By Yosef Kuper

There is no question that educating our children is expensive. Teachers deserve to be paid properly. Buildings have to be maintained. Insurance, security, transportation, utilities, special education services, technology, and countless other expenses have increased dramatically. Anyone who has looked seriously at a school budget understands that running a school is an enormously expensive undertaking.

We should acknowledge that reality.

But we also need to acknowledge another reality: families should not be made to feel poor, inadequate, or irresponsible because they do not have an extra $50,000, $75,000, or $100,000 every year to spend on tuition.

For most families, those are extraordinary amounts of money. A family can earn a very respectable living, work hard, live responsibly, and still find it nearly impossible to write tuition checks of that size year after year, especially with multiple children in school. When our definition of “being able to afford tuition” requires families to have tens of thousands of dollars in disposable income after taxes, housing, food, insurance, and every other expense of life, perhaps the problem isn’t simply that parents aren’t earning enough.

Perhaps we also need to ask whether school has become too expensive.

Over the years, our expectations of what a school should provide have changed dramatically. Parents want beautiful campuses, cutting-edge technology, elaborate programming, extracurricular activities, trips, events, specialists, upgraded athletic facilities, impressive productions, and an ever-growing list of amenities. Schools, understandably, compete with one another to provide them.

And somewhere along the way, we created an arms race.

Every program needs a logo. Every event needs professional pictures. Every new initiative needs to be posted. Schools increasingly feel pressure not only to educate children but to look impressive while doing it. Administrators want to demonstrate everything their school offers, parents compare schools, and institutions compete for enrollment and prestige.

There is nothing inherently wrong with being proud of a school. There is nothing wrong with giving children enriching experiences. But every program, trip, renovation, department, specialist, event, and amenity eventually appears somewhere on a balance sheet.

And parents are ultimately footing the bill.

That leaves us with an uncomfortable choice.

Do we want to go back to basics, or continue spending money that many families simply do not have?

Maybe a good school doesn’t need to resemble a university campus. Maybe our children don’t need every conceivable program. Maybe every grade doesn’t need multiple elaborate trips. Maybe facilities can be clean, safe, and functional without being state-of-the-art. Maybe we need fewer administrators and more excellent classroom teachers. Maybe we should stop measuring the quality of a school by what looks impressive in a brochure or on Instagram.

Most importantly, we need to ask whether all of this spending is actually producing better-educated children.

Because ultimately, that is the purpose of a school.

And on that question, the results should make us uncomfortable.

Too many children are progressing through our schools without achieving the level of reading competency that should reasonably be expected of them, in both English and Hebrew. We can build beautiful buildings, create extraordinary programs, take memorable trips, and produce impressive social-media feeds, but if children are struggling to read fluently and comprehend what they are reading, we have lost sight of the fundamental mission.

A school’s success cannot primarily be measured by its facilities, programming, marketing, or Instagram presence. It has to be measured by what its students actually know and what they are capable of doing when they leave.

None of this means that schools are intentionally wasting money. Administrators face tremendous pressures from parents, boards, staff, regulators, and competing institutions. In many cases, they are responding to exactly what the community has demanded.

That is why parents have to accept some responsibility as well.

We cannot simultaneously demand smaller classes, more specialists, nicer buildings, more programming, more trips, better technology, more extracurriculars, and higher salaries, and then be shocked when tuition rises. If we genuinely want affordable education, we may have to become comfortable with schools offering less.

Not less education.

Less everything surrounding it.

The conversation about tuition therefore cannot only be about how we raise more money, expand scholarship programs, or convince parents to contribute more. Those things may be necessary, but they address the symptom rather than the underlying question.

We need to talk about what it actually costs to provide a good, serious, academically successful education—not an impressive educational lifestyle.

There is no shame in saying that a family cannot afford another $50,000 or $100,000 a year. That isn’t poverty. For the overwhelming majority of people, that is simply economic reality.

Perhaps instead of asking families, “How can you possibly pay more?” we should begin asking our schools and ourselves:

“What can we do without?”

If the answer allows us to make education more affordable while putting greater emphasis on reading, writing, mathematics, Hebrew literacy, strong teachers, discipline, and genuine academic achievement, then going “back to basics” wouldn’t represent a step backward at all.

It might be exactly the progress our schools need.