Wolfish
Can’t find it. Can you post link?
If you go tot the search bar above and search “public school wolf” (without the quotation marks) you’ll find a bunch of the threads. Nonetheless, I’ll summarize the gist of it here.
It has been proposed before that frum Jews should all enroll their kids in public school at the same time. The idea is that the public schools would not be able to handle the influx of so many kids at once and, as a result, the board of Ed will be forced to fund at least the secular portion (if not the entire day) of yeshiva.
There are several problems with this idea:
1. There is a portion of the New York State Constitution (Article XI) which reads (in part):
§3. Neither the state nor any subdivision thereof, shall use its property or credit or any public money, or authorize or permit either to be used, directly or indirectly, in aid or maintenance, other than for examination or inspection, of any school or institution of learning wholly or in part under the control or direction of any religious denomination, or in which any denominational tenet or doctrine is taught, but the legislature may provide for the transportation of children to and from any school or institution of learning.
This is the major obstacle to having state funds used for yeshiva education in New York State. Under the state constitution, no state funding (aside from a few specified services) can be used for schools that teach religion or are under the control of a religious organization.
So, that being said, if everyone were to show up at the doors of their public schools tomorrow with their kids, the state won’t just throw up its hands in surrender and send everyone back to yeshiva because, by law, they can’t. Perhaps they won’t find everyone seats on day one, but in time, they’ll make the necessary adjustments.
2. So, you might say, let’s change the State Constitution and get rid of the Blaine Amendment. Well, that is possible, but it’s a process that takes two years at minimum. In other words, if you’re going to try to force the issue by having everyone attend public schools, they’re going to be there for two years. I bet that within two years, the BoE will *easily* be able to absorb everyone.
There is also the fact that NYC only encompasses about 1/3 of the population of the state. Even if you could convince everyone in NYC to vote for this, you still have to deal with upstate, where the vast majority of the state doesn’t live anywhere near a yeshiva and doesn’t care at all about yeshivos. Convincing voters in the mostly yeshiva-less areas of upstate New York, where the majority of the state population lives, to fund yeshiva education from their tax dollars is going to be a *very* hard sell.
That’s the legal side of things. You also have problems with the very nature of the frum Jewish community in New York that will not make this work. Specifically:
3. The exclusive nature of yeshivos in New York. My family is a shomer Shabbos family. We keep kashrus. We learn. I am a ba’al kriah in shul. But there are families in this city who would never, ever consider a yeshiva where my kids would sit next to theirs because my kids watched TV and read Harry Potter and the like. If these parents don’t want their kids sitting next to mine, you can bet dollars to donuts that they don’t want them sitting next to a non-Jewish kid celebrating Christmas, coming to school with non-kosher snacks and singing the latest pop and rap tunes. Good luck convincing those parents to send their kids to public school for a week, let alone two years.
That, more or less, is the gist of the situation.
The Wolf