Jewish Educational System - In Trouble?

Oh, yeah. And it's really bad. This has been blogged about many times, in many places, most thoroughly on Orthonomics, a blog by SephardiLady, an incredibly smart woman with lots of a financial savvy and also a close personal friend.

Now, it's hitting closer to home. As my son enters Kindergarten next year, tuition will not only go up because he'll be in close longer. It'll also go up because the school, liike most Orthodox day schools, is in a financial bind.

Last night, I spoke with my Chavrusa, who also happens to be the Hebrew Studies principal at the school. I asked him what was going on, as the parents had two major meetings this week protesting the tuition hike. My chavrusa told me this crisis is hitting most schools. The biggest problem is no matter how much tuition is, it's still less, believe it or not, than what it costs to educate one child at the public school. Schools plan to and expect to survive not only off the tuition, but also off of donations from the community. Now, while there are people who give plenty of money to the school (one very wealthy person in the community, all by himself and with no desire for recognition gives $350,000 yearly to the school - and he doesn't even have kids in the school!), it's still not enough. Part of the reason for this is that people prefer to build fancier and fancier shuls rather support the schools, going directly against the halacha, which states that one must support Torah education before even building a shul.

A shul, said my chavrusa, and I agree wholeheartedly with him, needs to be functional. It does not need to cost, as our shul did (and it's in trouble as well because of the expense), six million dollars. A school, on the other hand, needs to be able to pay competitive salaries, especially to secular studies teachers, and it needs to have the facilities to fulfill its educational obligations and goals.

Here's another thing my chavrusa told me. One of the things that sucks a lot money from the school is the sports programs. Our school in particular has a very complete sports program, from basketball to wrestling and everything in between. He thinks this is a waste of money. The kids, he told me, would be happy to create teams amongst themselves and play. He thinks they should just cut the program and use the money for better purposes. This does not mean getting rid of P.E. classes. It does mean getting rid of school paid extracurricular acitivities, an expense the school just doesn't need.

Another factor is that we pay taxes that pay for the public schools, but get no benefit from them at all. An idea might be to approach the school district and ask for vouchers or an exemption so people may better afford to pay for private school.

And the fact that it is private school, I believe, is part of the problem. For the rest of the non-Jewish country, private school is a luxury for the upper middle class and upper class. For the rest of, there is public school. However, as Orthodox Jews, we ALL have to send our kids to private school, AKA Orthodox day schools, so our children may receive a Torah education and have instilled in them Torah/Jewish values. This is a very expensive venture that most of us simply cannot afford, but have no choice but to find a way. Thankfully, many schools, including ours, offer partial and full scholarships, such as our school. We are able to get a scholarship for our son and we love the school for it. Many other schools, however, are unbeding and absolutely refuse to offer scholarships.

One other solution might be to either start sending our kids to public school (if you live in an area that has a really good school) for secular studies and then send the kids for Jewish studies in the afternoon, as is done in many Conservative and Reform communities. Another might be to homeschool kids in secular studies and send the kids out for Jewish Studies in the afternoon.

I don't know. This is a problem that has been getting worse as the years have passed, and there is no real solution. But the system currently in place is very unhealthy. Depending on one, or two, or a few wealthy people in the community to finance an entire school is very shortsighted. What happens when that person passes away? What if his inheritors do not want to conitnue in their father's footsteps? Then the school is in major trouble!

A solution has to be found, and soon. Otherwise Orthodox Day Schools, like many other aspects of Jewish Orthodox life, will simply become prohibitively expensive and more and more people will be unable to give their children a Torah education.