It's GREAT to see NYC's Hebrew Language Academy charter school succeeding – and serving a wide range of kids. The church-state issue is a red herring as long as nobody is proselytizing. Nobody complains when schools serving non-Spanish-speaking kids run dual-language programs with Spanish, so what's the difference if it's Hebrew instead?

When state officials approved the school, critics wondered whether it would become a publicly financed religious school masquerading as a place open to everyone. And after a battle for space, it landed in a yeshiva.

But as the school's first year draws to a close, its classrooms are filled with a broad range of students, all seeming confident enough to jabber away as if they were elbowing their way down Ben Yehuda Street in Jerusalem. Perhaps surprisingly, the school has become one of the most racially mixed charter schools in the city. About a third of the 150 students are black, and several are Hispanic.

The school's organizers say it has been so successful that they plan to help create dozens like it, pledging to spend as much as $4.8 million next year to seed schools in Phoenix, Minneapolis and Manhattan Beach, Calif., in addition to one set to open next fall in East Brunswick, N.J.

Kudos to Jenny Medina for getting a parent on record with this – truer words were never spoken:

Some parents who are not Jewish said they applied because they were simply eager for their children to learn a second language. But others gave reasons the school would be unlikely to cite in its recruitment brochures.

"By going to school with Jewish children, they are going to be getting a good education," said Mr. Moody. "In that community there's no foolishness when it comes to education."

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