Tag: Jewish education

Not All “Science of Reading” Is Science: Hebrew Deserves Better

No serious school leader today would dismiss the Science of Reading when it comes to English. When it comes to Hebrew, though, most schools aren’t shrugging – they’re exhausted. Bandwidth, training, and resources are real barriers. Still, we can’t let those barriers define what’s possible when Hebrew literacy is the key to prayer, Torah, and Jewish belonging.

No serious school leader today would dismiss the Science of Reading when it comes to English.  We know the research.  We’ve seen the results.  We’ve changed practice.

When it comes to Hebrew, though, I don’t think most schools are shrugging – I think most are exhausted.  Bandwidth, training, and resources are real barriers, and Hebrew instruction has rarely had the scaffolds that English teachers now take for granted.  Still, we can’t let those barriers define what’s possible.  Too many of us keep relying on tradition, intuition, or “this is how it’s always been done,” and the result is predictable: children who stumble, schools that struggle, and a field that quietly lowers its expectations.  While it has been published and cited publicly before, it clearly hasn’t resonated yet so I feel it must be repeated: less than 40% of students in day schools and yeshivot across North America are reading at or above grade level benchmarks for Hebrew reading.  

The stakes could not be higher.  Hebrew is not just another subject on a Jewish day school schedule.  It is the key that unlocks prayer, Torah, rabbinics, Israel, and Jewish identity itself.  Post–October 7th, Hebrew feels more urgent than ever – not just as an academic subject, but as the connective tissue of Jewish peoplehood.  If we want our children to pray with fluency, study with depth, and feel part of a global Jewish story, they must be able to read Hebrew with confidence and comprehension.

[When I say “reading,” I’m using the Science of Reading definition: reading comprehension is the product of accurate, automatic decoding × language comprehension.  In Hebrew, that means kriah (decoding/fluency) must be built systematically while oral language and text knowledge are cultivated.  There’s no real “reading” without comprehension.]

In my early months at Scott Goldberg Consulting (SGC), I’ve had the privilege to sit with our coaches, visit schools, and watch teachers and students doing this work.  And here’s the thing: even after twenty years as a head of school, even after working closely with consultants, even as someone who already believed in the Science of Reading, I realize now how much I didn’t know.  We didn’t use these products in my schools.  We didn’t fully recognize the stakes.  And I see now what a difference it makes.

Bandwidth and capacity are real barriers.  Schools are stretched thin. Leaders are juggling more than ever.  But I’ve been inspired by what I’ve seen: coaches guiding teachers, teachers guiding students, students unlocking Hebrew fluency across every kind of learning profile.  It’s real.  It’s happening.  And it’s transformative.

A growing number of programs now claim to be aligned with the Science of Reading  and that’s a good sign of renewed attention to literacy.  But let’s be honest: not all “Science of Reading” is science.  True SoR alignment means explicit, systematic instruction built on decades of empirical research.  Our work in Hebrew draws directly from that research base, applying it faithfully to a new language rather than just borrowing its buzzwords.

That work is being led by Dr. Scott Goldberg, who has published foundational research on Hebrew oral reading fluency and written and presented alongside many of the scholars who defined the Science of Reading field globally.  His continued scholarship has positioned him as the go-to voice for Hebrew within Science of Reading academic circles.

At SGC, we’ve applied the full Science of Reading framework to Hebrew through two complementary products.  MaDYK is a universal screening and progress-monitoring assessment that measures the basic early literacy skills that predict overall skilled reading, including comprehension.  Even Kriah is a comprehensive curriculum and professional-learning system that helps teachers deliver explicit, systematic Hebrew reading instruction so students become skilled readers with strong decoding and comprehension skills.  This isn’t “phonics-only”; it’s the pathway from oral language, vocabulary, phonological awareness, orthography and fluency to meaning.

Hebrew at the Center has long been at the forefront of elevating Hebrew teaching and learning across the field.  Through our partnership on the Pritzat Derech project and at the recent Hitkadmut Conference, we are working together to connect that expertise in Hebrew language pedagogy with evidence-based approaches to reading.  This collaboration — alongside the work of networks like Tamim Academy Schools, who have piloted Even Kriah — reflects a growing recognition that Hebrew literacy deserves the same rigor, research, and professional development that English literacy already enjoys.

This is exactly what MTSS (Multi-Tiered System of Supports) calls for – a tiered approach where Tier 1 curriculum is evidence-based and Tier 2 and Tier 3 interventions are systematic and responsive.  When we fail to provide that structure in Hebrew, we fail our most vulnerable learners.  To deny struggling students access to effective Hebrew reading instruction is not just a pedagogic failure.  It is a moral one, because without it, these children are shut out of prayer, Torah, community, and belonging.

So what can we do tomorrow?

We can start by asking harder questions about how Hebrew is actually being taught and assessed in our schools.  We can make sure Tier 1 instruction is evidence-based, explicit and systematic.  We can use real data – yes, like the kind MaDYK provides – to ensure all students are developing necessary reading skills and to inform interventions that work.  We can carve out time for training so teachers understand how children really learn to read Hebrew.  And we can keep this conversation alive  – at Hitkadmut, in our networks, in every place where Jewish learning matters.

If we wouldn’t tolerate outdated practices and more than 60% of students performing below grade level in English, why do we accept it in Hebrew?  If we already know how children learn to read, why would we allow the key to Jewish life to remain locked?

This is not about one program or one vendor.  It is about a field waking up to a truth hiding in plain sight: we know what works, we have the tools, and the only question left is whether we have the will.

The Jewish future depends on many things.  But one is clear: if we want our children to pray, to learn, to belong – we need to get Hebrew right.

The science is here.  The tools are here.  The time is now.

If You’ve Seen One Jewish School, You’ve Seen…One Jewish School

Like many Canadians, this December took me from snowy boots to sandy flip-flops as I spent time in Florida. What I encountered there—sometimes in the span of a single day—was a striking reminder of the diversity, complexity, and quiet miracle of Jewish day schools, and what that diversity asks of us as leaders.

Like many Canadians, this December took me from snowy boots to sandy flip-flops as I spent time in Florida.  However, what made this trip different was not the weather, but the work: over the course of a few days, I had the opportunity to visit several Jewish day schools in person, sometimes more than one in the same day.

What struck me wasn’t simply the warmth or the hospitality.  It was the contrast.

In the span of hours, I moved between schools that differed dramatically in size, educational philosophy, religious culture, physical space, and communal norms.  Different buildings.  Different dress.  Different rhythms of tefillah and learning.  Different assumptions about what a “good day school” looks like.  And yet, each was deeply and unmistakably Jewish – animated by care for children, commitment to Torah, and responsibility for the future.

I found myself thinking: this is a quiet Jewish miracle.

We often talk about “diversity” in Jewish education, but usually in abstract or ideological terms – denominations, movements, labels.  What I witnessed instead was diversity as it actually lives and breathes: in hallways and classrooms, in schedules and staffing models, in the daily choreography of institutions serving real families in real communities.

And this was just one small slice of a much broader tapestry.

In my current work, I’m in relationship with schools across continents and across the Jewish spectrum – large and small, legacy institutions and newer ones, schools wrestling with growth and schools wrestling with sustainability.  The contexts vary widely.  The challenges don’t always rhyme.  And the solutions cannot be imported wholesale from one place to another.

Which is precisely the point.

Strong ideas matter.  Research matters.  Proven practices matter.  But they only become transformative when they are translated and interpreted through local culture, capacity, and readiness.  Too often, we confuse replication with leadership, assuming that what worked “there” will work “here,” if only we apply it faithfully enough.  In reality, systems fail not because ideas are weak, but because context is ignored.

This is where humility becomes a leadership skill.

Not the performative kind, but the disciplined kind: the willingness to listen before prescribing, to ask better questions before offering frameworks, and to assume that wisdom already exists within the institution, even when outside expertise is invited in.

January is a funny month in schools.  Some communities are just regaining momentum after Winter Break; others are easing toward Yeshiva Break.  It’s a liminal time—part reset, part continuation.  It’s tempting to think of this stretch as lost time, or as a holding pattern before the real work begins.

I’m increasingly convinced the opposite is true.

These in-between moments are where the most important noticing happens.  What feels heavy right now?  Which conversations are being deferred?  What successes deserve more attention than they’re getting?  The experiences leaders are having now are often the clearest signals of the changes they’ll want to make later – but only if they pause long enough to name them.

I’ve long believed in taking advantage of all the “new years” available to us: the secular new year, Rosh Hashanah, Pesach, Tu BiShvat.  Each invites a different kind of stock-taking.  Each creates space not just to set goals, but to revisit assumptions.

So, in that spirit, here are a few quiet “resolutions” I’m carrying into the (secular) year ahead shaped by what I’ve seen recently, and by the privilege of walking alongside many very different schools:

  • To keep difference visible rather than smoothing it over in the name of efficiency or scale.
  • To lead with questions before frameworks, and curiosity before conclusions.
  • To resist one-size-fits-all solutions, even when they are elegant or popular.
  • To honor the wisdom already present in institutions, not just the expertise brought from outside.
  • To remember that meaningful change depends as much on readiness and relationships as it does on strategy.

Jewish day schools do not form a single story.  They are a library of stories – distinct, contextual, and deeply rooted.  The work ahead is not to unify them into sameness, but to help each one become more fully itself, in service of the children and communities it serves.

Standing in Florida classrooms in December – moving from boots to flip-flops, from one world to another – I was reminded how rare, fragile, and hopeful this ecosystem really is.

That feels like the right place to begin the year.

Starting Early Enough to Do It Right

The hardest thing to do – even when you know it – is to start early enough to do it right. As schools head toward Chanukah and Winter Break, a reflection on leadership, time, and why the work we are living now must shape the change we hope to make next.

One of the things I say most often in my leadership coaching is also one of the hardest things to live by:

The first day of school is the beginning of the planning for the next school year.

Intellectually, most Heads of School know this. Practically, almost none of us experience it that way.

Instead, the first day of school is the beginning of…everything.  Counseling out a student who clearly isn’t thriving.  Offering difficult feedback to a teacher you genuinely care about.  Celebrating a small but meaningful success that took far more effort than anyone realizes.  Sitting with a family in pain.  Feeding Jewish souls.  Managing the thousand invisible decisions that make a school function before lunch.

And all of this unfolds inside the same, stubborn reality: time is a zero-sum game.  Every hour spent responding to what’s urgent feels like an hour stolen from what’s important.  Even when we know better, the hardest thing to do is to start the things early enough to do them right.

In theory, we want to plan.  (Man plans.)

In reality, life intervenes.  (God laughs.)

What I’m seeing again and again in my coaching work is not a lack of insight or commitment among school leaders.  Heads know what they want to change.  They know what’s not working.  They know where systems are misaligned, where culture needs tending, where capacity is stretched too thin.

What they lack is not vision.

It’s space.

The paradox is this: the experiences you are having now fuel the changes you are craving for the future.  The tensions of October.  The hard conversations of November.  The exhaustion of December.  These are not distractions from the work – they are the work.  They contain the data, the stories, and the emotional truth that should shape what comes next.

But here’s the rub: you cannot build that bridge later if you don’t begin laying it now.

Starting early doesn’t mean drafting a strategic plan in September or adding another initiative to an already overflowing plate.  It means noticing. Capturing.  Naming.  Asking better questions while the experience is still alive:

  • What patterns am I seeing right now that I don’t want to normalize?
  • Which decisions feel reactive—and why?
  • Where are people asking for clarity that I’m not yet giving?
  • What am I learning about our systems, our culture, our limits?

This is the quiet work before the work.  And it’s the part that gets skipped most often – not because leaders don’t value it, but because it doesn’t scream for attention the way today’s crisis does.

The danger in waiting is not just that we lose momentum.  It’s that by the time we’re finally “ready” to plan, the experiences that should have shaped our thinking have already been flattened into memory.  We remember the conclusions, but not the texture.  The emotion.  The human cost.  The nuance.

As we head into Chanukah, many schools are cresting toward Winter Break—or, in some communities a bit later, Yeshiva Break.  There is a familiar rhythm to this moment: exhaustion mixed with pride, relief paired with a quiet sense of unfinished business.  We tell ourselves that the pauses ahead will give us space to think, to plan, to reset.

Sometimes it does.  Often, it doesn’t.

Breaks offer rest – which is essential – but they rarely offer clarity on their own.  By the time January (or February) arrives, the pace returns quickly, and whatever we hoped to hold onto from the fall can feel strangely distant unless we have already begun to notice it with intention.

So perhaps the invitation for this moment is a modest one.  Not to solve, fix, or design – but to begin.  To capture what you’re seeing now while it’s still vivid.  To write a few notes you won’t yet act on.  To name the questions that deserve more time than you currently have.  (Perchance to blog?)

Starting early doesn’t mean starting loudly.

It means starting honestly.

The first day of school really is the beginning of the planning for the next school year.  Not because we should rush, but because the story is already being written – whether we are paying attention or not.

Chanukah reminds us that light doesn’t come from certainty.  It comes from beginning, even when the oil doesn’t yet feel like enough.

Lead With the Story, or the Story Will Lead You

Every school is a story, and someone has to tell it. Why narrative leadership – naming the chapter, locating people in the journey, and shaping meaning – is one of the most powerful tools a Head of School has.

There’s a screaming truth I keep returning to in my leadership coaching: every school is a story, and someone has to tell it.

If leadership doesn’t narrate the story, someone else will—and leaders rarely enjoy the version that fills the silence.

Over the years – as a head of school, a mentor, and now a consultant -I’ve become convinced that one of the least understood and most essential responsibilities of a Head of School (or Executive Director, or CEO) is to serve as the Storyteller-in-Chief.  Not as a marketer.  Not as a cheerleader. But as the person who names reality honestly, locates people in a shared narrative, and helps the community understand what chapter they’re in and what comes next.

Why stories matter in schools

Neuroscience has confirmed what good educators have always known: stories are how humans make sense of the world.  They build trust.  They anchor memory.  They create connection.

But institutions run on story too…and not always the official one.  There’s the story a school tells publicly.  There’s the story people tell each other in the hallways and parking lots.  And there’s the story people carry privately about their place in the community.

When these stories align, culture feels coherent.  When they diverge, culture frays.  This is why narrative leadership isn’t “soft work.”  It’s culture work.  It’s alignment work.  It’s leadership work.

Where storytelling actually shows up

In my headships, and now in the schools I coach, I see the same narrative leverage points again and again:

  • Admissions.  Families join the story before they join the school.
  • Development.  Donors give to a future they can see themselves within.
  • Board governance.  Boards drift when members think they’re in different chapters.
  • Faculty culture.  Teachers need to understand how their daily work fits into the broader arc.
  • Change leadership.  Change is always a narrative moment: “What story am I in now, and who am I in it?”

You can have the right strategy, the right curriculum, even the right people.

But if no one understands the story, the work stalls.

What happens when the story goes untold

Here’s the pattern I see most often when I begin coaching a leadership team:

When leaders don’t narrate clearly and consistently…

…people fill in the blanks themselves.

And what fills the vacuum?

Rumor.

Assumption.

Projection.

Shadow stories.

Once those harden, they’re hard to undo.

The antidote isn’t more meetings.  It’s intentional, transparent, repeated storytelling.

How leaders become Storytellers-in-Chief

This is not a personality trait.  This is a practice.  Here are some of the habits I help leaders develop:

1. Name the chapter.

Are we rebuilding?  Growing?  Stabilizing?  Innovating?  Surviving?

Say it out loud.  People crave orientation.

2. Tell the small stories.

The hallway interaction.  The quiet win.  The moment a child lights up.

These “small truths” build big trust.

3. Connect the story to values.

If belonging, kindness, curiosity, or rigor matter, tell stories that show them lived.

4. Locate people within the narrative.

“Here’s where you matter.”

“Here’s what you helped make possible.”

Belonging is a narrative act.

5. Repeat yourself. Then repeat yourself again.

A story becomes a culture only when it becomes shared memory.

A Jewish Frame

Moshe is remembered as the humblest of leaders, yet his final act is Sefer Devarim – an extended retelling of the people’s journey, giving them clarity and courage.  Our tradition is built on leaders who narrate meaning, re-frame experience, and locate communities in a sacred trajectory.

In Jewish education, narrative isn’t ornamental.

It’s heritage.

Why this matters now

Our schools are navigating complexity: changing demographics, rising expectations, cultural tension, burnout, mission-drift.

You can’t solve all of that overnight.

But you can narrate it—honestly, consistently, and compassionately.

And when leaders narrate well, something remarkable happens.  People stop feeling whiplash.  Teams realign.  Boards settle.  Families feel anchored.  Teachers reconnect to purpose.  Change becomes possible.

Because clarity is calming.  And stories create clarity.  If leaders don’t tell the story, the story will lead them.  If they narrate it well, the community finds its way.  This is the work of leadership.  And it is work that we can learn, practice and strengthen…together.