What do we want? School! When do we want it? Free!
The Jewish parochial school conundrum.
I wrote a piece for Tablet this morning that includes this:
Now that I’ve had an intensive immersion experience in the [Jewish] day-school world for six years, I have come to this conclusion: Sending your child to a Jewish day school is one of those human endeavors, like parenthood itself, or Ted Lasso, that you might not think is for you, but almost surely is, if only you’ll give it a try. Once you’re in, you’re in, and the occasional gripes—about cost, or dirty diapers, or season three—pale next to the obvious advantages. Pretty soon, you’ve forgotten why you resisted, and you wonder what took you so long.
And I go on to make the case that what the world needs (because we all love prescriptions for what the world needs) is free day school for little Jews.
I realize that many people who come to this newsletter are not Jews (or not yet Jews; you may be a future Jew, or a Gentile ally, or just Oppenheimer-curious), and I promise non-Jewish content (tomorrow, in fact: tomorrow’s post involves swimming, small New England liberal arts colleges, and a great British writer you likely haven’t heard of), but whoever you are, read this Tablet article anyway, and leave me a comment below. In some ways, I am most curious what the Gentiles think.
And whoever you are, you’ll enjoy this, from a band you either love or are about to:
Good and interesting point re Federations. Here in the Bay Area, where the Jewish community took shape as predominantly Reform in the mid-to-late 1800s (to the degree that they sent money eastward to resettle Eastern European Jews there in the early 1900s so those more observant Jews wouldn’t end up out here), our Federation was for years anti-day school, which its leadership felt was self ghetto-ization. It took some very wealthy Federation supporters who sent their kids to day schools to turn that around, though it’s still the case our Federation’s support for day schools is modest at best.
I think before we go to free Day School -- recalling that, in microeconomic terms, there's infinite demand for free goods -- we need to first allay the underlying concerns you identify. It's natural to assume that a Jewish day school means that secular curriculum is somehow compromised -- but it's not true (look at test scores, private high school or college admissions, or any other metric you choose). The "lack of diversity" argument is also a false assumption -- a good Jewish day school is inclusive of all Jews and their families (different affiliations, levels of observance, backgrounds, heritage, etc., etc.) and teaches its students how to understand and respect differences and provide a welcoming inclusive atmosphere for all, which is a better foundation for diversity than what you get in secular schools. And the values underlying the education last a lifetime. We need to make these arguments much better in order to assess actual demand for Jewish day schools, then figure out an inclusive financing strategy. Otherwise, making day school free lowers the bar for what the education needs to provide, puts day schools into competition with synagogues (or JCCs or anywhere else that charges dues or fees) as a way to "punch the Jewish ticket" for families and kids, and makes the Jewish part of the education less likely to lead to the continuity of identity correctly attributed to day schools.