particular area was too wet and cold to support their crops. In spite of this problem, they did notice that their cattle were thriving on the plentiful green grass. Consequently, they turned to dairy products such as milk and soft cheese as their source of livelihood, producing a surplus of dairy products far greater than the locals could consume. Finally, they discovered that with their surplus of milk they could produce hard cheese and butter products which could be preserved well enough to be exported, and they developed a viable economy. Today, this small coastal city exports its award winning cheeses all over the world.

Every locale has its own challenges. However, unique challenges point us to unique opportunities. If we accept the challenges that we face with optimism, we are likely to discover G-d’s blessing in the unique “exports” and “products” that our locale is capable of producing.

The educational challenges for a community such as Portland are straightforward. While Portland is a medium size west coast community with 40,000 Jews, there is minimal history of Orthodox infrastructure. Congregation Kesser Israel has been in existence for nearly 100 years. Jewish education has always been a major challenge for our families. Our community has generally struggled to offer K – 8 education for families from traditional or Orthodox homes. Consequently, many of our children wound up attending public schools. Further, many of the families that Kesser Israel has engaged and connected to the Jewish community, ultimately left Portland for more developed Orthodox communities. Families for whom relocation was not an option have been faced with very difficult choices when it comes to schooling.

During my years in Portland, establishing a viable educational option for our community became a major priority for the Orthodox community. Together with other local leaders, we decided that the optimal path was to open a community Orthodox day school. This decision was made in 2010, amidst all the problems of the ailing US economy, and the tuition crisis. Furthermore, we made this decision with very minimal financial backing. Portland is not a major financial center, and has had a very limited history of Torah oriented philanthropy.

Nevertheless, community members felt inspired to create something unique and new that would serve our community. Surely, we reasoned, we can be “Trailblazers” with our own contribution to Jewish education!

As a result of our efforts, Maayan HaTorah Day School (MHT), an affiliate of Torah Umesorah, the National Society for Hebrew Day Schools, opened its doors in the in the fall of 2011, and this coming fall, we will be opening the school through 1^st grade. We will also be running a Judaic track for grades 2 – 7 (more about that below). We have 39 children registered in the school for the coming year. Special thanks are due to Torah Umesorah for their professional guidance throughout this process. Furthermore, while the school carries the bulk of the fundraising burden, we would not have been able to meet this challenge without several generous grants from Torah Umesorah.

A primary goal of opening this school is to create an institution that will educate and inspire children to be passionate about their Jewish identity. Another objective is to build an institution that will transform our community to become a locale where families can grow and thrive long term in their connection to Torah.

A primary goal of opening this school is to build an institution that will transform our community to become a locale where families can grow and thrive long term in their connection to Torah. Further, we seek to create an institution that will educate and inspire children to be passionate about Torah as the foundation of their identity.

Portland does offer a unique backdrop for a Jewish community. The Portland area is known for its raw Northwest beauty, rugged mountains, lush valleys, and great rivers. In fact, the name “Maayan HaTorah” is a reflection of the local beauty of many waterfalls. The Torah itself is a wellspring, and many people here have sought to have greater access to that wellspring. Local residents generally place less emphasis on material wealth than in other communities in the United States. This makes for a culture in which many individuals are open to spiritual exploration and growth.

Use of on-line public school

A significant challenge in this project has been balancing the needs of the larger community on the one hand, with those of individual children on the other hand. While the viable path forward for the community was to open a pre-school, and gradually add grades year by year, there were a number of children in our community from Orthodox homes in older elementary grades in need of schooling. Maayan HaTorah was not in a position to open classes for those grades.

A unique schooling model was created to address the needs of these children. This schooling model is noteworthy for two reasons. First, it may very well be a relevant option for other small communities. Secondly, it raises some very important questions about how the greater Orthodox community may be able to address the education crisis in the coming years.

This coming fall, MHT will open a Judaic Track for ten local children, in second through seventh grades. These children happen to break down into two groups, boys in grades two through six, girls in grades five through seven. MHT has hired a local rabbi who will serve as the rebbi for both of these groups. This hire, combined with assistance from other local rabbis and parents, will enable us to provide these children with a full Jewish education.

While MHT was not in a financial position to fund a general studies program for these sparsely populated grades, we have identified a local resource, the Oregon Connections Academy (ORCA) which we are utilizing to educate a number of these children. ORCA is a public (read: free) on-line charter school. (Connections Academy is also available as an on-line public school in a number of other states with significant Jewish populations, including California, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas amongst others). ORCA seems to target families who seek the flexibility of home-schooling, but lack the resources to actually home school their children. For example, ORCA serves a number of students who either want to focus on an extracurricular activity that takes a number of hours out of the student’s day, or come from a religious (non-Jewish) home which is adverse to public school.

We are facilitating the participation of local children in this program by providing a location within MHT for these kids to “log-on” to the ORCA program. Further, parents of these students have partnered together to hire an educator to be present on-site to oversee the children and help them to manage their courses. Just as in many Jewish day schools, the school day for these students is split 50/50 between Judaic and secular studies.

In essence, MHT is offering a Judaic program, as well as facilitating a general studies program in one location for these students above 1^st grade. While MHT is financially responsible for the Judaic track, enrollment in ORCA is free of charge. MHT does not (and legally cannot) charge for or take financial or other responsibility for students participation in ORCA. Each family may choose to enroll their child in that program of their own accord.

Here are some relevant facts and features of Oregon Connections Academy:

• Free public school education, books and laptops provided by the state.
• High-quality, nationally accredited education, overseen by a team of professional educators.
• Schooling takes place in an on-line environment, where students access their work and their lessons (including live-lessons).
• The school and lessons are accessible 24/7 in one self-contained web site which brings the school right to students 24 hours a day from any internet connection.
• Each student enrolled in ORCA is placed in a class with a teacher and other students.
• Students are required to have a learning coach.
• Students can communicate with their teacher on a regular basis via phone and email.
• While the school year progresses at a challenging pace, there is flexibility in the schedule, making times such a Yom Tov manageable.
• There are optional opportunities to meet the teacher and other students for various activities.
• Graduates of this program (which runs K- 12) test well above state average and have a track record of being accepted into top universities and colleges throughout the United States.

In my own personal experience with Connections Academy (my daughter attended their 6^th grade program last year), the staff was extremely helpful and understanding when it came to navigating “Frum” issues, from Yom Tov observance and standardized tests on Shabbat, to our sensitivities regarding studies of other religions.

Advantages of ORCA

Facilitating this group participation in ORCA has been far superior to both home schooling, as well as regular public school. I also believe that it may be superior to the secular education that a less developed Jewish community may be able to provide:

Here are several noteworthy advantages of ORCA:

• The education is superior to what home-schooling parents can offer.
• By utilizing ORCA, we keep our kids in a Jewish environment out of the public schools.
• By offering a location within a frum school for children to attend this program, we bring our kids into a positive and safe learning environment in which they can interact with other kids, under the sensitive care of our Torah day school staff.
• While individual families do not necessarily have the time available to oversee their kids participating in this program, by joining together, we had the resources to hire the learning coach.
• ORCA, with its flexible hours, offers the opportunity to get an accredited education with the flexibility of being able to be enrolled in our Judaic Track at MHT.
• While Jewish schools in small communities sometimes resort to blended classes (multiple grades in one room), Connections Academy addresses each child on grade level.
• ORCA offers many educational resources which a private Jewish day-school may have difficulty offering, such as gifted and remedial placement for each grade, or multiple levels of mathematics instruction within one grade, based on a student’s skill level and need.

A few words about the cost

The costs associated with supporting kids in ORCA are significantly lower than running our own secular studies program.

The basic costs are the rent for the location and utilities, as well as the wages for the learning coach. The profile of the learning coach is someone with a background in education who can support the children both academically and emotionally. These facilitators do not create curriculum or even grade tests – all that is done by ORCA. We simply pay the facilitator an hourly wage to oversee and assist the students while they do their work.

There are a number of important dollar savings here. Just one example: aside from not needing to hire a salaried teacher, we also do not need to hire a secular principal, as obviously ORCA has a principal who manages and oversees the entire program.

Were MHT to consider facilitating ORCA as a longer term option for the school, I believe that we could cut our tuition by 20% or more (MHT’s current tuition for 1^st grade is $9,600.00 plus consumable fees). In a middle class town like Portland Oregon, this creates a significant opportunity to market ourselves as an affordable version of Jewish day school.

Legal issues

I would like to point out that there are several important limitations regarding how this program can be run in the context of a day school. For example, because ORCA is a public school, no tuition can be charged for participation in ORCA. Further, a day school such as MHT cannot determine a child’s enrollment into ORCA; the student must apply independently. The day school can be designated by a parent as the “learning coach”, and manage the students work within ORCA. I would recommend that anyone seriously interested in exploring this option for their community, consult Connections Academy or possibly an attorney to assess legal limitations regarding the use of Connections Academy in the context of a day school.

Internet safety

It is important to point out that at MHT we are acutely aware of the dangers of the internet. The program has been set up in such a way that children are not exposed to the harms of the internet:

• The program is contained within one website, “Connexus”, run by ORCA.
• The students do not own their laptops; they belong to the parents and are given to the kids for school use only.
• MHT provides adult supervision at all times.
• Our students computers are equipped both with a very strong filter (K9) as well as Web-Chaver, which sends weekly email reports of internet activity to the parents.
• Depending on how the computer filter is set up, all websites can be made inaccessible without the passcode.
• Our students are prohibited from visiting websites other than Conexus. On rare occasions, assignments do involve visiting other sites; this activity is monitored by the learning coach.
• Other measures can be taken, depending on the comfort level and good sense of the parents.

Some reflections on on-line schooling

Again, at this stage of our development, this on-line public school is being utilized for a group of 7 children. However, I believe that this presents an opportunity that our community – and others – should look at seriously for long term secular studies education. The feasibility of an institution such as MHT providing full resources for high level Judaic and secular courses is a very serious question mark regarding our future. While we want to appeal to parents who value both Judaic and secular achievement, offering a dual-curriculum is a monumental financial challenge, especially in Jewish community such as Portland. While finances are an issue in almost all communities, small middle-class cities like Portland find finances particularly vexing.

On the other hand, by providing our own Judaic program and supporting students in ORCA, our goals may become more attainable. And by providing these resources within the school building, we are creating a very positive Jewish environment in which kids have a place to grow together with their peers and their Judaic teachers, while accessing a top rate general education. And while some prospective parents may be reticent about the on-line learning component, with our set-up, we have created a dynamic learning environment which addresses the multiple layers of social and educational needs that students have.

With all of these advantages to the ORCA program, it is important to note a significant challenge we may face in the event that we use ORCA as our educational template, as it may not be perceived as a “real” schooling option by parents that we want to attract. While we may not loose local Orthodox families if we utilize ORCA, potential parents outside of our Orthodox community who we seek to recruit may opt for schools which provide traditional secular classrooms on site, with the obvious advantages that creates. If MHT or another school is to consider this virtual option, we will need to look very carefully at how this will impact our long term ability to attract new families. While the cost of ORCA would work to our recruiting advantage, there could be negative perceptions that we need to overcome.

Concluding thoughts

The greater Orthodox community of the United States is at a crossroads. Times are changing, and it is likely that the way that our schools provide education will need to change. We have a collective responsibility to address these challenges in a creative way. Today, there are many Orthodox kids who are leaving Orthodox day schools. We also face the unsustainable financial burden which threatens the well-being of families in our communities. To respond to these challenges, we must develop sustainable solutions that will allow every Jewish boy and girl to access Jewish education. This is especially true in smaller communities which do not have the resources of larger Jewish communities. The use of pubic-on line school “under the roof” of the Jewish day-school, is one possibility which should be examined seriously within the Jewish community.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                                                                                                                July 16, 2012

Contact for PEJE: Donna Woonteiler
Director, Marketing Communications
617.367.0001 x134; donna@peje.org

Contact at OU: Stephen Steiner
Director of Public Relations
212.613.8318; steiners@ou.org

The Partnership for Excellence in Jewish Education (PEJE) and the Orthodox Union (OU) have joined forces to establish the new Jewish Day School Affordability Knowledge Center — a clearinghouse devoted to researching, analyzing, and circulating knowledge and noteworthy practices about existing tuition affordability programs and methodologies. The first-ever partnership brings together the strengths and skills of two prominent national organizations, underscoring their mutual concern for the vitality and sustainability of Jewish day schools.

“Communities and day schools seek innovative and effective ways to address tuition affordability. The Jewish Day School Affordability Knowledge Center reflects PEJE’s belief that knowledge and resources reside in practices at the local level,” said Amy Katz, Executive Director of PEJE. “Our partnership, and the expertise and thought leadership our respective organizations bring to the table, is testament to the need for collaboration around today’s major issues, and the value of marshaling the Jewish community’s collective wisdom — with data to back it up.”

Led by Charles Cohen, Esq., and based in Boston at the PEJE offices, the Center will serve as a repository for disseminating a comprehensive body of information about Jewish day school affordability initiatives, ensuring that communities nationwide have access to knowledge and replicable models. A strategic planner with experience building relationships between and among day schools, synagogues, and central education agencies, Cohen recently served as Planning Manager for Jewish Continuity at the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh, where he worked with local day schools on the “Free Tuition for Transfer Students” program.

            “Addressing the Jewish day school affordability challenge is a top priority for the Jewish day school community, and thus for the Orthodox Union,” said Nathan J. Diament, Executive Director of Public Policy for the Orthodox Union. “While we are working to address the issue in a variety of ways, there is has been no ‘central address’ for collecting, analyzing, and disseminating information. The Orthodox Union is pleased to be partnering with PEJE to fill this critical gap.”

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The Partnership for Excellence in Jewish Education (PEJE) believes that day schools are essential for fostering an engaged Jewish people for an enduring future. PEJE connects and empowers Jewish day schools and major stakeholders in the Jewish community across the denominational and geographic spectrum and offers unparalleled knowledge and resources to foster financial sustainability and affordability. PEJE is dedicated to impacting the field through bold initiatives to stimulate the core revenue streams of annual campaign, legacy, endowment, and tuition and to broaden the market for day school education.

The Orthodox Union, now in its second century of service to the Jewish community of North America and beyond, represents the fastest growing segment in Jewish life. The OU is a world leader in community and synagogue services, adult education, youth work through NCSY, political action through the IPA (Institute of Public Affairs), and advocacy for persons with disabilities through Yachad and Our Way. Its kosher certification label, the   , is the world’s most recognized kosher symbol and can be found on over 600,000 products, manufactured in nearly 8,000 plants, in more than 80 countries around the world.

Everyone worries about something. Some people worry about their health and others about their safety. Nonpublic school parents, particularly those in the Jewish community, worry about tuition.

Every Jewish child should have the chance to attend a Jewish school, but the cost of tuition is too high for many parents.  I know some parents in my community who work three jobs in order to afford a Jewish education for their children. I know other parents that have been laid off and are forced to send their children to public school.

Thanks to Pennsylvania’s Educational Improvement Tax Credit (EITC) program, Pennsylvania parents are much better off than their New Jersey and New York counterparts.  According to the Philadelphia Jewish Federation, 22% of students at participating Jewish schools receive a scholarship funded by the EITC. These scholarships are a lifeline for parents, many of whom would otherwise have to send their children to either public school or to schools, many of which struggle to accept students paying little or nothing in tuition.

Yet many of the remaining 78% of students who meet the EITC’s income limits are nonetheless denied scholarships because there simply is not enough money. For the past 5 years, funding for the EITC has remained flat at $75 million per year, and was even cut to $60 million in 2009 and 2010. Though $75 million may sound like a lot of money, only $44.7 million are available for scholarships (the rest is set aside for pre-school and public school programs) and inflation has reduced the real value of those scholarships by a tenth since 2007.

By comparison, Florida’s tax credit program provides $175 million in tax credit scholarships each year and automatically expands by 25% each year that all available scholarship tax credits are claimed (which should be every year for quite some time).

In order to keep up with Pennsylvania’s growing population, rising tuition costs, and continued inflation, the EITC must be drastically increased and must have a mechanism to automatically expand each year.

While there are numerous proposals to assist families with sending their children to schools that fit their needs, whether it is a Jewish Day School, a special needs school or one with a specific academic program, the quickest and easiest way to assure more options is to have the existing EITC program funding increase to $100 million.

In recent months, Pennsylvania citizens have sent thousands of phone calls, e-mails, and letters to their legislators in a show of grassroots support for expanded school choice. For its part, the Orthodox Union co-sponsored a rally in Philadelphia on May 30, 2012 in support of EITC expansion. In the days leading up to the rally, my phone did not stop ringing and my email inbox was full. Parents were calling and writing to ask what they can do to help our school choice efforts. Parents understand just how important the EITC is for their children, and they want to do everything they can to see an increase approved.

Parents deserve access to programs that help pay for their children’s education and students deserve adequate educational resources and services.  Our proven and successful EITC program does this and needs your support.

Over the past few weeks, numerous Asbury Park Press articles and editorials have criticized New Jersey’s nonpublic school transportation policy. The view advocated by the Asbury Park Press is that if a parent chooses not to send a child to a Public School, the parent should then bear the expense of transporting them to a Non Public School.

I think the editor misunderstands why New Jersey provides transportation for all students – and it has nothing to do with expanding school choice or saving school districts money.

In 1968, the state mandated transportation for all students for health and safety reasons.

Many communities in New Jersey, especially suburban and rural ones, have no sidewalks. To protect small children from traffic accidents, the New Jersey legislature ordered school districts to provide transportation for ALL school-age children living between 2 and 20 miles from their school (2.5 – 20 miles for high school students).

Yet, there is another caveat to transportation funding. Only school districts that bus their public school students (remember there are 600 school districts) must bus their nonpublic school students. So small school districts, where every public school student lives within two miles of school, have no obligation to transport nonpublic school students.

There are other good reasons a school district, especially one like Lakewood, should provide transportation for all students. Lakewood has 18,000 nonpublic school students who travel to and from school each day. Imagine the traffic nightmare if 10,000 or more vehicles transported those students instead of 450 school buses. Imagine the environmental damage from 10,000 extra vehicles, spewing exhaust from their tailpipes, on the already congested roads twice each day.

As far as cost is concerned, the price of nonpublic bussing is set by private bus contractors, who provide over of 70% of the nonpublic transportation contracts. Nonpublic bus routes cost more because they transport fewer children over longer distances. That is not the fault of nonpublic schools parents, who already pay taxes and save the state money by sending their children to a nonpublic school.

True, some school districts struggle to afford both public school instruction and nonpublic school transportation. However, there are better solutions to this problem than endangering the health and safety of more than 80,000 children across the state.

If nonpublic school bussing protects even one child from death in a traffic accident, then it is worth every penny.

As the famous saying goes, he who saves one life is as if he has saved the world.

Josh Pruzansky is the New Jersey Director of Political Affairs and Public Policy for the Orthodox Union representing the needs of over 100 Synagogues and Jewish Day Schools in New Jersey.