COVER STORY
Assessing Success in U.S. Islamic Schools
Aligning mission statements with institutional practices BY SUFIA AZMAT
I
n the last decade, the number of full-time Islamic schools in the U.S. has grown significantly. And with this growth has come scrutiny not only from Muslim Americans, but also from the general public. Some of the questions being asked are: How effective are these schools in providing a quality academic education? How effective are they in developing and preserving an Islamic identity? Will their graduates go on to be positive, contributing members of American society? How are Islamic schools held accountable? Research shows that successful schools make mission-aligned decisions when developing the school’s programs, hiring principals and evaluating principal performance.
ISLAMIC SCHOOLS Islamic schools today, as did the educational institutions established 1,400 years ago, focus on faith formation along with academic excellence. They serve parents who enroll their children to protect them from this country’s ongoing anti-Muslim backlash, safeguard their faith and develop their Islamic identity while also striving for academic excellence. Although Islamic schools have existed here since the late 1970s, data on these schools is very limited; even less information is available on the Clara Muhammad Schools (later Imam WD Mohammed changed the spelling to Clara Mohammed), which were established in 1931 within the Nation of Islam. One reason for the lack of available data is the absence of a central governing agency to which these schools need to report. In 1989, an ISNA-organized- andhosted educational symposium gathered Muslim educators, community members and representatives from Islamic institutions throughout North America. In November 1991, the first full-time Islamic schools’ general assembly meeting was held in Detroit.
Approximately 45 full-time Islamic schools were represented, a constitution was ratified and the Council of Islamic Schools in North America (CISNA; https://www.cisnausa. org/) was formed. According to its mission statement, CISNA envisions a future of promoting “quality education at Islamic schools through advocacy, accreditation services, and professional development to ensure institutional effectiveness leading to student success.” To meet its goal of serving as a unifying organization for Islamic schools, CISNA set out to acquire contact information for those existing in the U.S. — claimed to be somewhere between 300 and 400. According to the National Center for Education Statistics’ August 2017 report, there was an 800% growth in Islamic school enrollment from 4,482 students (1991) to 40,485 (2015). Research conducted by ISNA in 1989 numbered 50 full-time Islamic schools in the U.S. A study conducted by Karen Keyworth (1957-2017), co-founder of the Islamic Schools League of America (ISLA; https:// theisla.org/), revealed that the number had grown to 235. Research conducted by this author and research assistant Hiba Khan in July 2019 recorded just over 300 schools. Of these, 107 are registered CISNA members; 40 have earned CISNA accreditation status. The school with the highest enrollment has 800+ students, and approximately 125 schools include high school grades. Azmat and Khan’s research indicates that California and Texas have the greatest concentration of Islamic schools, followed by New York and Florida. No Islamic schools could be found in Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Maine, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia and Wyoming. The school’s highest growth rate occurred during the 1990s (see Table 1), when 70 new Islamic schools were established. Student enrollment in the U.S.
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is currently estimated at 65,000, with more than half of these schools having fewer than 200 students. Table 1: Number of Schools by State
Table 2: Number of Schools Established by Year
Table 3: Number of Schools Served by Grade Levels
Parents may find a complete list of CISNA-accredited schools at www.cisnausa. org. Since most accrediting programs are secular in nature, such agencies and their accreditation standards and processes do not concern themselves with a school’s spiritual dimension. CISNA’s self-evaluation process, however, focuses on a school’s spiritual life,
