As the writer of the previous TLS letter, I am somewhat bewildered by this response, I agree with much of what you wrote — just not with the conclusion you seem to draw from it.

You correctly say that transparency cannot work in only one direction. I couldn’t agree more. But are you not aware that when a parent asks a school for tuition assistance, the school already demands an extremely detailed picture of that parent’s finances and lifestyle?

Parents are asked what they drive, how the vehicle is financed, where they vacationed, whether they went away for Yom Tov, what they spent, what assets they have, and numerous other personal financial questions. These are not hypothetical examples; they are actual questions on tuition assistance forms.

So I have to ask: if transparency is going to be a two-way street, can a parent create a form for the school to fill out?

You defend, in your letter, a school administrator driving a nice car by suggesting that perhaps his parents helped him purchase it or that he has some other source of support. Fair enough. But if that is a valid explanation for the administrator, why isn’t it equally valid for the parent? Why is a parent’s car, vacation, or other personal spending relevant to a tuition assistance application if those things don’t necessarily reflect that parent’s ability to pay?

And if we are going to discuss transparency, can the school show parents its budget? Its administrative expenses? Its contracts? Its overhead? Its building expenses? Its compensation structure? Its capital expenditures? Can parents understand why tuition has reached the number it has?

My child entered school when full tuition was $4,600. Now, entering sixth grade, it is just shy of $11,000. That’s an increase of nearly 140%. If only my salary had gone up 140% during that same period.

You write that a school should have “real financial governance,” an active board, established salary scales and finances open to appropriate scrutiny. I agree completely. But those shouldn’t simply be ideals for the future. They should be prerequisites for asking families to make increasingly difficult financial sacrifices.

You also write that parents have a responsibility to educate their children. Of course we do. Nobody reading these letters disagrees with that.

But responsibility does not mean unlimited ability to pay.

We already pay enormous amounts in taxes toward education. That doesn’t magically create an unlimited pool of money for private education. A family can understand perfectly well that chinuch is a priority and still genuinely not have enough money to pay what is being demanded.

There is an important distinction between choosing not to pay and being unable to pay.

You make the point that if paying tuition means driving a less expensive car, taking a less expensive vacation, or eating out less, sometimes that is part of the sacrifice of raising children. Fair enough.

But the argument cannot simply become: “If you are struggling with tuition, you need to find more sacrifices.”

At some point, there is nothing left to cut.

There is another analogy in your letter that I think actually illustrates the problem. You compare education to buying a suit and explain that a customized product costs more than an off-the-rack one.

But if the suit store raises its prices beyond what I can afford, I have choices. I can shop somewhere else. I can buy a less expensive suit. I can wait. I can decide that a certain feature isn’t worth the additional cost.

Schools don’t work that way.

If a school owner decides that the institution needs more money, there is no equivalent marketplace mechanism. The school can increase its budget, increase tuition, add fees, add fundraising requirements, or put additional costs onto parents — and the parent cannot simply “shop elsewhere” without potentially uprooting his child’s education.

That’s a fundamentally different economic relationship.

And this is where your point about school expenses leaves parents asking: Okay, now what?

Nobody disputes that schools are expensive to operate. Teachers need to be paid. Buildings need to be maintained. There are utilities, insurance, transportation, technology, security, administrative staff and countless other expenses.

But saying, “Schools have major expenses,” doesn’t answer the question of whether every expense is necessary, whether every dollar is being spent efficiently, or whether parents should simply be expected to absorb every increase.

You yourself ask whether contracts are competitively bid, whether positions can be combined, whether buildings are designed with long-term costs in mind and whether institutions are too top-heavy.

Those are excellent questions.

But parents are still waiting for the answers.

Are tuition dollars funding necessary educational expenses, or are some of them funding unnecessary ways to beautify privately owned, multimillion-dollar facilities?

And if tuition is already covering the school’s expenses, why is my child’s school supplies list asking me to send in $20 CASH in an envelope, with no explanation of what it is for? If a school suddenly needs money in the middle of the year for a project, why wasn’t that expense anticipated and included in the budget?

And perhaps most importantly: who ultimately has the authority to say “no” to a school administrator?

If the owner of a suit store decides he needs a raise and increases the price of his suits, the market can respond. Customers can walk away.

If a school administrator decides that he needs a raise, there is no comparable mechanism. The budget can simply be increased because, ultimately, what can the parents do?

That doesn’t mean administrators shouldn’t be well compensated. Quite the opposite. Teachers and administrators deserve fair compensation.

But if parents are expected to make sacrifices based on the school’s financial needs, then parents deserve meaningful transparency into those needs as well.

You say that the question isn’t simply “Why is tuition so high?” but “How and where is our money being spent?”

I agree.

Let’s actually ask that question — of the schools, with the same seriousness with which schools ask it of parents.

Because you can convince parents 100% that chinuch is important. You can convince them that schools have enormous expenses. You can convince them that parents have responsibilities.

None of that changes the basic math.

For the average family, there is only so much income and only so many dollars to go around. And when tuition, fees, fundraising obligations, supplies, projects and other school-related expenses consume an ever-growing portion of that income, families are left under tremendous financial and emotional pressure.

So yes, parents should examine their priorities.

But schools need to examine theirs too.

And until that happens in a meaningful, transparent way, telling parents that this is simply a matter of priorities risks missing the real issue:

A family can have chinuch as its absolute highest priority and still be unable to afford what the system is asking it to pay.

That is a tuition crisis — regardless of what we choose to call it.

S. E.