More often, or rather by standard convention, private schools are considered to provide a better education than public schools. Why else would people pay money when they could tap into their civic benefit? What often develops though, is that private schools become homogenous. Families that desire private school education for their children – whether for social, religious, or both reason – usually reside in neighborhoods with like people; class, religion, demography. Of course this can be true in public schools. But for bureaucratic reasons public schools are more likely to be mixed. By virtue of who goes to which school and by statistics of geography and sociology, public schools create an environment that supports appreciation of difference. Private schools often fall short in that area.

I went to yeshiva for twelve years. I can’t say that all students and staff are closed-minded. Such generalization would only result in religious, gender, and/or class bigotry. However, what I’ve observed regarding the yeshiva schools I’ve attended is that students tend to live in a bubble. There isn’t enough integration and interaction with people that are different. Often when kids graduate they hit college and spend a long time adjusting to a culture shock.

It’s not only something that pertains to my history. I remember in a discussion on urban planning in a Macaulay seminar a classmate of mine from Levittown attended an all-white school. He said that they once had a field trip to a predominantly black school in the Bronx to “observe” their school. This classmate is not a racist and cushioned the story to diminish the overt racist overtones. But the class reacted with nervous laughter. People were shocked at the anthropological “field trip.”

What’s the difference between this Levittown school and my alma mater? In yeshiva diversity is often ignored. There is no attempt at orienting students to other cultures, religions, and races. Ignorance is bliss until “appreciating difference” coincides with college life. In Levittown there was an attempt to open up students to another culture but it was innately obvious and bigoted.

Unfortunately this is a natural issue in many private schools. I think the only way to respond to the question “how can schools help us to relate better to our fellow humans – especially different kinds of humans” for private schools is the age-old solution of integration. The overturning of Plessy vs. Ferguson in Brown vs. Board of Education and its effect on subsequent generations’ acceptance of difference had more drastic an outcome in the long run than any contrived policy (even a policy that’s subtle, unlike the Levittown observation trip). Schools – from the affirmative action clauses in higher education to kindergarten quotas – should promote cultural integration.