It’s always quite gratifying to see somebody who agrees
with me. It happens so rarely!
Of course, it is more likely to happen through somebody
who hasn’t read my blog and doesn’t know that he is agreeing with me.
In this case, I am referring to an issue that is not
exclusive to the chareidi camp and, as such, my newfound ally is not a member
of the chareidi camp. Yet, he is addressing a crisis that affects all shades of
religious Jews and so we are all in the same boat.
The issue at hand is the prohibitive cost of day school
and high school tuitions in the United States. I wrote about it back in January, 2016 (click HERE)
from the comfort of Eretz Yisroel where we are not
overwhelmed by this plague. I made two suggestions:
1. Get
out of the US and move here (works for me)
2. Drop
the secular education from the Jewish school system and replace it with state
funded and accredited online education (distance learning).
Well, I am gratified to see a fellow oleh to Eretz
Yisroel get on to a blog site (click HERE) and preach what amounts to
almost the exact same two suggestions. His name is Reuven Spolter formerly from
Oak Park, Michigan. This is what he suggests:
1. Get
out of the US and move here (works for him)
2. Drop
the secular education from the Jewish school system and replace it with state
funded and accredited charter schools.
A number of commenters have challenged his charter school
idea as being discriminatory. There are numerous other issues:
· Such schools, as a
physical facility, will need to be located somewhere other than the religious
school and will thus force students and parents to have to deal with two school
locations on a standard school day.
·
The states are not
likely to set up a parallel secular school for each religious school, but
rather large regional ones to deal with a big population. As such, the charter
school serving Lakewood and Deal, for example, may wind up in Freehold.
· The hours will need
to be unconventional.
·
It is questionable if
religious needs for being gender segregated or other thing will be upheld by
the government.
All of these concerns do not apply to my online distance learning plan. The only problem with my plan is that it is currently not
operational in many of the most vital states. I wrote that I think this problem
can be fixed.
As I wrote, it is very gratifying to see somebody from a
different sector take up this issue and propose a similar course of action.
This is for two reasons:
·
If you would like to consider
my proposal a harebrained idea put out by a radical free-thinking farfrumta
chareidi from the dark ages, I can now point to somebody who isn’t a radical
free-thinking farfrumta chareidi from the dark ages who seems to be just as
harebrained.
·
If somebody who isn’t
a radical free-thinking farfrumta chareidi from the dark ages makes such a
proposal, maybe somebody will actually listen.
Rabbi Spolter and I do have one thing in common. We are
both living in Eretz Yisroel, out of the loop. Far away from all of the American
askanim who really count, and who must know better. Who is wiser? Is the sun getting the best
of us or is the pollution (and GMOs) getting the best of the Americans?
Of course, I (and Rabbi Spolter), am still advocating the
preferred course of action: make Aliya.
You know why?
Not only because health and education is so much more
affordable, but also because:
אווירא דארעא מחכים!
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