No Free Lunch at School

There is no such thing as a free lunch, or free school, for that matter.


We were prepared for this, but it is still a shock having your kids dismissed from school at 1:30 pm – so relatively early in the afternoon.

To occupy your children in the afternoon – and mostly in things non-academic, mind you – costs many shekels. You can find what you want – typical after-care, arts and crafts, sports, tutoring – but it certainly wreaks havoc with a working schedule and means you may be driving all around town. What to do?

There is an intense focus on children in this country, and also on the dirth of educational spending. Schools just don’t get funded. 35-40 kids in a class, terribly-paid teachers, schools of 400 and 500 students sharing one nurse with three or four other schools. It’s the Western world, but it’s the third world. It’s suburban USA, but also the inner city. Socialist expectations at their best, socialist results at times at their worst.

A kid cannot go to school for 5 ½ hours a day and expect to be well-educated, without putting intense pressures on parents to supplement their kids formal education with additional formal settings.