The always thoughtful Rabbi Perry Tishwell proposes one important “solution†to the tuition crisis within the day school network. He tell us: “Bottom Line: Our schools are ridiculously expensive, but that’s what a quality private school education costs. It is what it is. However, we need to do a better job PRing the good work that we are doing, so our parents feel that their sacrifice is worth it."
I want to outline a different solution, but one that we can not implement alone, but need an alliance of private and parochial schools to help us implement: Get much more government funding.
Over the last fifteen years, the Supreme Court precedent has made it clear that governmental programs that fund parochial schools in the United States are constitutional. The Jewish day network must join many other parochial schools in advocating for increased government funding of the private school system within the United States, and with such a change implemented, the basic financial situation of all Jewish schools would change dramatically and for the better. The “money†issue would go away.
The classical case about this was Zelman v. Simmons-Harris (2002), where a group of taxpayers objected to the school voucher program in Cleveland, Ohio, which funded both private parochial and private secular education. Even though the program funded mostly religious school, the Supreme Court ruled that the program did not assist religious schools in violation of the Establishment Clause. Although Zelman has been the subject of a great deal of discussion and analysis, it remains the law of the land and has not been subject to significant challenge in many years. Furthermore, the Supreme Court reinforced the sense that such funding was proper when it turned away a challenge to a tuition tax credit (for every dollar you give, you get to deduct a dollar from your state income tax) for a parochial school in Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization v. Winn (2011).
What this means practically for Jewish schools is that there are many completely legal ways that the government can help pay for any and all private education including Jewish education. A few have already been implemented in various state and many more are possible.
The government can offer tax credits for tuition payments. (Functionally, tax credits mean that wealthy people can send their children to private school for free.)
The government can offer donor tax credits, so that when an individual or corporation gives money to a private school, they can deduct that amount from the taxes they pay the state.
The government can offer full vouchers to parents of fixed amounts, so that the parents can use that voucher to pay or help pay for tuition at any private school.
The government can pay for transportation to and from private schools.
The government can pay for textbooks for secular studies for private school.
The government can provide secular studies teachers in parochial schools in certain settings.
And many more such programs are possible.
Why is this important in any conversation about money? The answer is worth repeating over and over again. Every dollar that is given to the parochial school system by Federal, State or local government is a dollar that they system itself does not have to raise itself.
The possible upside for the Jewish community if it were to successfully engage in a long term lobbying campaign – along with other parochial and private schools of many different faiths– to increase government funding of all private schools is impossible to meaningfully evaluate, but would be huge. This is the model in the UK, as well as other western democratic nations as well as Israel. In the UK, more than 60% of the Jewish children go to Jewish schools, markedly higher than the number in the US. Vastly reduced tuition would seem to be a major reason.
What might be a downside of such funding? The most important fear is that with governmental funding will come with heightened governmental regulation. I suspect that this is not a serious problem, however for two reasons: first, and most importantly, private schools are already subject to very intense regulation: curriculum, safety, zoning and many other issues are already subject to very tight regulation. Second, separation of church and state doctrine in the US is strong enough that governmental regulation of core religious matters seems very unlikely. Finally, even if there is an increase in governmental regulation with dramatic increases in funding, it might be worth it to solve the money problem.
The community of these who care about Jewish education ought to be aware of the legal developments of the last decade and support lawful approaches to funding private and parochial schools that aid Jewish education.
Michael J. Broyde
Professor of Law
Emory University School of Law
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/23/2017 07:12AM by mlb.
