Another (Baltimore) response to the tuition crisis.

@Kuvult

Is this pre or post tax?

There are several obvious ways to solve the tuition crisis:

1. Repeal the halacha about having so many children. Not only does the frum community not even consider this, they actual encourage shiduchim. I bet the LGBTQ people never have a tuition problem.

2. Stop paying teachers a living wage. If they reduced teacher salaries to the levels of 100 years ago, schools would be affordable. What makes you think a teacher needs a roof over this head and a car, or meals and decent clothes. They should work for potatoes.

3. Cut the curriculum. Do we really all those sefarim? What would be wrong with having only two books in Humash, Perhaps skip all those long pieces of the Talmuds – how about mishna only. And all those halachos, Yidden were quite happy in the past when they skipped most of them (where do you think the secular Yidden came from).

4. We can do what most American Jews did 100 years. Hide the yarmulkes (we might need to anyways), get rid of most Yiddishkeit, go to public schools, and assimilate.

OR, WE CAN RESIGN OURSELVES TO HAVING A PERPETUAL TUITION CRISIS, JUST LIKE WE RESIGN OURSELVES TO HIGHER FOOD COSTS, OR LOSING MOST EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES DUE TO BEING SHOMER SHABBOS, AND SAY “BARUCH HA-SHEM, WE ARE TEACHING OUR CHILDREN TO BE JEWS”

Good humor, but “Stop paying teachers a living wage.” is actually a part of the solution. Vouchers that you describe that follow families is another part.

Halakha allows unrestricted competition between teachers, leading to lower prices and higher affordability. Let teachers or small group of teachers open one-class schools, teaching second grade only in their home or any small office or inside a school building to which they pay rent. R Kamenetsky and R Ruderman were in such classes in their Litvishe shtetl and grew up OK. They did complain about one insensitive second grade teacher, but our current towns should provide enough competition.

@Kuvult

You got my interest piqued and I read the article online, while rereading your post I see that you included the word “net” but it was missing from the online article.

Do you know where the rest of the funds are going to come from?

“This program is backed by all the big Rabbanim.” – that’s helpful, but what do the Little Rabbanim say? Where does the money come from? Are these Rabbis also going to be contributing the money to make this important program happen? Since money doesn’t grow on trees, how long will the spigot be open?

In related news, Texas had primaries and it seems that most of Rs that were against school vouchers lost. So, expect school vouchers in Texas next year. I think the plan is for about $10K per child.

Kuvult,

1) Apparently, less than half of the Rabbonim in Baltimore endorsed ACT; why so few?
2) How cute that they “plan” for the community to donate 1% of their tsedaka; it’s totally unenforceable, especially with so few endorsements
3) It appears that announcing the two programs simultaneously has created confusion and some feel the “rebate” program is meant to torpedo ACT

Once again I fail to see how Baltimore correctly captures net income. i assume the mentality there is not to be as dependent upon govt progarms. But how do you calculate that in other communities where at times those on programs earn more than those not on programs?

@ujm
Simple what you receive from the govt is “income” too.

For example, an accountant earns 90K after taxes then pays 15K in health care costs. His income should be 75K.
A low income earner earns 50K after taxes but we ask him how much do you receive in SNAP, HUD , WIC & CHS and earned income? Its dollar values are all known. If that sums to 50K that means he should be assessed at 100K.

Why isn’t the fair? Will the schools really do that?

Chaim

I don’t think a person who makes 50k after taxes qualifies for benefits

Try 30k

Then you need to factor in his expenses ie rent, car, gas, electricity

I was told by a Jewish financial adviser that one should pay in total 10% of his income (before taxes) to education

@ujm,
I agree to leave medicad out of the equation. But we could clalculate the cost of medical care for the accountnat and deduct that. Premuims are set fees. At minimum deduct his premuim like taxes.

@coffee addict; A classic family of 6-7 which is the avreage jewish family is elegible for most programs earning 50K. I need to check about earned income but the other programs for sure.

Also left out of the math, does that person get parsonage? So he/.she may earn only 50K but on top of that some buisnees are allowed to pay for a childs tution pre tax and not part of the perosns income. he/she may have 3 free tutions on top of programs. They also may be a rebbe and have free tution. That also needs to be counted as income as the accoutnat doesn’t get that

here are some quotes from Reb Milton Friedman on public vouchers that are also applicable Jewish education, I think. Keep in mind that it seems also to fit some of halachik principles that allows unrestricted competition between teachers (but in other industries where you are generally not allowed to hurt competition and inconvenience neighbors)

> Reform has to come through competition from the outside and the only way you can get competition is by making it possible for parents to have the ability to choose. … The amount of money spent per child adjusted for inflation has something like doubled or tripled over the last 20 years. …The key word is competition and the question is how can you get competition. Only by having the customer choosing.

Chaim, I hear you. I am mostly in the category you described, but I also get occasional discounts when either dealing with a nice principal or with a financial manager who estimates that we have choices (is it gnevas daas to hint that a chassidishe school or a super-modern one is an acceptable option for you :?). As everyone seem to agree, the “full tuition” is set higher than the actual cost.

My point is that the main goal is to create healthy competition, empowering customers (parents), leading to better outcomes. If your system is in the hands of an entity not associated with the school, it might work also. But it will leave parents like me still at the weak negotiating point with the schools.

Chaim, “overwhelmed” is also not a good answer. The market is not working.

Even if, B’H, everyone has a lot of kids, the market should respond … Even when pandemic changed everyone’s routines, the toilet paper reappeared in a couple of months 🙂

What would be a reason for shortages? I presume from your writings that your community graduated a lot of people who are qualified to be in chinuch. Say, every family has 15 kids. That, with two parents in each, would make for < 10 kids per parent who can teach. Of course, it could be that parents are teaching in modernishe schools or involved in chinuch, then there might be a problem.

So why there are not enough schools? possible reasons:
– the parents and gov subsidies are not enough to pay the rates same parents are willing to teach for. But what are these parents doing then?
– there are barriers to entry for new schools: they need buildings, maybe some sort of permission from Rabonim and already existing schools.
what do you think?

As a note, one of the halachik ways to solve these problems is to encourage competition to benefit parents with choices and low prices, possibly at the expense of schools and teachers. That is, regular businesses can limit competition between each other, you may not be able to open a grocery store that seriously hurts another store, but you can open a school. Your neighbors can object to you banging metal or baking challos in your yard, but they can not object to the noise of children coming to your classes.