JustASC

eJewish Philanthropy has posted my contribution to its Growing Jewish Education in Challenging Times series. I ask if the communal emphasis on day schools hasn’t come at the expense of a more holistic approach to Jewish education. In other words:

“There is no alternative to day school” is problematic because there must be an alternative – simply put, outside of Orthodoxy, the majority of Jewish families do not and will not choose day schools, even if they were tuition-free. In a country in which K-12 education is free, and is central to the civic fabric, is or was day school ever a viable economic model for a voluntary Jewish community – and one with such an enormous historical and emotional debt to the public education system? 

Read the whole essay here.