A different kind of Jewish education

Guest Column: A different kind of Jewish education
By SARAH KASS
The Jerusalem Post

When charter public schools began in the US more than a decade ago, proponents were divided as to whether their purpose was efficiency (bang for the buck) or innovation (raising the bar). As American Jewish philanthropists explore investing in this sector - in light of the successful launch of the Ben Gamla Charter School in Florida - they would do well to identify their purpose, and to clarify the Jewish future they aim to propel.

he Jewish community has long worried about the rising cost of Jewish education in the United States, where unlike most other countries with Jewish citizens, there is no public support for religious schools. High tuition costs - upward of $25,000 per child per year in New York City, beginning in kindergarten - ensure that, beyond the Orthodox world, where secular school is out of the question, a Jewish education is largely a privilege for the rich. Moreover, as leaders of these ever-financially-strapped Jewish day schools spend so much of their time raising money, they find themselves devoting precious little attention to how they are raising the kids. And so, concerned philanthropists have wondered how to relieve the financial burden on Jewish day schools so that Jewish education in America might be more accessible and more educational.

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INSTEAD OF private Jewish day schools, how about public Jewish charter schools? And given the tiny matter of America's first amendment, which precludes public financing of religious education, the new pitch is for public Hebraic charter schools. Rather than fitting form to function, this plan fits function to form, remanding Jewish education to the flushest box, the one supported by Uncle Sam. The purpose would appear to be bang for the buck: better to get more Jewish kids a Jewish-style education on the cheap than to figure out how to pay for the best Jewish education.

While the 180-day six-hours/day school year of a public charter education is free to the parent-consumers, success is extremely expensive for the educator-producers. Opening a charter public school is no cheaper than opening a private day school. There is precious little public funding for start-up costs. There is no public money for facilities. Taxpayers do not provide computers or furniture. There are no free science labs or gymnasia, playgrounds or parking lots. There is no public money for curriculum development, personnel recruitment, professional development, policy creation or the building of operating systems.

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PERHAPS HEBRAIC charter schools could prepare the next generation to practice and promote the principles of a Mosaic politics, embodied in the Jewish people's founding civic institutions such as brit mila, Shabbat and shmita, nourished by the topology of a land rich in promise but poor in natural resources, where rain is a gift and not an assumption, and designed to prevent individual and collective regress into the abuse (and allure) of Egyptian strongman rule.

Perhaps, 60 years into modern statehood in the ancient Jewish homeland, Jewish education, even in the Diaspora, could once again be civic education, focusing on the Jewish meaning of power, plenty and the future - the core concerns of any sovereign nation governing in its own land or sojourning beyond its borders. Hebraic charter schools might indeed reboot Diaspora Judaism and enable future Jewish leaders to propel a nation which can truly be or l'goyim, a light unto the nations.



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Board: Charter school can teach Hebrew

USA Today


FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — A charter school may resume teaching in Hebrew, three weeks after the lessons were halted over concerns the Jewish faith was seeping into public classrooms, the school board voted Tuesday.

Broward County board members said close monitoring of the country's first Hebrew-language charter school is still necessary, but that its administrators had cleared up major concerns.


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Hebrew Charter School Spurs Dispute in Florida

New York Times

HOLLYWOOD, Fla., Aug. 23 — The new public school at 2620 Hollywood Boulevard stands out despite its plain gray facade. Called the Ben Gamla Charter School, it is run by an Orthodox rabbi, serves kosher lunches and concentrates on teaching Hebrew.

About 400 students started classes at Ben Gamla this week amid caustic debate over whether a public school can teach Hebrew without touching Judaism and the unconstitutional side of the church-state divide. The conflict intensified Wednesday, when the Broward County School Board ordered Ben Gamla to suspend Hebrew lessons because its curriculum — the third proposed by the school — referred to a Web site that mentioned religion.

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Fla. charter school stops Hebrew classes

USA Today

MIAMI — A charter school has been ordered to temporarily suspend Hebrew classes while officials try to determine whether teachers are advocating the Jewish faith.

Broward Schools Superintendent James Notter sent a letter to officials at the Ben Gamla Charter School in Hollywood on Wednesday advising them to halt Hebrew classes until the school board could further examine the curriculum.

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Fla. Charter School Fuels Church-State Debate

The Jewish Daily Forward

America’s first Hebrew-English charter school is scheduled to open this month — following widespread public debate over its curriculum.

The Ben Gamla Charter School in Hollywood, Fla., will welcome approximately 430 students, from kindergarten through eighth grade, on August 20. Children at the bilingual school will spend two hours each day learning Hebrew, with words and concepts taught in the context of Jewish culture and history. They will not, however, receive religious instruction.

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Critics: Hallandale charter school oversteps church-state line

South Florida Sun-Sentinel

The Ben Gamla Charter School will open this fall at the Hallandale Jewish Center. The principal is a rabbi. The Hebrew/English curriculum will be based, in part, on Jewish tradition.

Depending on who you ask, the Ben Gamla school will either be a secular bilingual charter school or a taxpayer-funded religious school that violates the U.S. Constitution's separation of church and state.

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