The Educators in Jewish Schools Study (EJSS)
Source: JESNA Publications
The Educators in Jewish Schools Study (EJSS) was sponsored by JESNA in order to learn more about patterns and anomalies in the retention of educators in Jewish schools in North America and the factors involved in educators’ decisions to remain in or leave the field. The EJSS report presents the findings of the North American random sample study of educators and administrators in Jewish schools.
The EJSS research was conducted in two distinct phases. In Phase One, the Jewish Educational Change Research Team, led by Michael Ben-Avie, Ph.D., of the Yale Child Study Center, and Jeffrey Kress, Ph.D., of the Jewish Theological Seminary, conducted data collection and managed data entry for the EJSS study. These researchers also conducted their own analyses of the EJSS data for a separate and distinct research project. Phase Two focused on JESNA’s analysis of the EJSS dataset to answer key research questions.
In Phase Two, JESNA focused on identifying key leverage points (that is, those variables that can be manipulated) in the dataset it received from the researchers. JESNA conducted analyses that probed further into the data, including analyses that posited relationships between variables, resulting in a more nuanced understanding of the findings and more detailed knowledge about the educators working in Jewish day and complementary schools.
JESNA prepared the dataset for analyses focusing on day and complementary school educators, created new variables from existing ones (when necessary), and conducted analyses that helped to develop a portrait of today’s Jewish day school and complementary school educators.
The EJSS findings paint a vivid snapshot of the teachers in the field today and provide data that may inform key stakeholders about the factors that motivate them to enter and remain in the field of Jewish education in Jewish day and complementary schools.