At Elite Day Schools, Competition Now More Intense

Ramaz’s new merit scholarship program for its high school has upped the ante on competition among area day schools. Michael Datikash

by Carolyn Slutsky
Staff Writer

When James Lavin and his wife of Teaneck, N.J., were deciding where to send their youngest child to high school this fall, they faced a different set of choices than when they chose The Ramaz School for their oldest daughter and Salanter Akiba Riverdale Academy (SAR) for their twins.

This year, some Modern Orthodox day schools have upped the ante by offering for the first time merit scholarships, a move that is causing families like Lavin’s to look and re-look at the alternatives in an educational landscape increasingly defined by staunch competition among New York metropolitan area day schools.

“It seems like it’s absolutely a good thing,” said Lavin of the growing competitiveness of schools. “I’m an arch capitalist.”

While some parents and community

members see increased competition as a positive, spurring schools toward excellence and readying them to compete with other elite private schools across the city, others worry that the struggle to woo students detracts from schools’ missions and is needlessly cut-throat and driven by secular values.

“It makes them think through the curriculum instead of just resting on their laurels,” said Lavin, who is supportive of schools’ re-examination of themselves. “The renewed competition gave us an opportunity to talk more directly with schools about our child ... in a way that wouldn’t have been possible if there weren’t competition between schools. It changes the balance of power a bit.”

Lavin’s decision was complicated by the addition to the scene of the Ramaz Scholars Program. The new merit-based scholarship seeks entering ninth graders with particular talents — this year they include a dancer who started a program for young girls in her neighborhood and a student with a keen interest in robotics, as well as other academic, Judaic, athletic and artistic traits — and pairs them with faculty members or alumni who will mentor them over four years of high school.

The scholarship comes with $10,000 annually to help offset Ramaz’s tuition, which will top $30,000 this year for 12th grade. There is no application process; instead, the first cohort of 14 students was chosen based on their general applications and interviews. And in some cases scholarships are being offered to families who can well afford the pricey tuition without additional help.

Lavin said his daughter was offered such a scholarship by Ramaz but the family declined and instead she will attend SAR in Riverdale, whose high school is newer to the scene. Many observers say SAR, whose much-praised high school opened in 2003, is eroding Ramaz’s status as the automatic frontrunner in the battle to attract the area’s best Modern Orthodox students.

“Ramaz used to have something close to a monopoly, a good swath of the New York metro area,” said Marvin Schick, a consultant for the Avi Chai Foundation. “It doesn’t have it anymore.”

Many in the community see the $140,000 Ramaz Scholars Program as a bold move to attract a more diverse student body. But other parents and observers worry that the program will detract from need-based financial assistance. Still others more pointedly believe that the program is a veiled fundraising ploy, a symptom of the ever-increasing niche fundraising that seeks to attract wealthy families who will then donate generously to the school in the future.

Administrators at Ramaz are quick to point out that funding for the program comes from outside donors interested in cultivating students with particular talents, and does not touch the pool of other financial aid, which they and others agree is generous. Judith Fagin, dean at Ramaz, said the program came about after a school-wide discussion focused on trying to meet the needs of students in various program areas.

“I don’t underestimate the fact that there was an opportunity to get a merit scholarship along with it, but this is much more about one-on-one mentoring,” she said of the program.

As to the critique that the program was developed in response to the increasing competition felt now that SAR and other newer Jewish high schools are on the scene, Fagin said, “we will not offer this as a tool to buy students.” She did admit, however, that offering scholarships to affluent families whose children do not need financial assistance might prove helpful to Ramaz down the line.

“With any luck these parents will acknowledge the fact that the school has done this for their child,” she said. “Hopefully the parents will do the right thing when it comes to our fundraising ability.”

Many observers of this new wrinkle in day school rivalries say competition, in this as in American life in general, is good for schools.

Steven Bayme, director of the Contemporary Jewish Life Department of the American Jewish Committee, related a story about attending a bris at which two rabbis associated with different day schools spoke eloquently about how they hoped the child would enter their respective schools when the time came.

“There’s something eminently desirable that schools are competing for students. When day schools are trying to improve themselves to the point that they’re more attractive to students, that’s only to the good,” said Bayme.

He added that the idea of merit scholarships could be traced back to Eastern Europe and the principle of the kollel fellowship, where religious men were funded by the community to engage deeply in Jewish study, and that today’s merit scholarships also mirror what is happening in the broader educational world.

“The beauty of the day school experience is it holds the promise of teaching people to live in two civilizations,” said Bayme. “I don’t think this is a violation of Jewish values; rather it represents the best of Jewish education and American education.”

Middle-Class Parents Angered

But a chorus of parents and others question the value of merit scholarships. Largely middle class, beholden to the financial aid system and therefore reluctant to go on the record with critiques of the system, they say schools should focus more on providing relief for families who often must work multiple jobs to pay for Jewish education, leaving them little time to spend with their children. Many resent the idea of merit scholarships for families who can easily afford to pay full tuition, as well as some of the broader implications of just who is meritorious.

“What I find problematic is the model of seeing students as commodities, shoo-ins to Harvard and the best universities,” said one parent. “These high schools are seeing themselves as college prep schools but it seems these are not the Jewish values reflected by the community, but secular values driving this.”

“The schools are trying to one-up each other when the community should try together to get as many kids as possible a Jewish education,” said another.

“If someone’s going to give $100,000 ... why don’t they give $100,000 to someone needy, especially when tuition is [so] high?” asked a third.

At other area schools, merit scholarships are on the radar but not necessarily a given — yet.
The Frisch School in Paramus, N.J., is offering merit scholarships for the first time this year.

Principal Kalman Stein said there is an application process that takes into consideration grades, test scores and an essay, and that the funding for the “handful” of scholarships will come from an anonymous donor and not conflict with the $2 million in need-based aid Frisch awards annually.

As for the broader perspective, Stein said he finds some of the competition between schools “unseemly.”

“It would be an overstatement to say Jewish values are being lost, but sometimes we all become a little overly competitive,” he said.

Administrators at Yeshivah of Flatbush, North Shore Hebrew Academy and SAR, other competitive area yeshivas, say they do not offer merit scholarships at this time.

Daniel Vitow, North Shore’s principal, said the school offered merit scholarships when it opened in 2001, but stopped two years later when it had a solid student body. Competition among schools, he said, “in general is healthy, it makes everybody better.”

Before Ramaz and Frisch joined the merit scholarship scene, San Diego Jewish Academy had been the only North American day school to offer such aid, according to Rabbi Josh Elkin, executive director of the Partnership for Excellence in Jewish Education. The California school is a community day school, drawing from all denominations of the local Jewish community.

San Diego Jewish Academy Executive Director Larry Acheatel said the offer of merit scholarships to 10 students each year based on an application process for students who display academic excellence, a commitment to tikkun olam and a strong passion for learning, was designed to attract middle-class families who would not qualify for financial aid but could not afford the tuition.

When evaluating students based on merit, Acheatel said, “we know we will capture students who are meritorious from lower income families; the system takes that into account so there isn’t double-dipping. Families with significant financial means may have meritorious [children] and their children will receive money, but maybe they will contribute more to the annual campaign.”

Schick took issue not with merit scholarships, per se, but with the lack of awareness he sees among area day schools of including the entire Jewish community.

“The elite Jewish day schools have not fulfilled in any sense the obligation to be caring toward poor families or to reach out and invite kids who would benefit from an education there,” he said, pointing to a Bukharian student in Queens or any number of new immigrants or economically disadvantaged children who would benefit from a day school education, if only they could get in the door. “The wealthier schools are getting wealthier and the rest are suffering. Ramaz has to use some of its largesse to help other people.”

Fagin, the dean at Ramaz, echoed the opinion of several administrators: “I think competition is a good thing, it allows parents and kids to make good decisions,” she said. “It’s forced us to look at ourselves and forced other schools to look at themselves.”

E-mail: carolyn@jewishweek.org

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