Thanks, Squeak. I don’t mean to come off as anti-yeshiva education, or being anti-school. At LEAST some sort of Yeshiva education is nearly a requirement to ensuring the spiritual health of the next dor. Schools are battling rising costs themselves. Admins aren’t evil, they’re just trying to ensure the viability of the institutions that pay their salary. But schools are amorphic entities. They don’t live, breathe, interact on an emotional and physical level with their peers and family members, etc – families do.
What’s frustrating me is that many are advocating for schools and education (“they’re already tapped”, “we need to give the chinuch for our kids”, etc) – but schools and the idea of “chinuch” are inanimate, amorphic objects and concepts. Families aren’t – they’re organic, dynamic entities that need more TLC than bricks and mortar. If all yeshivas nationwide were to spontaneously combust tomorrow, we as a community will still be around and still soldier on. Yahadus would still exist. If many, many families were to break up ch”v, Yahadus would take a serious, serious blow and could be on life support.
In the end, what is more important – preserving the traditional family structure with shalom bayis, etc, or schools and infrastructure (brick and mortar buildings, teachers, administrators)? I’m not saying it’s the old “guns and butter” argument – it’s not necessarily a zero sum game (at this point – it may be 20 years down the road). But what’s more important should be leading the discussion on the subject.
If we let THAT lead the discussion instead of accepting the educational infrastructure at status quo, we may collectively find some interesting things. Things like online education initiatives (K-12, for example) which bends the school structure in possibly sacrificing something for what’s more important – sane, healthy families. I’m hoping my point here is clear…