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Jewish World Review / June 24, 1998 / 30 Iyar, 5758
By Sheldon B. Kamins
DESPITE SPENDING $10,000 per pupil in the D.C. public school system,
the majority of 10th graders are scoring below basic performance levels
in reading and 89 percent are scoring below basic proficiency in math.
The D.C school district outspends almost every other school district in
the nation and yet it has a 40 percent high school drop out rate. So,
last month, the Congress voted to provide 2,000 scholarships to
low-income families in the District of Columbia.
As Jews, we have a vested interest in helping families attend the
schools of their choice. Our public schools are failing and students of
all religions and economic backgrounds are suffering. One solution
would be for the legislatures and governors of the various states to
enact a scholarship plan for their residents. Perhaps, at these local
levels, we can begin to help low-income families provide their children
with the same educational opportunities that the more well-to-do
families provide theirs. It's a matter of fairness, opportunity,
education, and, above all, equity. After all, those of us who can
afford to send our children to private schools don't very often consign
our children to schools that simply aren't meeting the standards we set
for ourselves or want for our children.
At fundamental levels, there are two reasons we Jews should support
such scholarship plans. First, Jews have always been concerned and
affiliated with a strong commitment to an education system that not only
serves us, but the rest of the population as well. We have long
believed that what is good for America is good for Jews.
Yet, there is
no question that today's American public school system is not good for
anyone. Just this year, the Third International Mathematics and Science
Study revealed that American 12th graders placed third from the bottom
in math and sixth from the bottom in science. Thankfully, this study
only included 21 nations and excluded Asia. Forty percent of all
ten-year-olds cannot pass basic literacy tests and over 30 percent of
all college freshman have to take remedial courses in math and English.
It is a tragedy that children from low-income families are forced to
attend schools where 20 percent of high school students carry fire arms,
knives, or other weapons. These are not numbers or environments that
bode well for our students or our future. These are not numbers or
environments that bode well for any community because the learning
environment of any community of students, like stones cast into a still
pond, affects surrounding communities down the line.
The second reason the Jewish community should support such
scholarship programs is that every Jewish organization concerned with the fate of
American Judaism has been lamenting the current trends in assimilation.
Scholars from both sides of the political spectrum agree that Jewish
education is the greatest deterrent to rising assimilation. Alan
Dershowitz, author of The Vanishing American Jew, and Elliott Abrams,
author of Faith or Fear, concur: Jewish day schools are the keys to
Jewish continuity.
In fact, a recent report commissioned by the Council
of Jewish Federations concluded that "intensive Jewish education is our
most powerful vehicle for Jewish growth" and that best vehicle for such
growth is "to make day school education available and affordable to all
who might want it." The scholarship program would do just that.
Some, however, believe that empowering parents to use such
scholarships
to send their children to private schools will erode the separation
between church and state. This fear is unfounded. Under the program
I'm suggesting, parents will have the option of using their scholarships
to send their children to either non-sectarian schools or schools with
the affiliations of their choice.
The parents could and should decide
for themselves what kinds of schools best match their educational
objectives. For those who want to send their children to Jewish
schools, the Supreme Court has held that when individuals spend the
money (as opposed to the government directing money to the schools),
there is no First Amendment violation. This is why those who spent
their GI Bill funds at Yeshiva University or Notre Dame did not violate
the Establishment Clause any more than they did when they spent their
funds at Columbia or Stanford.
In sum, the scholarship program is the most readily apparent
solution to the problems our children are facing in our failing public schools as
well as the problems we face with the rising rates of assimilation and
intermarriage. The scholarship program would also stimulate the
competition necessary for our public schools to put their houses in
order and compete for students.
As a matter of simple consumer choice,
we know that competition drives excellence (remember what it did for our
auto industry when consumers started buying Japanese cars). The time
has come for us to realize that parents should have the ability to
choose the schools they want to send their children to rather than the
current systems where schools and school districts choose the
children.
Simply spending more money on the public schools (given that
we know economic input does not equal cognitive output) would be akin to
putting lounge-chairs on the Titanic. If we recognize this and support
scholarship programs, we will be well on our way to solving America's
education problems as well as American Jewry's assimilation.
The D.C. education problem, and Jewry's
This scholarship plan
would have allowed parents to send their children to the school of their
choice, public or private. The plan passed both the House and Senate
but the President -- because his party is in the vice-grip of the public
education establishment -- vetoed the plan. President Clinton's veto
should concern the Jewish community as well as the 60 percent of the
African American community that supports just such a plan in D.C.
New JWR contributor Sheldon B. Kamins is the Chairman of the Jewish Policy Center, a politically conservative think tank based in Washington, DC.
