Loose Change: Troubled day schools, BHU-Towson merger and yeshiva Home Ec

This week in the Jewish media:

• The merger between Towson State University and the Baltimore Hebrew University is now official, according to the Baltimore Jewish Times.
• The Agnon School, the only community day school in Cleveland, is suffering from loss of money and loss of students, according to the Clevland Jewish News.
• In Phoenix, the Jess Schwartz College Prep, a Jewish prep school, has suffered a 40 percent drop in donations and will cut jobs and put its building project on hold, the Jewish News of Greater Phoenix reports.
• I think that both of those stories illustrate what Gary Rosenblatt said in his weekly Jewish Week column: Day schools could be dying.
• The New Jersey Jewish Standard covered the annual convention of the Rabbinical Council of America, the largest Orthodox rabbinical association, which took place in Teaneck last week.
• Yeshiva boys take home-economics in something of a groundbreaking vocational training program at a New Jersey Orthodox yeshiva, the New York Jewish Week reports.
• Elderly in New York are complaining that the food quality of kosher meals on wheels type programs because of $1.4 million in city budget cuts to such programs, the Forward reports.
• Also from the Forward, religious Zionists question the value of March of the Living.
• The National Council for Jewish Women lobbied in Trenton for sex ed in New Jersey, according to the New Jersey Jewish News.
• The Conservative Congregation Adas Israel in D.C. receives a $2.3 million bequest from Dr. Irving Brick, the largest donation it has ever received, according to the Washington Jewish Week.
• Southern California Board of Rabbis will install its first female – and gay – president next week, according to the LA Jewish Journal’s God Blog.
• The FIDF is raising money for scholarships for Israeli soldiers, according to the Kansas City Jewish News. Could someone tell me how much a college education costs in Israel for a soldier?
• The Atlanta Jewish Times looks at the rebuilding effort in New Orleans three and a half years later.