By Dr. Harry Bloom, Founder and President, Benchmarking for Good, Inc. In an era of teacher shortages and rising competition for talent, Jewish day schools face a defining question: what actually makes a school a place where people want  to work — and want to tell their friends to work there too? The intuitive answer — pay them more — turns out to be mostly wrong. Or at least, dramatically incomplete. Benchmarking for Good’s analysis of staff climate survey data across Jewish

How Perceived Student Enjoyment Drives Parent Advocacy in Jewish Day Schools By Dr. Harry Bloom, Founder and President, Benchmarking for Good, Inc. At Benchmarking for Good , we spend a lot of time studying what drives parents to become advocates for their child’s school. Schools invest heavily in academic programs, facilities, and marketing — but our latest parent survey data points to something far more elemental: whether parents believe their child actually enjoys going to

By Dr. Harry Bloom, Founder and President, Benchmarking for Good, Inc. In our benchmarking analysis of 20 schools located in 14 communities, only four reported using a formal scale that pays teachers uniformly based on experience and credentials. The dominant approach — used exclusively or partially by 16 of the 20 — is individualized negotiation, where compensation is set teacher by teacher by the head of school or principal. When asked what factors matter most in setting sa

By Dr. Harry Bloom, Founder and President, Benchmarking for Good, Inc. Executive Summary Benchmarking for Good analysis examined 348 open-ended responses from parents who considered enrolling their children in alternative Jewish and non-Jewish day schools. Using keyword-based thematic coding with statistical significance testing, we identified the primary drivers of alternative school shopping behavior and developed evidence-based countermeasures for school leadership. Key Fi

By Dr. Harry Bloom, Founder and President, Benchmarking for Good, Inc.   In a recent recorded video session Dr. Bloom explored with Fuchs Mizrachi Head of School Rabbi Dr. Avery Joel how to achieve staff satisfaction in work/life balance. Click on this video link  to access the full interview.  Rabbi Dr, Avery Joel, Head of School, Fuchs Mizrachi School 5 Keys to Positive Work/Life Balance Perception Rabbi Joel emphasizes that work-life balance is not a standalone metric but