Comments on: Jewish Education: Some Suggestions

By: Kung Fu Jew 18

Kung Fu Jew 18 — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 16:51:13 +0000

I believe that private school is a luxury for the rich. There is free public education for everyone else. Unfortunately, an “Orthodox” Jewish lifestyle is also a luxury for the rich or those that are so pious they are willing to live on the receiving end of charity.

So sad, but so true.

By: Chutzpah

Chutzpah — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 12:37:19 +0000

I agree that the Yeshiva system can’t handle special needs children. I am not familiar with the “day school” system. The concept of boys and girls together in the same class is absolutely forbidden in the school my ex forces my son to go to. I can tell you my daughters and their classmates will not speak conversational Hebrew upon graduating Yeshiva High School.

By: themiddle

themiddle — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 03:53:57 +0000

I don’t consider the children I pointed out in the piece to be “special needs” children. I consider them to be brats. I also think most ADHD diagnoses are BS. Sure, some kids have it, but mostly it’s kids with some behavioral issues that parents can’t get under control. The ADHD diagnosis absolved them of guilt and responsibility.

I have a great deal of concern and sympathy for “special needs” children and I can imagine how it must impact Orthodox families. However, to be completely honest, while it’s not one of the premises of this piece, I don’t believe the Jewish day school system has the ability to offer these students the help they need. Each specialist that comes to the school requires an additional $20k-$60k a year in salary and you need a speech person, an occupational therapist, a psychologist and a couple of other specialists (whose roles I don’t know but apparently they’re needed) who teachers have pointed out to me in the past.

In other words, you’ve just added $130k-$390k a year at least in costs to the school. For that money, you could bring in 7 to 30 more students than you could otherwise. This will only work in those schools that are big enough to need this sort of team and there aren’t many of those.

By: Chutzpah

Chutzpah — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 02:13:59 +0000

That’s between 17 and 20 in New Jersey. It’s a non-sustainable system. It also encourages all kinds of tax-evasion and other forms of corruption like we saw in the recent arrests of Rabbis in New Jersey. It puts tremendous financial pressure on families and takes all the fun of Orthodoxy (well, what fun is left after adhering to the dietary and family purity laws…whoopeee!)

Your hostility towards Special Needs children is unbecoming and uncharacteristic of you Middle. With all the inbreeding, the number of children born in quick succession, and children born to parents over 40 (usually children numbered 7-10) the incidence of special needs is especially high in the orthdodox community. Inclusion of special needs children in the regular class, in theory could foster the learning of compassion,if done correctly. More likely, it will just foster more wild behavior than already exists among children who have very little physical recreation and almost no entertainment or escapes other than beating up their siblings and throwing rocks at cars that violate the Sabbath.

By: themiddle

themiddle — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 16:17:56 +0000

Thanks for the article on your blog. It was good.

By: jkaplb

jkaplb — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 09:13:50 +0000

Another great post! Thanks!

I’ll jump in on this as the parent of a 7th grader who decided to attend a Jewish day school last year and as someone very involved in (trying to push for investment changes from…) the local Jewish Federation.

But as I started to write my own long reply (very much in agreement) I got too long winded…so you’ll find it here: wp.me/3Ens

By: On Jewish Education… « JKap

On Jewish Education… « JKap — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 09:06:31 +0000

[...] suggestion #13 is something I also agree with completely. We need to do a better job of crossing Jewish [...]

By: froylein

froylein — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 14:08:59 +0000

To add my two cents from a professional’s perspective, make parents responsible and hold them responsible for raising their kids. [If at my semi-private college I need to teach students basic manners, something has failed greatly in their education at home.] Then, and only then, you can possibly maintain the same teaching quality in larger classes. Ideally, classes should be no larger than 15 students for a teacher to be able to attend to all of them.

Also, drops in grades do not necessarily mean drops in quality or scholarly outcome; it could well be the other way round. Lazy teachers tend to make themselves popular among students and parents by being generous graders. An A-average should document exceptional skills in combination with permanent dedication to studying and scholastic turnouts exceeding expectations, not average ability paired with sporadic effort. I find it ridiculous enough that ratings that would earn students the equivalent of a “C” over here earn them an “A” over there. That is simply unfair towards students that are actually good and excel at their studies.