August 9, 2007
Jewish Charter School Opening in Florida
First Jewish-oriented charter school to open in Florida:
HOLLYWOOD, Fla. (JTA) -- Margaret Schorr, a marketing and public relations consultant, wanted her 5-year-old daughter Hannah to learn Hebrew, but she wasn't willing to pay the $8,000 to $13,000 annual tuition that Jewish day schools in South Florida typically charge for kindergarten.For attorney David Barnett, price wasn't the issue -- he wanted his daughter in a more diverse environment.
Both families are set to take advantage of a groundbreaking option: the nation's first Jewish-oriented charter school.
When the school year starts Aug. 20, Schorr's daughter and Barnett's daughter will be among the 430 or so students attending the new Ben Gamla Charter School in this city. The taxpayer-funded institution says it will offer two hours of instruction a day in Jewish-related topics, but not religion.
This is very encouraging. I can not understand why we can't work out some kind of arrangement with the local governments to have secular studies subsidized in some way by the tax dollars we are contributing to the public school system. The local school board should have an established curriculum; math, science, english, foreign languages, etc. and any school that teaches that should be eligible for some kind of tax-funded assistance. It's not like we're providing a superior education that the public schools for secular studies in our current setup. Does anyone know if the leaders/school boards of the local Jewish educational institutions (or "mosdos") communicate with the local elected officials to see if there's any possibility of something like this?
Hat tip to AddeRabbi for the link.
Is the charter school co-ed? Can gentiles attend if they want to?
Posted by: Anonymous at August 9, 2007 11:39 AMI would imagine it is co-ed; I would also think that anyone could decide to go there if they wished.
Posted by: Greg at August 9, 2007 12:44 PMI think the main problem would be the "Jewish-related topics, but not religion". I assume this would be a requirement to get a pulicly funded school. I would think that this would elimiate the majority of the non-secular curriculum at our "mosdos". Whether the school is co-ed or accepts non-jews is clearly less of an issue since some of our mosdos are co-ed, and even now, I think that they technically cannot exclude qualified non-jews.
In Baltimore, co-education and the inclusion of gentiles will likely kill any proposal before it gets off the ground. Whether or not day schools are technically required to accept gentile children is not an issue, as the fact is that the local Orthodox Jewish day schools are now 100% stocked with Jews.
If segregated (gender and religious) charter schools could be established, I can imagine a situation where for financial reasons, some parents would forego the religious education (provided, of course, that it is replaced with a "Jewish" education in school and supplemented with a religious education at home).
Obviously, gender co-education is not as big of an issue as national/religious co-education - as evidenced by the fact that many Orthodox Jews in Baltimore do send their children to a co-ed institution (a more expensive alternative, by the way). But for the majority of Baltimore's Orthodox Jews (I think it's safe to call them the majority), both issues are substantial enough to stall any progress on this issue.
Personally, as much as I abhor the yeshivish rhetoric that my children come home spewing, I will choose the provincial hegemony of Roshei Yeshiva over the "what am I going to be for Halloween?", or "who is Santa Clause and why is he coming tonight?".
If they did this in Baltimore or Silver Spring, you'd see many, many Muslim parents trying to get their kids in. Bizarre as it sounds, they've got an even worse situation than we do when it comes to schools.
I kid you not about this: a very religious Muslim co-worker seriously asked me if his kids would be accepted into one of the local Orthodox Jewish day schools if he applied to them. My description of what they taught was good enough for him, especially after his experiences with the public schools in northern Virginia.
I'd keep going after the vouchers, though. Public schools are just the state's way of brainwashing people, and they should be abolished for privatized brainwashing.
Posted by: David Zakar at August 9, 2007 9:14 PMGreg,
I have a different approach that would be free & clear of church & state conflicts.
See: http://orthonomics.blogspot.com/2007/07/guest-post-virtual-public-schooling.html
Josh
Posted by: Josh at August 10, 2007 10:25 AMI would never send my child to any school that calls itself Jewish but does not teach any religion. It's just ignorant.
Posted by: Avi at August 12, 2007 7:50 PM
