Joe, I don’t think that’s true. Quantity might give more potential for quality but there is no guarantee of greater quality- I wouldn’t call it a “rule of thumb” in a practical sense. It depends more on what you do with your time, how skilled the teachers are… so many more factors than simply the amount of time allotted.
Purely anecdotal, but I’ve known people to switch their sons from more yeshivish elementary schools with very little secular studies to schools which emphasize secular studies more and then need to get their sons tutors for BOTH Judaic and secular studies so that they can keep up in their new yeshivas. And these are smart kids.
Abba_S: I know people who went to YTV 40+ years ago and by the sound of it the secular studies are very nearly better now than they were back then :).
As far as the separation between church and state- that is one of Ezra Friedlander’s big, BIG inconsistencies. On the one hand, he doesn’t want an audit or review in any way of the yeshivas out of fear that they will be dictated to by the government- on the other hand, he wants some kind of free, no-strings-attached handout gift-wrapped and handed over from that same government. That’s simply not how life works and, to be honest, it’s better that way.
Everyone complains about how the government in Israel tries to mess with the schools, and they can, because they’re governmentally supported. The tuition-based financing of our schools has led for a lot of autonomy that we might not necessarily have otherwise- look at UPK in frum schools and how it means that kids in preschool may not legally be allowed to learn the brachos for their lunch food. There seems to be a culture of “magiah li” which makes people think that money can/should come with no consequences. Let him make a cheshbon- would he rather get government money and have his kids’ schools teach about families with two tatties or would he rather get on his hands and knees and work for change for his kids’ schools himself, as seems to be the only conclusion possible to come to after reading his own article?