[Avodah] Public school or non-Orthodox day school?

[Harry Weiss]

> From: T613K at aol.com

> You think that keeping the kid out of the non-O day school would 
"sacrifice
> his chinuch"?  The opposite is true.  Keeping him /in/ the  non-O school would
> sacrifice his chinuch.  Do not think, "The non-O  school provides a good
> chinuch but we don't want to show support for  non-O."  Rather, as bad as the
> chinuch might be in public school, the  education in a non-O day school is /even
> worse/.  In public school he won't  learn anything about Judaism at all and
> will be left a tabula rasa, for his  parents or outside tutors to fill in later.
> In the non-O school he will  learn all kinds of sheker, which will be
> exceedingly difficult to eradicate from  his mind later on.   Much harder to write on
> a palimpsest than on a  tabula rasa.
>
deletions


>
> Now I have just summed up what is taught in non-Orthodox schools.  I  will
> add one more thing, which is that only ONE kid in my entire fifth grade  class
> in that school was halachically Jewish (a fact I did not know at first,  but
> found out one kid at a time).  Thus, if you think the kid in the Jewish  school
> will at least have Jewish friends -- think again.
>
> Far, far better to send the kid to public school and supplement his Jewish
> education at home or in an after-school Talmud Torah or Sunday school.   Also
> be sure to send him away to an Orthodox summer camp.
>
>
Here all we have is a community school, which leaves a tremendous amount 
to be deisred.  There are a number that are not halachically Jewish, but 
when my children were young the vast majority were Jewish.

The big fights regarding the school was how much Yiddishkeit and Jewish 
subjects were taught. Reform tried to water everything down (even though 
they sent very few children)  The O community had almost 100% 
paricipation.

The religious education was of poor quality (even though there were 
several Orthodox Rabbis running the school.  From what I understand the 
level of Hebrew language has gotten quite good, the level of other 
materials is quite poor.

My older son was there through 7th grade with 7th grade being private 
tutoring mostly.  For 8th grade we sent him 100 miles away to an O day 
school, but the educational level in Jewish subjects was not much better.

When he started Yeshiva HS in LA, he was able within a short period of 
time to keep up with the others at his grade level.

We pulled my younge son out after 5th grade and sent him to public school 
6-8th and home schooled him in Limudei Kodesh.  When he got to HS he was 
at the level of the other students.

I think it was important that as a result of his going to the community 
school, most of his friends (including when he was in PS)  were other 
Jews.


Harry J. Weiss
hjweiss at panix.com