• The Berman Center for Research and Evaluation.  The Berman Center conducts state-of-the-art evaluations of educational programs to help sponsors improve these programs and to assess their effectiveness and impact.  The Berman Center also works with program providers to help them improve their abilities to conduct and utilize evaluations and to build a culture of data-driven decision-making throughout the continental system.

• The Learnings and Consultation Center (LCC).  The LCC disseminates knowledge about what works in Jewish education and under what circumstances to communities and institutions and helps them to apply this knowledge through one-on-one consultations, communities of practice, demonstration projects, web resources, publications, and special projects (such as educator awards).

• The Lippman Kanfer Institute.  The Lippman Kanfer Institute identifies and analyzes promising new directions in educational practice and policy and engages leaders in thinking about how to implement these innovations more widely.

Substantively, JESNA’s work addresses the major educational challenges and opportunities facing local communities and North American Jewry as a whole.  Our programs today focus on

• congregational education (as well as other ways of engaging non day-school children and families),
• youth (with a special emphasis on the role of communities in strengthening both formal and informal educational opportunities),
• educator recruitment, development, and retention,
• building the capacity of central agencies for Jewish education, and
• emerging issues such as “linking silos” (building connections between and among educational programs and venues), helping families access Jewish education, and strengthening Jewish peoplehood education.

JESNA also continues, as it always has, to respond to the needs and requests of communities with information and guidance (including via community visits) on a broad range of educational issues.

During the past year, JESNA has discontinued one program: the Everett JewishJobFinder.com.  The job search / recruitment function of the JJF has been taken on by other web sites serving the Jewish community, and the site’s content on careers in Jewish education has been migrated to JESNA’s new online Professional Development Center (www.jesnapdc.org).