In his article in the second volume of "Tradition Renewed: A History of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America," Jonathan Sarna argues that the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) has always had two incompatible visions of its role. On the one hand, there were (and are) those who see it as "a centre of Jewish 'Wissenschaft' pure and simple", and, on the other, there was (and is) the goal of "engaged popular scholarship" that would be accessible and spiritually nourishing to the seminary's immediate and wider community. In other words, is JTS a university or a yeshivah? In this paper, the author shows that the same fundamental educational question also exists, in a somewhat different form, in another (more ubiquitous) context of Jewish education: the Jewish day school. He engages in the initial and preliminary stages of the work of visioning about the question raised: What is the educational rubric to which Jewish studies in a day school should subscribe, traditional Jewish learning for its own sake or the academic structure of an American public school? The author's place in the "visioning circle" is in the areas of evaluation and practice. In the first part of the paper, the author discusses some recent concerns about grading and assessment in general education. Secondly, he turns to some quite well-known research on the culture of Jewish education and addresses it anew from this particular angle. In the third part of the paper, he draws upon first-person narrative insights gained from actual teaching experience. (Contains 2 footnotes.)