Like many Jewish schools, SAR has dedicated staffers whose job is to garner the government funds. They range from reimbursement for administering state exams and taking students’ attendance — state-mandated tasks for which New York Jewish schools received $42 million last year — to funds for security programs, textbooks, busing, health services, computer software, teacher training and small-group tutoring in various subjects.
Jewish schools in New York also have been able to secure some $300 million per year in therapy and counseling services for students with special needs, according to Martin Schloss, director of government relations at the Jewish Education Project. The money goes directly to pay for the services, not to the school’s bottom line: outside professionals come to the school and work with students who have been deemed eligible by the Board of Education.
“Our schools are aggressive in terms of utilizing opportunities,” said Schloss, whose organization helps 300 day schools in New York secure government money. “We’re not asking for a penny more than we ought to be getting, but not a penny less either.”
Underlying the new advocacy effort is a shift in attitude among some mainstream Jewish organizations. Jewish federations, which once opposed government funding for parochial schools, are now trying to secure government support for them. Both the Jewish Council for Public Affairs and the American Jewish Committee are reconsidering their long-held opposition to such funding.
“Overall, the Jewish community has moved much closer to our side on this issue over the last few years,” said Rabbi A.D. Motzen, national director of state relations for Agudath Israel, which has been lobbying for government money for parochial schools since the 1960s.
In addition to financial pressures, a few other factors have fueled the day school advocacy effort.
The growing momentum of the so-called school choice movement, which aims to give parents more control over where and how their kids are educated on the government’s dime, has helped create more favorable conditions for private school funding. A landmark Supreme Court decision in 2002 upholding parental rights to use government tuition vouchers at private religious schools helped pave the way for voucher and tuition tax credit programs in 23 states.
But these programs are not available in many of the states with the biggest Jewish day school populations, including New York, New Jersey, California, Illinois and Massachusetts. Two notable exceptions are Florida and Pennsylvania.
After the Rhode Island program began in 2006, Providence’s two Jewish day schools were able to get nearly $400,000 of the $1 million pot. As awareness has grown, their share has fallen to about $270,000 — still a respectable sum in a state where Jews account for less than 2 percent of the population.
“By and large, we’ve done fairly well in getting what we can,” said Rabbi Peretz Scheinerman, dean of the Providence Hebrew Day School. “With all these things, you have to know what’s coming to you and be on top of that.”