Gary Rosenblatt, "The Day School Dilemma"
David Shasha
The Day School Dilemma
By: Gary Rosenblatt
The following article will surely hit home with SHU readers who send their children to Jewish Day Schools.
There are a bunch of critical issues raised in the article that need to be addressed:
The parents who speak out in the article are scared of having their names in the newspaper. Their anonymity speaks to a general air of intimidation in the Jewish community that speaks to an echo-chamber mentality that is deeply suspicious of anyone who would speak critically of the system as presently configured.
The contemporary Jewish community largely rejects self-examination, preferring instead to believe that the choices that have been made by leadership are beyond examination. This means that financial matters and social concerns are left unchecked and a harshly Darwinist system of “natural selection” remains operative. It is a rigidly sink-or-swim ethic that demands financial resources that are at times rather steep and excessive.
Beyond this there is a sense that the schools provide the proper Jewish curricular tools, even as the article makes clear that there exists a huge tension between “religious” concerns and “secular” ones. It is unclear that there are actually functional models of pedagogy that have secured these concerns in a definitive manner. The situation in Jewish Day Schools is far more unsettled and confused.
In the Ashkenazi Orthodox tradition, the one that dominates the Jewish Day School movement, “religious” and “secular” are highly radio-active categories that co-exist with great difficulty. The tension emerges when Ultra-Orthodox values are thrown into the mix. And in the Modern Orthodox community those tensions are very real and are growing exponentially with the dramatic rise of the “Black Hats” in the Orthodox community.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/12/nyregion/new-yorks-jewish-population-is-growing-again.html
http://forward.com/articles/171367/ultra-orthodox-jews-spread-into-once-black-brookly/?p=all
Modern Orthodoxy has largely failed to dominate the observant Jewish community and has increasingly ceded influence to the far more aggressive and better organized Right Wing Orthodox. We have seen this in Israel and it is equally true here in New York.
These parents – like Mr. Rosenblatt – are Modern Orthodox Jews who value “secular” studies, but are worried about their children being able to keep up with the Joneses in an Orthodox world where ritual strictness and Jewish isolation is becoming increasingly common. The parents are torn between their liberal humanistic values – a distinguishing feature of Modern Orthodoxy – and the constrictions of Haredism.
As Sephardim we can see this process as part of the larger encroachment of Ashkenazi schismatics in the Jewish community. Sephardim following the Maimonidean tradition have not accepted the “religious” vs. “secular” opposition; seeing both Judaism and Humanism as compatible elements in Torah studies.
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/davidshasha/yj_4nB1nWTk/PSVcxzqBsKEJ
But the Ashkenazim never accepted this tradition of Religious Humanism embodied by Maimonides and his heirs. The attacks on Maimonides by Ashkenazi rabbis – and their protégés in Spain – have led to a serious dysfunction in Jewish tradition that continues to be felt in the Orthodox community.
When we combine this dysfunction with the onerous financial demands being made on parents, we can see the opening for a Haredi-Hasidic advance which places the financial obligation on the entire community and its philanthropists rather than on the beleaguered parent. The Ultra-Orthodox are committed to planting their message and lifestyle in the larger community and money is never allowed to be an impediment to this proselytizing process.
The Modern Orthodox dilemma is thus quite acute. They are losing ground to the Ultra-Orthodox and are dealing with financial demands that make new initiatives like Charter Schools an attractive proposition. The tension between “religious” and “secular” – as we see clearly in the article – is a very real problem and solutions are hard to come by. Compromises are made which further weaken the institutional base of the Modern Orthodox.
Money remains an agonizing and tortuous problem for many parents as the institutions place a large burden on working families. Charter schools are funded by a philanthropic class that is largely non-religious or even anti-religious; seeking to promote a “cultural” Judaism in contrast to that of the Lithuanian-style Yeshivas. Modern Orthodox parents are caught between these religious and non-religious Jewish groups and it is usually money that determines how their children will be educated.
But at root the money issue speaks to the larger ideological problem of denominational affiliation and religious identity. Compromises are demanded by the sectarian institutions when in fact the Sephardic Jewish tradition – which has been eliminated as a model for contemporary Jewish education – has been able to integrate these elements into a single pedagogy.
Rather than moving to the Sephardic model, the Jewish institutions remain chained to Ashkenazi factionalism and the dysfunction it has imposed on the Jewish community.
Over the long run it is the Ultra-Orthodox who stand to gain the most from this state of dysfunction. Modern Orthodox Jews are caught between “religion” and “secular” and are often bullied into choosing the former at the expense of the latter. It is this tension that has defined the Ashkenazi Jewish tradition and which continues – as the article shows – to haunt Jewish parents as they struggle to find answers in the perennial challenge of Jewish continuity.
DS
Carolyn and Don recently found out that they won a highly competitive lottery. They’re excited, of course, but the news has also precipitated some serious questioning on their part about their religious and educational goals — for themselves and their three young children.
And at a time of sky-high day school tuitions, the questioning likely resonates with many families here as they weigh the risks and rewards of their educational choices.
You see the lottery Carolyn and Don won was for admission to next fall’s first-grade class, for the couple’s oldest child, at the Harlem Hebrew Language Academy Charter School, opening this fall. The youngster is currently a pre-schooler at a popular and much-admired Jewish day school close to where the family lives, in the New York area.
The parents are very happy with the local day school their son attends. “He’s speaking Hebrew at home,” says his mom. “He’s becoming a mensch — the program works.”
The only problem is that she estimates tuition next year for first grade, along with building fund and other expenses, to be more than $20,000. And with two younger siblings soon to follow, that could mean more than $65,000 a year in tuition for the young family. Of course the charter school, which offers an hour of Hebrew language study a day and some exploration of the culture and history of Israel, is free, and offers admission as well for siblings of those accepted.
Carolyn and Don are not the parents’ real names — they requested anonymity in return for speaking openly on a delicate subject. But the issue they are struggling with at the moment is very real. Namely, just how much is a day school education worth, and how do you measure it?
A great deal has been written about the day school tuition crisis, often on a communal policy level. But the conversation I had with Carolyn provided me with an insight into how one family is calculating the nexus between education and lifestyle, which includes finances, peer acceptance and religious continuity.
“We discuss it endlessly but we haven’t gotten there yet,” Carolyn told me.
She said Don has a good job and makes about $200,000 a year, so they may not qualify for a tuition break. Their parents are not in a position to help out financially.
The couple is reviewing several options, each of which has its strengths and weaknesses, they say. For example, there is a new blended-learning day school opening in a neighboring community this fall, a long-term possibility for the family, and they’ve applied there. Tuition will be under $10,000, which is appealing. And as a teacher herself, Carolyn sees the trend among day schools moving toward more such schools, which she says offer a more dynamic classroom. But “it’s still untested,” she worries, reluctant to have her children become educational “guinea pigs.”
The Harlem charter school would give the couple’s children an opportunity to interact with classmates beyond their own Orthodox community, and Carolyn says she and Don have talked about providing additional Jewish content by sending the kids to an afternoon Hebrew school or hiring a rabbi to tutor them at home several times a week.
The financial savings would be substantial, but the couple is concerned about segmenting their children’s educational and social lives — one part secular, one part Jewish — and would prefer the more natural environment a day school offers. Plus, after a full day of classes in the charter school, they fear the children may resent more time spent studying Torah and the biblical commentaries.
If the children went to the charter school, “they wouldn’t have the real skill sets that a day school provides” or the immersion experience of being in a strong Jewish environment every day, says Carolyn, adding: “My biggest concern is Jewish identity. We want a Shabbat community where the kids can interact and play with friends they go to school with.”
One compromise the couple has considered is sending their children to the charter school for a few years — it will offer kindergarten through fifth grade classes — saving well over $300,000 during that time, and then transitioning them into day school for sixth grade.
But Carolyn notes that she and her husband are ba’al teshuvas (newly Orthodox), so they are particularly interested in finding a school that can give their children the foundational Jewish education they themselves didn’t have growing up.
“A child’s moral compass and lifestyle” may be set by fifth grade, she says, making the transition to day school all the more difficult.
Such concerns lead the couple full circle, back to the local day school where their older son attends kindergarten now. But they worry that spending such a large percentage of their income on day school education would make a deep impact on their finances, and possibly beyond.
“What do we have to sacrifice?” Carolyn asks. “What else is lost? Will it create tension in the home? A lack of shalom bayit [family harmony]?”
They worry about whether the tuition burden of day school will force them to modify their housing plans, cut back on vacations, and impact on their future retirement.
Carolyn and Don have discussed their dilemma with a few close friends but say that there is still a stigma in their community to consider the charter school alternative.
“We still straddle both worlds,” Carolyn says of herself and Don, each of whom have chosen an Orthodox lifestyle but value their strong secular education and want the same for their children.
“We don’t want to settle” for less on either front, Carolyn says.
So far, she acknowledges, she and Don have come to one conclusion: “There’s going to have to be a huge compromise somewhere.”
From The Jewish Week, May 1, 2013