Dear Yserbius,
“even less options than there were thirty years ago”
Well, this is were you are invoking a blatant, viscous, outright, boldface lie. Do you know what that sentence means? Your making it up. Need another explanation? There is no truth to what I quoted. Still unclear? That is not what was going on thirty years ago compared to today.
The only established mesivta in Lakewood had zero English. Maybe you mean that Lakewood had places for druggies and dropouts back then because it was such a small town and their was enough space for them. Maybe you even went to such a place. Note the use of the word maybe for something that I have no way of knowing. It is a useful method of expression. But that was not an option because nobody from Lakewood sent there. It was a place kids ended up in. Or kids brought up in families that were borderline orthodox, and also dysfunctional.
But in the present day, there are around a hundred high schools of varying levels. Plus, there is sports leagues, chess clubs, and music groups, for young kids. The average family in Lakewood today is proud to have a blue collar teenage son that goes to shul regularly. There are many shiurim specifically for working guys. There was almost none of that thirty years ago. And most of it wasn’t even around ten years ago. Lakewood growth has been in different qualitive types as well as quantity.
You have no idea what your talking about. And I wasn’t even around thirty years ago. I had to go around interviewing older people, to find out just how silly you are.