The launching of the first nationwide study of Jewish education was announced here today by Prof. Oscar I. Janowsky, chairman of a commission which is conducting the study under the sponsorship of the American Association for Jewish Education.
Reporting to a national commission on his plans for the undertaking, Dr. Janowsky said he expects to start intensive investigations in 1953 in three pilot communities – a large, a middle-sized and a small community – with a nationwide study to follow thereafter. Two of the pilot communities will be Cleveland, Ohio, and Savannah, Georgia, with the third yeat to be selected.
Outlining the purposes of the study, Dr. Janowsky declared that it will seek “to determine how education can contribute to a more creative and satisfying Jewish life in America,” how the process of Jewish education can be improved, and how Jewish education can contribute most effectively to the needs of Jews within the framework of American society. He stressed the qualitative emphasis of the undertaking, declaring that its major emphasis will be on the purposes of Jewish education, its achievements in terms of the results it has had in the lives of its graduates, and attitudes held toward the Jewish educational process and institutions by parents, students, teachers and community leaders.
While the study is being sponsored by the American Association for Jewish Education, which will meet its costs, Dr. Janowsky pointed out that “no one organization, nor even a group of organizations, will control the study; an independent commission will have the authority to determine policy. The work of research and analysis will be done by experts subject to the review of the Commission and under the direction of an executive committee, and the recommendations will be presented to the community–and especially to the Jewish educational agencies–for consideration, discussion, and, it is hoped, adoption.”
The National Study Commission consists of 90 leading rabbis, educators, cultural figures, community organizers, journalists and organizational leaders.
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