This was it. After weeks of haggling, negotiating, headbutting and arguing, after trying and returning myriad failed options, we had finally found a winter coat that met my daughter’s specifications. Or at least I thought so.
I had high hopes because the store was advertising Black Friday week sales. I brought the coat up to the register with a pleading grin and asked, “Is this item on sale?” To which the salesperson sadly shook her head no. “And is the price as marked on the tag?” Yes, it was.
The price was far more than we were willing to spend on a winter coat for a preteen who would outgrow it or switch styles next year, so we accepted yet another setback and moved on. As my wife explained to my daughter, “If the coat that you found is more than we are willing to spend, then you haven’t found a coat.”
This story is emblematic of our day school system in America. Our day schools have, thank God, been enormously successful. A few generations ago, there was serious doubt as to whether Modern Orthodoxy could survive, much less thrive, in the assimilationist pressures of modern America. As most of the readers of this paper know, day schools are the foundation of a viable Modern Orthodox future in America. Our schools, together with overnight camps, Jewish programming for teens, and a post high school year in yeshiva/seminary in Israel, have built a solid foundation for a strong Jewish identity combined with meaningful integration in this country. In other words, we have, collectively, found “the coat.”
Just one problem: The coat is too expensive.
Education is an incredibly expensive endeavor, one that demands enormous human and financial resources. For this reason, free public schooling paid for by the state is provided to all children regardless of their ability to pay. Without this public support, education would be out of reach for most families due to its prohibitive cost.
Religious day schools, due to a variety of reasons (some legal, some cultural), have historically not received meaningful financial support from the state. The result is that Jewish education is supported nearly entirely by the Jewish community, primarily in the form of tuition paid by parents and gifts from wealthy donors. As Jewish schooling has become more sophisticated, and as inflation and other factors have tightened household budgets, the paradigm of Jewish education supported entirely by a Jewish community that is simultaneously paying taxes toward public schools has become increasingly unsustainable.
Which brings me to my son’s quest to get an Xbox. For my son’s birthday, he desperately, desperately wanted an Xbox. I, on the other hand, did not want to buy an Xbox. I didn’t want to pay for an Xbox or the games for it. I didn’t want to figure out how to set it up, to create a Microsoft account, to build in parental controls so he would not be able to play Def Con Zombie II, etc., etc. I would have been perfectly happy to buy him any other present and be done with it.
So, when my son asked for an Xbox, I pushed him off. “We’ll talk next week,” I said. “Your birthday is so far away.” “I need to talk to your mother.” “I need to think about it.” “I’m too busy right now.” Every day had a different excuse.
And if my son had given up, that would have been the end of it.
But he didn’t give up. Day after day, he would check in. If I said it wasn’t a good time, he would ask when would be a good time. He wrote us notes explaining why it made sense for him to have an Xbox. He made arguments. He pleaded. He begged. He negotiated. And in the end, I gave in and bought him an Xbox and even set up the darn thing.
The moral of this story is that advocacy requires persistence. Just like my son’s advocacy for his Xbox, our advocacy for state funding for day schools requires persistence. We need to keep showing up, day in and day out. We need to keep checking in with legislators, keep organizing school visits for our state representatives, and perhaps most importantly, keep voting.
But unlike a tangible, personal goal, like persuading one’s parents to buy an Xbox, advocacy for day school funding is a much bigger lift. The odds of success seem lower. The return is more uncertain and less immediate. The goal is more theoretical, not something that we can see and touch right now. And success is communal rather than personal. Which is why it is critical that in addition to a dedicated corps of volunteers, we have trained professionals working on this issue day in and day out. Here in New Jersey, TeachNJ provides the day-to-day engagement with this advocacy that, like my son and his Xbox, is our best chance of winning the day on this incredibly important issue.
Big things are coming this year in New Jersey. TeachNJ is making an aggressive push to bring meaningful state funding to day schools in a way that will provide real tuition relief to our families. But in order to make this happen, we all need to do our part. And to motivate you to do your part, remember what I learned from my kids: (1) Jewish day schools, while incredibly successful in some ways, will never be a true success story until tuition affordability is addressed; and (2) the only way to obtain state funding for our schools, which is a critical component of any solution to tuition affordability, is day-in, day-out never-give-up communal advocacy guided by the professionals at TeachNJ.
If my daughter can find a coat and my son can get his Xbox, then we can make this happen. Let’s do it!
Steven Starr lives in Hillside, with his wife Keshet and three children.
