Education is about more than an ATAR

The AJN this week features the VCE/ HSC results of Australia’s Jewish schools. Across the community, schools are rightly proud. Parents compare medians, count perfect scores and celebrate outstanding achievements. The scrutiny and the pride well earned.

Year 12 results matter. Parents are right to expect academic excellence, and it is our responsibility as schools to deliver it. One reason Australia’s Jewish schools consistently attract such a high percentage of the community’s children is because families do not have to choose between a Jewish education and a strong general studies education. Here, Jewish schools sit among the top schools in Australia. Parents can have both.

However, judging our schools by year 12 results alone misses the essence of what a Jewish education is meant to achieve.

If all we care about are ATARs, we could all send our children to Ballarat Clarendon College in Victoria or James Ruse Agricultural High School in NSW.

There are other metrics that matter just as much, if not more. Metrics that actually speak to our purpose, our mission of contributing to Jewish continuity. The question is not only how well our students perform academically at 18, but who they become as Jewish adults.

We are Jewish schools, not schools for Jews, and therefore should be judged by Jewish impact.

Our Jewish schools should be asked to report on things such as how many of our graduates spend a year in Israel? How many continue serious Jewish learning after school? How many remain involved in Jewish communal life, become youth leaders, run camps, volunteer, or serve as the next generation of board members and activists? How many build Jewish homes and raise Jewish children? How many make aliyah? How many choose careers, or volunteer in a way that contributes to the strengthening of the Jewish people?

And then there is the question of knowledge. Rabbi Sacks famously said that non-Jews respect Jews who respect Judaism. But one cannot respect what one doesn’t know. Do our graduates know Jewish practice beyond the soundbites of Purim costumes, apples and honey? Can they walk into any shule, wedding or funeral and know how to conduct themselves Jewishly?

What about Jewish history? Israel history? Our story stretches back 3500 years, well before the establishment of the modern State of Israel. Do our students know our story? As the People of the Book, have our students actually read The Book? And can they read The Book? Are our students graduating being able to read Hebrew? Conduct a conversation in Hebrew?

And, more importantly, do they love and live our Jewish story? When our children finish 12 years of Jewish schooling, do they know enough to stand proudly and confidently as Jews and Zionists?

There is also something to be said for the moral and ethical formation of our students. The foundations of goodness in Western society are not built on vague niceness, but on values that originate in the Jewish tradition and have shaped the world’s understanding of justice and human dignity. Ideas such as division of power, the rule of law, and seeing the divine image in all of humanity did not appear in a vacuum. Do our students recognise that these principles have deep Jewish roots? And can they articulate a thoughtful, values driven understanding of right and wrong that goes beyond simply being a good person?

And once we move beyond questions of curriculum, there is the matter of accessibility. If Jewish education is the beating heart of Jewish continuity, then affordability must be part of how we measure success. How much fee assistance do our schools provide? Are communal donor dollars flowing to schools working hardest to keep Jewish education accessible to families who value and prioritise Jewish education, but could not otherwise afford it?

We are blessed to have a range of outstanding Jewish schools, each with its own culture and strengths. But no matter how different we are in style or philosophy, we share a purpose far greater than academic success. Our schools do not exist only for the benefit of their current students. They exist to ensure continuity, commitment, connection and community.

Hillel said, “Im ein ani li, mi li – If I am not for myself, who will be for me?” Jewish schools must care for the individual child and remain faithful to each school’s specific mission.

But the continuation of that saying is equally important. “If I am only for myself, what am I?” Our Jewish schools must educate not only for the individual, and the individual school, but for the community, the nation and the future of Am Yisrael.

Marks are important, but they are not the measure. The real test of a Jewish school is the Jewish adults our students become, the Jewish lives they build, and the Jewish world they strengthen long after they leave our gates.

Shula Lazar is principal of Melbourne’s Leibler Yavneh College.