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Jewish World Review Oct. 13, 1999 / 3 Mar-Cheshvan, 5760
BIG CHANGES HAPPEN in the wink of an eye. Last week I spoke to a large
crowd of parents at a “Jewish Day School Expo.” Most of the parents didn’t
know what schools were available or where they were located. But they were
eager indeed. When I asked for a show of hands, more than one third
indicated that they were looking for elementary schools: a huge new batch of
Jewish children coming down the educational pipeline.
What impressed me was that these are liberal Jewish families, not the
strictly or Modern Orthodox, who sent
their children to day school even when public education was at its height. In
our own day, the Jewish day school has grown up organically from the
astounding success of the synagogue pre-school. Some 10,000 Los Angeles
children are in Jewish day schools, including an astounding 1250 in so-called
college-prep Jewish high schools like Milken Community High School and
Shalhevet.
Across the nation, the number of day school students as tripled
since 1960, to 200,000, representing (according to one source) about one in
five of the roughly 1 million Jewish school age students.
Today, though most Jewish students (some quote statistics of more than 70
percent) are still in public schools, the day school is considered a viable,
even commendable, alternative. A religious day school no longer carries a
stigma of the shtetl; quite the opposite.
In supposedly secularly-oriented
cities like Los Angeles, it is a statement of class and an indicator of
parental taste. The quality of secular education can be on par with private
secular schools, and is, I must add, every bit as expensive to boot.
But if we have won the battle for alternative religious education, the
responsibilities of the parent and the school have only intensified: How to
maintain the commitment to the larger American society as we educate future
Jewish citizens.
In the October issue of Atlantic Monthly, Peter Beinart writes that the
rise of Jewish schools poses a host of problems for the Jewish community.
Key among those problems, he implies, is why we are so comfortable in them.
“Today,” he writes, “parents are willing to consider Jewish schools in
part because they no longer fear being viewed as outsiders. They take their
integration into mainstream America as a given. But what if earlier
generations were correct -- that full equality in an overwhelmingly Christian
country is, in fact, reliant on Jewish willingness to participate in a common
system of education?”
This, of course, is the question that strikes fear in many a “liberal”
parent, a test of the freedoms we’ve come to hold dear.
One answer to Beinart is that, for most Jewish families, as for many
Americans, education does not end at high school. Today, college is
considered the natural purpose and end goal of education. Termination at
high school is the option only of the computer nerd or those destined for the
minimum wage.
Thus, Americans of all ethnicities rely on college to do what high school
once did -- assimilate or acculturate into American life -- which is why so
many in the black middle class send their children to parochial schools.
But upon closer inspection, the fear that Beinart taps into holds little
reality. Milken gets 400 applicants for some 175 slots each year. Those
liberal parents seeking entry to Milken, not only expect their children will
learn Hebrew and Talmud as part of the curriculum. The
purpose of schools like Milken is college prep plus values. The high school
admissions refers to alumni who have gone on to Harvard, Stanford, the
University of Pennsylvania and elite public institutions like the University
of California at Berkeley.
This is no ghetto in the making, but a guarantor
that Jewish students will be prepared for the best schools American can
offer, and a career of professional life in the civic mainstream.
Moreover, today’s day schools -- like the public schools -- explicitly
acknowledge that they expect to create better American citizens. Dr. Bruce Powell, president of Milken, told me: “Jews have always made a
great contribution to American society. The problem is that many in the
Jewish population doesn’t know what that contribution is. The Jewish day
school movement is reteaching those values so that our students can go out
and act within a free society.”
Community service encourages students to explore those values early. For
one example, Shalhevet, the extraordinarily successful Orthodox high school,
requires that every 9th grade student participate in Koreh L.A., the Jewish
community’s project for tutoring reading in the public school.
And of course it flows both ways. Coincidentally, the night after the
day school expo, I took my daughter to her high school’s College Expo night.
In front of us on line, a father was shaking his head; why had his son chosen
Brandeis University over Berkeley. Brandeis is no longer “just” a school for
Jews. It is rated #25 in the country.
I’ve been talking to day school parents for the past several days.
Here’s what they tell me:
They send their children to day schools because they want their children
to have a “Jewish lens” on the world.
They send their children to day schools, but they have not removed their
children from the community: karate, music lessons, travel and summer camp
are used to broaden the world beyond the Jewish community.
They send their children to day schools knowing that they’ll get into
great colleges.
Not an escape from an America, but a way
10/05/99: Digging in Deep
Educating the 'new Jew'
By Marlene Adler Marks
JWR contributor Marlene Adler Marks is a columnist and author of "A Woman's Voice: Reflections on Love, Death, Faith, Food & Family Life ". Send your comments to her by clicking here.
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