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For the 10th time, I will give you the answer to the tuition problem: Send the kids to public school for secular subjects for half a day, teach the religious subjects in yeshivas. Regrettably, this will put a lot of rabbis and religious teachers out of work, but it will solve a crushing problem for many frum Jews.
This will take a lot of politicking to accomplish, and many frum politicians have a stake in the continuation of the religious schools. It is, nevertheless, essential for the relief of many frum families. edited
Huju- I’m seriously trying to understand you. You really think it’s no big deal to stick our kids in public school. You don’t see any problems with exposure to non tznius peers and teachers, nivel peh, innappropriate books, kol isha, gym class with mandatory shorts/t shirts, building peer relationships as 2nd, 3rd fourthh graders with non jews and their philosophies? Do you think it’s just an issue for narrow minded, extremists? Considering my oposing equal to wanting to raise my kids in a cave? Please explain what I’m missing cuz even my most modern and less affiliated friends and relatives would not consider putting their kids in public schools.
It is sad that yeshivos don’t all pay well or on time, but just to be fair, teachers don’t work a full day and if you extrapolate their salary to a full-time position as the rest of world does, it may not be so meager. In addition, how many parents are paying FULL tuition?
Also to be fair, who thinks that the issue is because people are spending money on clothes, bungalows and other expensive items, or is it a married couple with both parents working and a large family? It would be helpful if people trained for jobs that make a decent salary. How many people go into chinuch for lack of anything else to do? Or because it is expected of them?
Moshe:
Teaching is a job that cannot be measured by classroom time. There is preparation, there are other aspects of management that occur outside of class time, and there is an overall responsibility that places the teacher/rebbe on call 24/7. I agree that we have observed many entering chinuch as a default, having zero training or skills for the job. And you are correct, that we should have merit pay, with only secondary value to tenure. It is tragic that people go into chinuch because it is their version of being klai kodesh, basically an irrational fear of all other forms of work. That’s hiding behind religion which is antithetical to genuine spirituality and connection to Hashem. It also denigrates all others who make their parnosoh doing lots of other things, most often jobs for which they are appropriate. That is not attributable to a derech of Torah.
Stag, this is what I don’t understand. My granddaughter’s yeshiva high school tuition was approximately $25,000. My local school district spends $22,000 per child. That $22,000 covers not just the high school but also 6 middle and elementary schools. It also covers a varsity football team ( and field ), other varsity sports , a school band, numerous extracurricular activities as well as up to date labs and a highly rated academic program. It’s teachers are also better paid, with better benefits. So , why does my grand daughter’s yeshiva charge more?
A lot of the prior generation gedolim went to public school, For example Rav Avigdor Miller, Rav Mordechai Gifter, Rav Ahron Feldman just to name a few
Anonymous jew,
The reason the full price of tuition is so high is to allow for tuition breaks for those who need it. The government can pay the same amount for every single child so it averages out to a lower number.
The question of whether staff in Jewish schools deserve more is easy to describe but complicated to solve. Parents hopefully recognize that if they want private education then it comes with a high price tag, while staff should know that if their institution discourages their students from getting proper careers, then they hopefully recognize that down the line those students will not be able to afford full tuition.
Interjection – i don’t think that answer is correct but it certainly is somewhat insulting.
Common- you do realize how irrelevant that is don’t you?
I think the main driver of high tuition of in town mosdos, is high building/mortgage costs.
Syag: Having sat on the boards and tuition committees of more than one local institution, I can assure you that Interjection’s first paragraph is right 100% on target.
Now the second paragraph, well I know Interjection personally, and we have debated this issue in the past, sometimes vigorously.
Midwesterner- if you experienced it firsthand i won’t argue it. Although i would more likely believe that it happened in the reverse, tuition remains high because people can’t pay, as opposed to being a lichatchila.
The second part, besides making my pulse quicken, is also sad. This distortion seems to be so present in a certain demographic, as expected, but im finding too many of them who 10 years later can’t seem to let go. It breaks my heart really.
Having spent many years in the public school system, i believe (but never varified) that there are a huge number of costs that are not absorbed by the student or school directly in the way they are in the private school. Many things coming thru the district are not the responsibility of the individual school and there are teams and deoartments that handle things that our schools havebto take on on their own.
There is only so much money you can charge for tuition, at some point people will give up.
You cant tell someone they have to pay $100,000 in tuition (For multiple kids) when they only make $50,000 a year
Syag; Not 100% sure what came first; the chicken or the egg, Whether full tuition was set high because of the need to give scholarships, or in response to budget shortfalls due to scholarships. Either way, that is definitely the situation now. Take the school budget, subtract JUF and government subsidies, and divide the remainder by the student body, and you’ll get a number less than full tuition.
There are many other moving parts in those formulas; fundraising and the like. So it’s not quite so simple. But the higher number is set to get the board a little head start in fundraising. And many of those people on the boards who are setting those fees are taxing themselves so to speak as they are largely the full payers. (Not me, but they have to have some of our types on the boards as well to justify across the spectrum representation.) But they know the responsibility, and they largely step up to the plate to take responsibility.Syag, can you provide examples? My district’s costs include providing free transportation for all private school children within a 20 mile radius. With many frum kids, that’s a lot of busing.
What it doesn’t have is a multitude of administrators make six figure salaries. Before it hit hard times and had to cut costs, a local yeshiva had hired numerous high paid administrators. Another yeshiva, beset by poor fiscal management didn’t pay their rebbeim for about 9 months. People refused to donate to a campaign until the yeshiva replaced the incumbent incompetents with people who knew how to financially run a yeshiva ( i.e. budgeting, fundraising, planning , monitoring spending )To Syag Lchochma: You raise some sound points. My proposal is not a complete plan, but something can be worked out so that frum students can attend public schools without breaching Halacha or compromising their education and religious values. It won’t be easy, and it will take a lot of political work. There will still be some frum who will find the arrangement unacceptable, but many frum parents will find this can work.
Huju- I’m in!
A brand new 800 kid school was built at my front door within a community that had no need (lots of political issues attached). A handful of us wanted to have our community registet all 2000 of our kids (someone told me that was the number) as our community bordets are not big and most fall in that schools boundaries (hence the lack of need for the school there). 23 million was spent on that school. They would have had to fill it with us. Unfortunately nobody knew enough to do something about it.
Take the school budget, subtract JUF and government subsidies, and divide the remainder by the student body, and you’ll get a number less than full tuition.
This is true in some, but not all schools.
My granddaughter’s yeshiva high school tuition was approximately $25,000.
I would love to know which school that is (I’m not expecting an answer; I respect your right to privacy). In my experience, girls’ high school tuition is much lower that that. Generally, modern orthodox schools charge much higher tuition and give fewer breaks.
“The second part, besides making my pulse quicken, is also sad. This distortion seems to be so present in a certain demographic, as expected, but im finding too many of them who 10 years later can’t seem to let go. It breaks my heart really.”
I think the word that threw you off was when I referred to well paying jobs as proper careers. I was tired and I couldn’t think of the right way to say it. It was a poor word choice.
“NYC spent $25,199 which was twice the national average . ”
I just looked up some numbers. 27 districts in Westchester County (of 48) spend more than the $28,808 NYC spent last year. I also found 43 (of 56) in Nassau County, and 50 (of 69) in Suffolk County, that spend more. One district in Suffolk spends over $100K.
Sparsely populated rural districts are often even bigger spenders. All six districts in Hamilton Country spend at least $32K per student. Their total enrollment is 415 students.
NYC is a bargain by comparison.
If i googled correctly, illinois average is 7k plus per student with chicago public schools at 4 something thousand.
“My local school district spends $22,000 per child. ”
I could only find two districts in NYC, Westchester, Nassau, or Suffolk Counties that had such low per pupil expenditures: Franklin Square and Floral Park, both in Nassau.
“It is sad that yeshivos don’t all pay well or on time”
Not paying wages on time is explicitly forbidden by the Torah.
“something can be worked out so that frum students can attend public schools ”
I don’t understand why nobody has jumped on my suggestion that we just lobby the legislature for the tax increases needed to give real government support for private schools. Connecticut, Vermont, and Maine have been having the government pay for private schools from time immemorial. (One of the schools receiving support was founded in 1801!) The Supreme Court just ruled that if the government pays for non-religious private schools it has to pay for religious private schools by the same rules. (A few states such as Virginia strictly prohibit ANY government funding of ANY private schools.) And CT, VT, and ME require that a private school that accepts the tuition vouchers cannot charge students any tuition. This could work in NY as well, if we can just get over our allergy to supporting politicians who are willing to raise taxes.
My grand daughter’s yeshiva is in New Jersey. Tuition was $23,000 but when you add in busing etc it goes higher.
CH. I didn’t say the New York average,I said the national average. And I noticed that you didn’t deny my statement that NYC doesn’t provide anything close to a quality education for the money it does spend.
Charie:
You wrote: “This could work in NY as well, if we can just get over our allergy to supporting politicians who are willing to raise taxes.”
You’re kidding. The tax rates here are obscenely high, and we obtain the least bang for the buck. And this makes sense, since there is a significantly higher proportion of takers from the system than other locales where taxes are much less. This, my friend, is an intended and predicted result of the “dependency culture” promoted by the Democrats and liberals. Aside from the morally bankrupt policy of spreading wealth, it creates a self-sustaining system of takers that vote for the establishment. If this weren’t so corrupt, one might marvel at the genius of it. But I suspect that I will trigger your wrath in a barrage of nice sounding slogans and aphorisms, none of which are acceptable to the morally tuned mind. After all, we reads of this in a Mishna.
שלי שלי ושלך שלך זו מידה בינונית, ויש אומרים זו מידת סדום.
Such opposite opinions! Doesn’t it make sense to say that what’s mine is mine, and what’s yours is yours? Certainly. But that is not the reason for this. It is because the Torah says so. If we rely only on our logic, we will deteriorate into what made סדום a place that could not respond to change, and Hashem needed to destroy it completely.
So before responding, just think a bit into this. It’s not about who you vote for, but what you vote for. I am repulsed by Trump’s personality, and continue to cringe at so many of his messages. But I have yet to see a Democrat behave properly, within tolerable morality.
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