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Friday July 19, 2002

Two Views: Should Jews support school voucher movement? Let's aid Jewish education but not with tax dollars

Jacqueline Kates

I am saddened and troubled to acknowledge that the American Jewish community must be reminded of the importance of the survival of public education. Historically, the Jewish community has not only supported the public school system, but has depended on public education as a vehicle to carry us into America's mainstream. We have recognized the importance of free public schools, universally available to all children, regardless of economic status or ethnic background, to provide our citizens with a common body of knowledge and values.

In the township of Teaneck, N.J., where my husband, children and I all attended public schools and where we continue to live, the impact of Jewish community support for the public schools cannot be overstated. The civic involvement of large numbers of Jews who moved to suburban Teaneck after World War II was an essential factor in the building of schools and the growth and development of a community which became known throughout the nation for the excellence of its public schools.

And without the massive effort of a politically active Jewish community, it is doubtful that Teaneck citizens would have voted in 1964 to implement a busing plan that racially integrated the township's public schools, becoming the first American school district to do so voluntarily. Teaneck's Jews, and others, have supported the fundamental issue of equity with their votes, their tax dollars and their children.

Forty years later, in Teaneck and throughout the country, demographic factors are eroding Jewish community support for the public schools and our traditional opposition to school vouchers. Although many Jews have opposed vouchers as poor public policy and questionable constitutionally, increasing numbers of Jews are concerned about the problems in our public schools. They are enrolling their children in Jewish day schools to avoid the problems of public schools, to enhance Jewish education and to foster Jewish continuity. Vouchers are being supported by many of the parents who face heavy tuition burdens.

There is no question that meaningful Jewish education is essential to our survival as Jews in America, but not with public, nonsectarian dollars. It is the responsibility of the Jewish community, not the entire body public, to provide our children with a Jewish education to stimulate, invigorate and inspire them -- whether they attend day schools, afternoon Talmud Torah classes, Sunday schools, summer camps, or belong to youth groups. If Jewish continuity and identity are true priorities of our federations, then the federations must provide funds for scholarships for needy students and for educational programs, here and in Israel.

Throughout the United States, there are public schools in need of reform. But draining the schools of financial resources and many of their most motivated students and parents will only weaken the public school system further.

Support for the public schools has long been a principle of Jewish community relations, one of our strategies for survival in a land in which we are a minority. I don't believe we can abandon the principle. The public schools still need the support of the Jewish community.

In a presentation to the Ad Hoc Committee on Race and Public Policy of the Jewish Council on Public Affairs last June, Maria Echaveste, deputy chief of staff to former President Clinton, asked what Americans are saying by not supporting public schools now that this population is often predominantly minority. She believes that the message is that those children do not matter. I know that those children must matter to the Jewish community; that to us, repairing the world does not mean repairing just the Jewish world. If our American educational system is weakened, we will all be weakened.

William Raspberry, in a recent column in The Washington Post, confessed to being a reluctant convert to school choice because he does not know how to fix the public schools and he doesn't know anyone who does know how to fix them. I am not about to convert. I fear that experimental voucher programs in urban Milwaukee and elsewhere, which provide vouchers for low-income students to attend private and parochial schools, are exploiting the poor, mostly minority students who are "escaping" the public schools. The voucher programs are doing nothing to provide quality education for the vast majority of the students who remain in the schools, nothing except siphoning off vital funds.

I also fear that the establishment of an alternative system of education will segregate children of different religious and ethnic backgrounds, with little or no opportunity to form the relationships that can prevent ethnic and religious stereotyping. Public schools have traditionally been a place of common meeting, a place that fosters common purpose and identity.

Another disturbing aspect of voucher programs is the certainty that governmental financial support would inevitably lead to governmental regulation of religious schools. It would be neither appropriate nor desirable for a government bureaucrat to develop curricula or regulations for Jewish or other sectarian schools.

Voucher programs benefit special interest groups at taxpayers' expense, and even if Jews are among the special interest groups, ultimately we all will be harmed. Vouchers deflect our attention from our responsibility as individuals, families and synagogues to educate our Jewish children and make Jewish education a true priority.

And vouchers wrongly relieve government from its responsibility to thoroughly and efficiently educate all children.

The writer is a past chair of the Jewish Community Relations Council of the UJA Federation of Bergen County/North Hudson, N.J. and served for 10 years on the Teaneck board of education. This column previously appeared in Sh'ma: A Journal of Jewish Responsibility.

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