Presence

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.