On My Mind
Executive editor — issues and opinionsTime To Be Brave
Public schools.
Keep those two words in mind.
A week ago Monday, hundreds of concerned members of the Orthodox community gathered at Congregation Shomrei Emunah to hear words of spirituality, prayer and practical suggestions on dealing with this incredibly stressed economy.
There is a particular nuance they share that makes the frum community perhaps more unique than other denominations of Judaism. That nuance is that pretty much every Orthodox Jewish child attends or will attend a Jewish school.
If you do the easy math, and let’s just talk about a family with perhaps three children, we’re looking at anywhere from $30,000 to $45,000 in annual tuition fees. You’ve got three children in school—crunch the numbers. You’ve got four or more children in school, the numbers are crunching you.
Rabbi Yissocher Frand, the evening’s keynote speaker, spoke brilliantly with clarity and urgency. He said that he knew of one particular yeshiva rabbi who was sitting on some $180,000 on post-dated checks that just couldn’t be deposited. That means that the school can’t make use of the money, can’t use it to pay salaries, building expenses, classroom materials and utilities.
It was said during the evening that the Jewish day schools are at a financial breaking point.
We all know that even when economic times are good, it’s difficult for a family to pay the daunting tuition expenses.
The Associated: Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore and the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation have stepped forward to do what they can to offer monies to ease some of the pressure. So have many other funding sources, including your individual donations. Many parents will suggest that the communal effort falls way short.
So, here we are. It’s 2009, and we’re still working a model of education and fund-raising that connects back 25 years ago, at least. We remember the days when schools would “pay off” loans by borrowing from other sources.
Jewish Community Services executive director Barbara Gradet told the BALTIMORE JEWISH TIMES that her agency is handling some 1,000 unemployed Jews. Ahavas Yisroel is going to disperse a record-setting $370,000 in financial aid just for Passover alone. CHAI is preparing itself for a workshop on avoiding foreclosure. And the Orthodox community is mobilizing itself to train its constituents in job-hunting skills and family financial management.
So here are some suggestions. I don’t make them with malice or frivolity. While your knee-jerk reaction might be “unrealistic” or “can’t be done,” I’m just asking that we at least talk about these issues.
In no particular order, here goes:
Public Schools
Many of those who have children in yeshivas are paying city or county property taxes. They have been for years. Part of that property tax goes to the funding of public school education, yet none of their children have ever benefited from a penny of that money.
Why couldn’t the educational leadership of this community meet with the city and county public schools?
If we play to our strengths, then we know that our Jewish community has amazing educational opportunities in Torah and Talmud. But realistically, English, U.S. history and algebra aren’t always seen at the same level of importance. So, let’s consider playing to our strengths. Why not divide the day?
Yeshiva students would attend their Jewish schools for half of the day, break for lunch and then attend the public school nearest to their home for reading, writing and arithmetic.
Sounds crazy? I know. But it would be free. It would seemingly take some of the economic pressure off of the schools. You are paying for it anyway!
* You’d be straining the public school system. Straining? Up until now, they’ve been kind of fortunate that our numbers aren’t in the system, don’t you think? What have they been doing with the money we’ve been spending anyway?
* The public schools in our areas aren’t academically excellent? Wouldn’t we contribute to raising the academic bar if our children attended schools?
* There would be racial and ethnic stress. I’ve been looking at the lines of the unemployed lately, and the real world suggests that we can be unemployed together and employed together. Why can’t our children study together? Ner Israel Rabbinical College certainly sends its best and brightest for secular degree-oriented studies at schools such as Loyola and Hopkins.
* Boys and girls can’t be in the same classrooms together? Folks, our system is stressed for money. We might not be in a position to dictate this as well. Or maybe the school system would accommodate separate-gender classrooms if only someone asked them.
When my family lived in Southfield, Mi., a suburb of Detroit, a group of Jewish high school students needed to be able to take more advanced educational opportunities, such as AP courses, that their Jewish school was unable to provide. Those teenagers got up every morning, took a bus to the public school and survived the years needed to take these courses. They were then offered an opportunity to study Torah and Talmud after school back in their Jewish school. It was inconvenient, it was difficult, but it worked.
Please don’t make your one reason for dismissing the thought of these public schools because you don’t want your child to attend school with the “schvartzes and the goyim.”
Again, we don’t have money. There is no money. The breaking point could mean that rabbis and teachers aren’t paid.
Extraordinary times demand extraordinary ways of thinking and survival.
We cannot afford to be so high and mighty that we don’t even attempt to explore what role the public school system could play in alleviating the financial pressure on our Jewish schools.
The Year In Israel
Going to Israel for a teenager out of high school for a year is an amazing possibility.
But it is expensive, and getting more and more expensive.
Parents and their children need to be absolutely sure that the year is going to result in spiritual and academic growth. Spiritual growth doesn’t mean connecting with friends every waking hour on Ben Yehuda Street or winning the football tournament at Kraft Field. It means getting academic credit towards college. It means taking the year seriously, because if nothing else, this year costs “serious” money.
Some children should not go to Israel and be on their own for a year. They aren’t mature enough. They aren’t serious about their learning. They look at it as a way to be away from mom and dad for a year.
So, again do the math. The average year in seminary or yeshiva is something like $15,000. That money taxes the family and strains the resources of the Jewish community. And it leaves Baltimore.
What If …?
We hear of students who go to Israel for a year and they spend part or all of that time learning and volunteering. We rave about these teens who clean up schools, tutor young children, lead disenfranchised children in sports activities, raise money for the needy, study Torah with children, rebuild homes in dilapidated areas. And parents pay for their teens to be able to have such an incredible opportunity.
Suppose we kept these kids home, right here in Baltimore.
What would happen if the teens spent this year out of high school, cleaning up schools, here in Baltimore; tutoring young children, here in Baltimore; leading disenfranchised youths in sports activities, here in Baltimore; raise money for the needy, here in Baltimore; study Torah, here in Baltimore; rebuild homes in the Park Heights area. These students could spend part of the time learning with rabbis in the schools.
But they could also help the schools save money through landscaping, painting, minor building repair, answering the phone, working as teacher aides. The students could even work to become certified as substitute teachers for the younger children and save their schools tens of thousands of dollars. The teens could also enroll in community college classes and earn real credit.
At the end of the school year, perhaps the parents could afford $5,000 to send their child to Israel for a month of learning and touring.
A Different Way
To Post-Date Checks
What if people who no longer have children in yeshivas are identified and asked to share the cost of either one student or one teacher?
Tuition, I believe, is divided into 10 post-dated checks. This would begin a community meeting of people who would be able to afford to cover at least one month. That person would sign up to be a “team captain” if you will, who would recruit nine others. That 10-unit team would then divide the year into post dated checks. If a student’s tuition is $15,000, the group would pay $1,500 per person.
This doesn’t have to be a 100 percent thing. The “system” would be helped if the same 10 people could afford a $500 donation to one person’s tuition. That would cut in this model a third of fees away from the parent or from the scholarships a school would have to offer.
This idea wouldn’t just have to be for students, it could be to help pay a designated teacher’s salary as well.
Again, it could start with a meeting.
Tax The Mishulachim
Every time an emissary comes from an out-of-town charity, knocks on your door and asks for money, you would pay in the form of a check or a coupon.
That check or coupon would automatically take one-third and give back to Baltimore. If an out-of-town person wants to collect money than his payback to be able to solicit our community is to give something immediately back.
Consolidations
Why do we need to pay the utilities and in-kind expenses of so many buildings?
Why couldn’t a task force identify the available space in area synagogues that could save again tens of thousands in facility-based fees? Many of our synagogues were built on a 1950s-‘60s model where afternoon Hebrew school brought in the numbers.
That sadly isn’t the case anymore, and there are classrooms in some synagogues that seem available. Why not?
But it’s not just about the physical. Perhaps it’s time for schools to combine classes in all disciplines to save money. If one school offers AP to 10 students, and another is doing the same, it’s nice to have two teachers, but one teacher for all 20 students would do the trick, and at half the costs.
The punch line – there is no money.
There is no money coming.
There are people hurting. Some can’t afford day school.
Some are teachers whose salaries could be at risk.
Unemployment is high.
We’ve got public school buildings that are sometimes under-enrolled.
We’ve got great minds that could make for great possibilities.
This economy is going to have to make us brave.
Or it could kill us.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 04/06/09 at 10:59 AM | Comments (1)