What we publish
Our articles are grounded in public filings and statutory citations, not press releases or anecdotal reports. When we say "98 schools," we mean 98 specific IRS filings we can name. When we say "posted tuition is $28,485," we mean the number printed on a 2023 Form 990 at a school we can point you to.
Every article links to its data sources, names its statutory authorities (IRC sections, regulatory citations, case law), and documents what's not in the dataset. If a piece of information isn't available — because the school claims church exemption and files no 990, or because donor names are legally redacted — we say so, rather than filling the gap with estimates.
What we use
- IRS Form 990 filings. Our primary source for revenue, enrollment, staff counts, tuition collected, donor share, and executive compensation at religious and educational nonprofits. Filings are pulled from ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, the IRS Tax-Exempt Organization Search, and direct requests where available.
- State department of education data. Accreditation status, enrollment counts, voucher and ESA program participation.
- Federal statutory authorities. Including IRC §107 (clergy housing exclusion), IRC §117(d) (qualified tuition reduction), and relevant Tax Court decisions such as Driscoll v. Commissioner.
- School websites and publicly posted tuition schedules. For current-year posted rates and program descriptions.
- Historical community-sourced datasets where available, anchored against contemporary filings to estimate multi-year trajectories.
What we don't do
We don't model. We don't estimate figures the 990s don't report. We don't extrapolate from one state's voucher program to another. If you've read aggregated industry reports that put "average Jewish day school tuition" at a single number, you've read a model. We publish the distribution instead.
Approximately half of yeshiva day schools claim church exemption from 990 filing — including schools where we know enrollment is large. No public financial data exists for these institutions, and we don't substitute guesses. Where a school we'd want to discuss is outside our dataset, we say so.
Why it matters
Families making decisions about Jewish education deserve numbers they can verify. Journalists covering the sector deserve citations they can follow. Schools themselves deserve analysis that holds up to scrutiny. Our job is to surface what the 990s actually say — in plain English, with sources intact — so the conversation moves past assertion and onto evidence.
Our directory
Separately from our editorial analysis, we maintain a directory of every Jewish day school we can confirm is currently operating in the United States. The directory exists so families can find schools in their area before starting our guided match process.
Directory pages list each school's name, city, state, and grade range where available. We deliberately do not publish street addresses, phone numbers, enrollment figures, or our internal classification data. Those are either information we only share through our matching flow, or data we keep internal entirely.
City- and state-level directory pages include short templated context paragraphs about Jewish education in each area. These are sourced from publicly known facts (school counts, state-level context) and are clearly labeled "Directory listing — not editorial research" at the top of each page. Our editorial articles — the 98-school cohort discussed above — remain the home for data analysis with source citations.
The directory is not a recommendation. Inclusion means we can confirm the school operates as a Jewish day school based on at least one of: a recent IRS 990 filing, recent enrollment data in the federal NCES Private School Survey, or recent tuition activity on the school's own website. Schools do not pay for inclusion, and we do not rank or sort them. Our matching quiz is the way families get personalized results.
Contact
Questions, corrections, or data we should add: contact us. We take errata seriously and correct filings-based claims quickly if you can point us to the source.
The FindJewishSchools Research Team is part of FindJewishSchools.org. Last updated: April 2026.