Joseph Goldberg’s suggestion that the tuition problem be resolved by cuts in salaries and benefits to school personnel probably goes to the heart of the matter raised by Mr. Gross. Salaries can account for approximately 80%-85% of day school budgets and so any attempt to look at reduction in tuition would automatically begin there. And yet those salaries are by no means outrageous for anyone who also wants to live in the Orthodox community and educators already often pay the price of cuts in our salaries and benefits – I can think of many years both before and after 2008 when I and my colleagues, administrative as well as teaching faculty got no increase at all and when whatever increase we did get was whittled away by cost increases in health care benefits which themselves were concomitantly reduced. This has long been the case in Jewish education.
A major difference nowadays, I think, is that in recent memory the quality of people entering the profession has drastically improved. I began my career teaching congregational school and when I idealistically entered day school education it was a relatively lonely and in some ways nascent profession. As an administrator there were many years of drought when it was difficult to find people to hire who were both serious about Torah and serious about education. But as Mr. Gross attests, today’s teachers are incredibly serious professionals, who have achieved levels of education in both Jewish Studies and in education comparable and in many cases well beyond other professions which are compensated far far better. Although teachers know that they will not get rich in Jewish education, they do want to be compensated in ways that are in relative alignment with the community in which they wish to live and raise their families. They do not necessarily seek extravagant vacations or Pesach getaways, but they would like to live in a house and afford the basics including the desire to pay as much tuition as they can without asking for unreasonable subsidies.
And therein lies the tale, as a very wise person once pointed out to me. Paying tuition has always been difficult for many parents who had to make sacrifices in order to do so. What has changed is that whereas in days of old, the primary burden of the cost was carried by the poor salary and benefits to teachers, today the costs are primarily being borne by the parents and those costs are painful indeed. If in the past, Jewish educators were asked to cut back on their needs, now parents are being asked to do the same, in some cases by reassessing lifestyle, and that is not an easy pill to swallow.
Instead, we find calls for cutting salaries and benefits, a move that will certainly result in a loss of some of the best and the brightest professionals, just as other professions have fallen into disfavor in our community when compensation is relatively poor. Alternatively, there are solutions like Mr. Gross’ which have come about as a result of a lot of clearly painful and painstaking and sincere thought. Beneath the surface, it seems to me, there is also not a little anger and frustration that I have heard from numerous young families who are reeling from the costs and the prospect of making hard choices. But the choice to be made is not about French fries vs steak. For reasons that Rafi Eis and others have pointed to, Mr. Gross’ plan flies in the face of so much we know to be true about day school education, not least of which is the potential bifurcation of the identity and commitment of the child as so many of us witnessed with our congregational school students due in no small part to the bifurcated nature of their day and the allure of other values, such as choice. Of that educators can be relatively sure for that is our area of expertise. Less sure is the solution to the financial problem before us. For that one hopes the lay people in our community will use their formidable talents to find a way. In that process we see ourselves as willing partners, but please do not ignore our expertise nor ask us once again to share an outsized portion of the burden.
Jay Goldmintz
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/03/2016 01:09PM by mlb.
