Beyond the father and the child, Baba Batra 25a credits Yehoshu’a b. Gamla for having instituted a communal responsibility to provide elementary education, a melamed tinnokot, someone to teach young children. He was worried about fatherless orphans, who would have no one to teach them. Sefer HaChinukh seems to me to have understood the institution to be more, to be a statement about the necessity of basic Jewish education in every Jewish community.
Fascinatingly, Arukh HaShulchan 245;10 thinks that anyone who can afford it should not send their child to the communal school, should pay separately for a private tutor, so as not to crowd out those who cannot afford it, for whom the school was established. He says he ruled that way in practice; I think today we think having those students in the school helps everyone, because those parents pay full tuition and contribute to the scholarship fund. From all the fuss over public education in the US, it also seems likely that students from economically advantaged homes can help the environment and resources of the school, making it a plus to include them.
Still, it needs to be said, those with greater means must not squeeze out those with lesser. Arukh HaShulchan is more amenable to the idea of a grandfather with limited means relying on the local school, even if he could in theory pay for private tutelage.
Food for thought as we consider the mitzvah of Talmud Torah in this week’s parsha.
