Hi barrys-ga:
You asked: "I am interested in statistics of how many school age
children were in full time Jewish day schools, in the 1920's, 1930's,
1940's... thourgh
2002.Any information regarding the amount of Torah study now as
opposed to
50-60 years ago would also be helpful."
As you'll see, whether American Jewish children are receiving more or
less Jewish instruction than in the past -- well, that depends on
which of the following authors you ask!
An article written by Peter Beinart in the October 1999 Atlantic
Monthly, notes that "Since the early 1960s the number of children
attending supplementary schools has fallen by half, to about 270,000.
And the number in full-time Jewish schools -- the kind that many
Jewish leaders once scorned as self-segregating -- has more than
tripled, to about 200,000. Currently the population of Jewish
school-age children numbers roughly a million. The proportion enrolled
in public schools has declined from more than 90 percent in 1962 to
about 65 percent today."
http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/99oct/9910jewishschools.htm
A link in that article will take you to the national Jewish Data Bank
at:
http://www.jewishdatabank.com
There, I found this article citing this statistic on education for
Jewish children:
"Analysis of the current coverage of Jewish education shows that
around 400,000 children were in the system in 1990. About one-third of
these were in day schools."
http://web.gc.cuny.edu/dept/cjstu/idehig.htm#jch
At that above site you will also see links for Tables 20 and 21. You
can click on these links to see graphs and statistics. The problem
with these graphs is I can't see the year in which the surveys were
taken -- although, presumably, this is recent data -- and the term
"Jewish Education," in this case, may be more encompassing than just
Jewish Day Schools; there may be other forms of Jewish education
lumped in with this data.
But for a very good breakdown on current attendance at Jewish Day
Schools, see a 2002 article from The Jewish Bulletin News of Northern
California. According the article's author, J.J. Goldberg,"One of
every five American Jewish schoolchildren is now enrolled in an
all-day Jewish parochial school, according to a new census of Jewish
day schools. The enrollment figures -- 184,333 students total, up a
brisk 15 percent in the last decade."
http://www.jewishsf.com/bk000310/sfdayschools.shtml
An article, by Jeremy Rabkin, from the January/February 1999 issue of
Policy Review, notes that "As late as 1945, there were only 69 Jewish
day schools in the United States, with a combined enrollment of only
10,200 students. The growth in Orthodox day schools in the decades
since World War II has been extraordinary. By 1975, there were 425
Orthodox day schools, serving 82,200 students. There are 731 day
schools today."
http://www.policyreview.org/jan99/rabkin.html
This Web site:
http://www.whymarryjewish.com/j2k.html
argues that Jewish education is on the decline: "Less emphasis is
being placed on a Jewish education. In 1962, 540,000 Jewish children
were attending afternoon [and]weekend schools, and 60,000 were
enrolled in day schools. By 1990, fewer than 240,000 Jewish children
attended afternoon /weekend schools and 140,000 attended day schools.
NET LOSS -- 220,000 Jewish children." (This Web page appears to have
been authored in the late 1990s.)
There's an interesting article, "From Tradition to Modernity," by
Chaim Schneider in Yeshiva University's Commentator magazine, about
the history of New York City Jewish Day Schools, beginning in 1886:
http://www.yucommentator.com/v63i7/features/mtahistory.shtml
This Oct. 19, 1998 article from the Maryland SunSpot:
http://www.btfiloh.org/sunspot.htm
focuses on a growth spurt in Jewish Day Schools in the Baltimore
region, but also cites national statistics: "In 1962, 60,000 students
were enrolled in Jewish day schools nationwide. Last year, enrollment
reached 200,000."
This site gives the growth of Jewish Day Schools, categorized by name
and location, from 1946 -- 2003. However, attendance rates aren't
provided:
http://216.239.33.100/search?q=cache:M6Hcj84NrqIC:www.peje.org/highschoolgrowth.pdf+growth+jewish+day+schools+&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
The Task Force On Jewish Day Schools notes 168,000 American children
attended Jewish Day Schools from 1987-1989. This articles also cites
the beginning of Jewish Day School as circa 1940s.
http://www.jesna.org/pdfs/ds_tfr01.pdf
The best site I found for historical data on attendance at Jewish Day
Schools, was from a UK site, pertaining only to British children
enrolled in Jewish Day Schools:
http://www.jpr.org.uk/Reports/PJC%20Reports/no_2_2001/Introduction.htm
I wish I could have found an equivalent site to the above for American
children attending Jewish Day Schools!
I couldn't find specific attendance data for American Jewish Day
Schools prior to the year 1945, as cited in the Policy Review article
by Jeremy Rabkin. (It's easier to find historical data for Jewish Day
Schools in Australia and Europe than in America. If you're interested
in that data, just try some of my search strings.) I also failed to
find precise data for the 1950s.
All I could find for pre-1945 was very general information about the
Schechter Day School Movement, such as this brief page:
http://www.ksds.edu/About/history.html
For a good overview of the Schechter Movement in the 1950s, see "The
Choice For Jewish Day Schools" by Steven M. Brown, at:
http://www.uscj.org/item20_108.html
You can also try the Sosland Resource Center, but I had difficulty
finding historical data there:
http://www.jesna.org/cgi-bin/sosland.php3?op1=325
You can also try the U.S. Dept. of Education's "National Center For
Education Statistics" at:
http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/pss/privateschoolsearch/
Just choose "Jewish" for affiliation, but you will have to search
these stats state by state -- a time-consuming process! But there are
attendance figures for each Jewish Day School listed.
I used the following search strings:
"statistics Jewish Day Schools"
"attendance Jewish Day Schools"
"Jewish Day Schools 1920s"
"Jewish Day Schools 1930s"
"Jewish Day Schools 1950s"
"American Jewish Day Schools"
I do hope my answer is sufficient -- you get the final say on that.
Regards,
nancylynn-ga |
Clarification of Answer by
nancylynn-ga
on
03 Nov 2002 13:21 PST
I found some additional information:
A new study of Jewish life in America has just been released, and it
notes increased enrollment at Jewish Day Schools. You can read an
overview of the study in the Nov. 3, 2002 edition of Jew Week:
http://www.jewsweek.com/society/157.htm
The director of the study is Dr. Egon Mayer, and I suggest you keep
searching (including at Google news) with strings like "Egon Mayer
study" and "Egon Mayer Day Schools," over the next few weeks, as more
information from the study is published.
Also, I found a March 2002 article from Dei'ah veDibur Online
magazine: "According to a survey of all Jewish educational
institutions performed by Dr. Marvin Schick, there are 138,000
students in the U.S. enrolled in Orthodox Jewish day schools. This
compares to 47,000 enrolled in non-Orthodox Jewish day schools. These
students attended a total of 676 different schools that were
surveyed."
http://www.shemayisrael.com/chareidi/archives5762/tzav/TZP62aamjew.htm
This December 1999 Commentary Magazine article, "Who's Afraid Of
Jewish Day Schools?" by Jack Wertheimer (professor of American Jewish
history at the Jewish Theological Seminary), provides excellent
overview and data: " . . . the small number of students--numbering
fewer than 20,000 in the early 1940's--who attended full-time Jewish
"day schools" . . . . Thanks to a quiet revolution over the last
several decades, day schools at the elementary, junior-high, and even
high-school level are thriving as never before, boasting some 200,000
pupils and 700 schools around the country.":
http://www.findarticles.com/cf_dls/m1061/5_108/58243466/p1/article.jhtml
This article "The Costs of Jewish Living: Revisiting Jewish
Involvements and Barriers," by Gerald B. Bubis, which appears at the
American Jewish Committee's site, notes Wertheimer's research as being
definitive:
http://www.ajc.org/InTheMedia/Publications.asp?did=427&pid=1006
If you'd like to read more about Wertheimer and his research, check:
http://www.jtsa.edu/academics/faculty/jawertheimer/
You can also try search string: "Wertheimer 2000 Jewish study."
Also, I posted an incorrect date of 2002 (that's actually the
copyright date that appears at the site) for the article by J.J.
Goldberg at:
http://www.jewishsf.com/bk000310/sfdayschools.shtml
That article was actually first published on February 18, 2000 in The
Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, then reprinted in the The
Jewish Bulletin News of Northern California.
I hope this helps,
nancylynn-ga
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