The
single greatest injustice facing American parents today is that they
are financially forced to send their children to schools not of their
choosing. If you want to understand the level of unfairness you need
look no further than my home state of New Jersey. Saturday’s Wall
Street Journal reported that our state’s Supreme Court has “taken
control of the $11 billion Property Tax Relief Fund,” funded by our
astronomical, highest-in-the-nation, property taxes. The Journal
reports, “The court sends more than half of the state aid to 31 largely
urban “special needs” school districts with the remaining 554 largely
suburban towns fighting over the rest.”

Want to know how badly
abused our tax dollars are in the State’s education system? A single
community, Asbury Park, gets thirty thousand dollars per pupil – enough
to send them to the country’s best prep schools – and still “they
produce dismal test results.”

But I knew well before the article appeared what suckers we New
Jersey tax payers are from my own community of Englewood where you have
to sell a kidney to afford the sky-high property taxes that fund an
approximately twenty-three thousand dollars per pupil public school
expenditure that likewise produces poor test results.

Included within our community are approximately six hundred
hard-working orthodox Jewish families that make up the lion’s share of
the tax base. But not one of those families gets even a ten dollar
subsidy from their taxes to help pay the tuition for their children’s
religious school, which is curious when you consider how much money the
government saves by having children in a values-based education system
which produces far lower delinquency rates.

Now, since we read daily of the non-stop corruption and waste that
seems endemic to our state, why do we in New Jersey take it? Why aren’t
there protests in the street? Honestly, I have no idea, other than to
say it’s becoming prohibitive to even live here and many have indeed
begun moving out.

But be that as it may, I personally know scores of religious Jewish
families for whom this injustice is beginning to break the bank. They
are slowly being bankrupted by the combination of high taxes and high
tuition. There is no way on earth they can pay both. And this of course
applies to Catholic parents, evangelical parents, and Islamic parents.
Why does our country so strongly discriminate against responsible
parents who want their kids to pray every day and be more spiritual
people? What does our country have against families who believe in
ethical, religious traditions? How long will parents whose only sin it
is to want their children to know and love G-d be punished?

And let’s not march out the over-roasted chestnut of separation of
Church and State. This is not the State’s money. It’s the parent’s
money. It’s their tax dollars. Why is it taken from them without any
benefit to their kids?

And what if you’re a parent who isn’t even religious but simply
disapproves of co-education? What if you’re of the opinion that
children, and especially girls, do much better in environments where
questions of popularity among the opposite sex is minimized? Should you
be forced to contravene your conscience for money?

At this stage in my life, with two children in College and another
six in private Jewish schools, the tuition burden has become almost
prohibitive. There is no way we can save anything since, by the time we
pay Englewood property taxes and Jewish day school tuition, there
simply is nothing left.

And still the Jewish community refuses to seriously address the
tuition crisis with the only real solution which is to finally allow
public funding for at the very least the secular departments of
parochial schools. Hebrew Charter schools are a necessary first step.
But walking on egg shells to forestall any kind of accusation of
imparting a Jewish identity is simply not a complete solution. Less so
is sending your kid to a public school and supplementing it with a
Jewish tutor. That still doesn’t provide for immersion into a Jewish
school environment in which a child wears tzitzis and a Yarmulke,
washes their hands for bread, and makes the proper blessings before
eating various foods.

Let’s not kid ourselves about there being any real replacement for a
Jewish day school education when it comes to instilling a Jewish
identity and guaranteeing that a graduate make Jewish choices later in
life. Daily Jewish education amid total immersion in a Jewish
environment is the single greatest guarantor that our children will
proudly choose to be Jewish. The same applies to having more Jewish
kids. Our community’s number one threat today is not intermarriage but
the pitifully low Jewish birthrate. And more families are choosing to
have less children because in their minds they simply can’t afford
them, especially the tuition.

Next week the GA will take place in Washington, DC. Sure enough, on
the lengthy agenda there is one breakout session entitled, “Accessing
Federal and State Support and Services for Jewish Day Schools.” That is
nice, but it’s nowhere near enough. Creating the political will to
provide government funding for parochial school education must be our
community’s number one priority. It cannot be just one of many
subjects. And I am declaring my willingness to work with individuals
and organizations who are dedicated to seeing this become a reality.

My passion has always been to bring Jewish values to the outside
world and help heal an increasingly valueless society. But that cannot
and will not happen unless we raise a generations of Jewish children
who are versed in Jewish texts, Jewish wisdom, and Jewish history. And
if over the next decade we don’t find a way to secure permanent funding
for Jewish day schools the edifice will come tumbling down.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach is the founder of This World: The Values Network
and is the author of ‘Ten Conversations You Need to Have with Your
Children’ and ‘Parenting with Fire.’ http://www.shmuley.com.