NYC Religious Schools Opportunity Discussion with Jim McCarroll - May 20, 2025

Overview

Gary Sheng and Jim McCarroll (with some input from Josh) discussed a significant opportunity to help Orthodox Jewish schools in New York City comply with Department of Education curriculum standards while preserving time for religious studies. Jim outlined the scale of the challenge (approximately one million students in Orthodox Jewish schools), the regulatory pressure these schools face, and the urgency of finding a solution.

Key Topics

NYC Department of Education Compliance Challenge

Jim described a pressing issue facing Orthodox Jewish schools in New York City:

Jim: "There's an active sort of struggle... the Jewish education and [CARS?] the folks who really control the curriculum for the two different brands, um Sephardi and Ashkenazi orthodox Jewish learning in New York City, um and they're under a lot of pressure, um, including the DOE um requiring that a few schools be shut down because they don't meet standards."

The core challenge is balancing required secular curriculum with religious studies:

Jim: "Allow um religious schools to be New York City DOE compliant, um, without, you know, making the kids go to school for 12 hours a day, um to cover all the religious stuff they want to cover."

Scale of the Opportunity

Jim emphasized the massive scale of this potential market:

Jim: "There are I believe about 1.1 million kids in New York City schools like in New York City schools... or, you know, religious schools that are not orthodox Jewish schools, you know, Catholic schools won't have to spend, you know, five hours a day on Catholic studies... but there there are like 1.1 million kids in what you call like regular non-orthodox Jewish schools in New York City and then there is something on the order of a million in Orthodox Jewish schools."

Two-Pronged Approach

Gary identified two aspects of the opportunity:

Gary: "So the ones that are struggling with compliance, um, how do we get them into compliance? Um more easily. And then the ones that are in compliance, how do we just allocate more time towards Jewish studies? Is that correct?"

Jim confirmed this understanding and provided an example of a high-performing school that would benefit:

Jim: "The kids start school and they finish the middle school and high school kids every day at 1:15 PM, and they finish academics every day at 1:15 PM, as they allot two to four hours a day to athletics, because they're is a very heavily athletic school. They produce Olympians. They produce division one ballplayers of every variety, division one athletes, they're national champion year in and year out and they'll make you the best. they'd love to have the academics done at, you know, 11 every day."

Alpha's Value Proposition

Gary recognized how Alpha's educational model aligns with this need:

Gary: "That's kind of our whole value prop, right? That we kind of get the... I guess it's like New York core, if you were to like summarize it... as fast as possible."

Gary: "In the case of Jewish schools, it would be to spend as much time doing the rest of the day on Jewish specific stuff."

Urgency and Next Steps

Jim emphasized the time-sensitive nature of the opportunity:

Jim: "If you can show us that you can do it, we can um get it going and help you pretty quickly."

Jim: "My advice: forget all that for three days and make this work. Then we can get you guys in to see these folks and solve a gigantic problem and make everybody really happy."

Connection to Faith-Based Schools Strategy

Gary noted how this aligns with Alpha's emerging interest in faith-based education:

Gary: "I was literally chatting with our, uh visionary founder, Mackenzie Price today about like... hey, would we be interested in starting uh faith-based schools? And as a Christian, my personal, um interest lies in basically creating schools that I would eventually want my kids... to go to, right? But then like, I understand like, you know, any sort of parent that has a certain faith would want that to be the case."

Gary: "This is just like putting a little fire under our ass to figure out how we do what we already want to do."

First Step Act Project Comparison

Gary inquired about prioritizing this versus the previously discussed First Step Act project:

Gary: "If we were to prioritize one project over another, it sounds like the Jewish schools would be bigger than, like more important and urgent to solve than the First Step Act stuff, right?"

Jim indicated both could move forward:

Jim: "The First Step Act I hope you, you know, you're just able to straight-facedly say that you can do it. That's that that's what that's gonna be. And then, like, you know, we're gonna give you a couple few weeks to put together a learning outcome for a particular thing."

Next Steps

1. Gary to research NYC Department of Education curriculum standards
2. Develop a demonstration of how Alpha's methods could meet these standards in less time
3. Prepare a proposal to present to Jewish education leadership
4. Continue parallel work on the First Step Act opportunity

Key Insights

1. Regulatory Pressure: Orthodox Jewish schools face increasing scrutiny and compliance requirements from NYC DOE.

2. Massive Scale: The potential impact involves approximately one million students in Orthodox Jewish schools.

3. Dual Value: Alpha's accelerated learning model could both help non-compliant schools meet standards and give compliant schools more time for religious studies.

4. Strategic Alignment: This opportunity aligns with Alpha's emerging interest in supporting faith-based education initiatives.

5. Time-Sensitive: Jim conveyed urgency, suggesting this opportunity should be prioritized immediately ("forget all that for three days and make this work").