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

[Samuel Groner]

Some of RTK's arguments for why public school is better might lead one
to the conclusion that she believes public school is better than
non-orthodox schools even for children who are not from observant
homes (for example, RTK writes that "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.")

If this is indeed the position of RTK or of others -- that public
school is better than non-O schools for children from non-observant
families -- I wonder whether the following quotation from R. Aharon
Lichtenstein might be relevant in considering that issue further.

>From a symposium in TRADITION a number of years ago:

"Nor do I share the glee that some feel over the prospective demise of
the competition. Surely, we have many sharp differences with the
Conservative and Reform movements and these should not be sloughed
over or blurred. However, we also share many values with them and
this, too, should not be obscured. Their disappearance might
strengthen us in some respects, but would, unquestionably, weaken us
in others. Can anyone responsibly state that it is better for a
marginal Jew in Dallas or in Dubuque to lose his religious identity
altogether rather than drive to his temple?"

I would think R. Lichtenstein's arguments would apply to day schools
as much as to shuls.

Sammy Groner