NEW YORK (Agudah / VINnews) — On Friday afternoon, the New York City Department of Education released long-awaited substantial equivalency determinations regarding eleven Orthodox Jewish schools, known as yeshivas.
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Before commenting on this development, some context:
These reports were instigated by a complaint brought by anti-yeshiva activists years ago. These activists sought to find the 39 weakest performing schools, from a secular perspective, within New York’s flourishing body of 554 independent yeshivas.
Of these 39 yeshivas, the complaint regarding some dozen schools were deemed by the city to be invalid and outside the scope of inquiry. Two other yeshivas were deemed equivalent.
Of the eleven newly released determinations on Friday, seven schools were found to be providing a fully equivalent education.
No determination was made and no reports were released regarding an additional 14 schools, but there was a recommendation to find them non-equivalent, for reasons the city has not disclosed.
In considering the impact of these determinations and recommendations, it is important to remember that the New York State Supreme Court recently held, in a case brought by Agudath Israel and others, that government bureaucrats have no authority to penalize nonpublic schools for not conducting their classrooms in a manner that is substantially equivalent to public schools, as the state imposes.
Moreover, these New York City reports have been compiled while the state’s long-awaited guidance instructing schools how to comply with substantial equivalency regulations, and detailing how the city should review nonpublic schools, still has not been produced. In other words, government is moving forward condemning schools before giving these schools the rulebook by which they will be judged.
Parents sacrifice deeply and spend heavily to educate their children in yeshivas. They do so because they recognize the enormous benefits of yeshiva education. Yeshiva graduates are steeped in moral values. Their minds have been trained to think critically and creatively. They are literate in multiple languages and scholars of the great texts that define Judaism. Their love for learning lasts a lifetime. Their charitable giving and deeds know no peer. While these items may not appear on any government checklist, they are critically important educational qualities, at least to the parents who send their children there.
Agudath Israel is proud of the yeshivas in New York, and their longstanding track record of producing successful graduates and peaceful citizens.
In Mayor Adams’ own words, “Rather than asking what are you doing in your schools, we need to ask what are we doing wrong in our schools and learn from what you are doing in the yeshivas.”
We couldn’t agree more.
I’m not sure why some of the schools proudly object to teaching reading, writing, and speaking English at least to an 8th grade level. Ditto for math skills. Forget the science, history, etc., but math and language are a must. I know people are furious with Yaffed, and I’m not enamored of the current leader, who leaves much to be desired, but I think the previous head of Yaffed really got a substandard education, which is why he started that organization. He felt cheated, and maybe he was. Many chasidic grads don’t care, but some do. Last year I read, in the Hamodia, about some successful chasidish businessmen and professionals, but all had to make up for what they didn’t learn in high school, in various ways. Is that really the road to take? The survivors, even without high school, knew their native languages, and math, far better than their einikels.
Interesting statement by the Agudah.
Given Agudah’s complaint that the non-complying schools are unrepresentative, merely a fraction of all yeshivos and selectively chosen as most likely to fail, are they therefore advocating that NYC investigate ALL yeshivos, so that NYC will then have better data?
Lost in the Agudah statement is that No One with any role in writing the statement or in defending the schools in question would ever dream of sending their own kids to such a school.
And that’s because they know darn well what goes on there — and what doesn’t.
All the kvetching about public schools is irrelevant to this Report. The issue is that yeshiva buchers are not getting any sort of equivalent secular education, as required by Law, and expected by the students, and the parents who pay so much.
Didn’t aguda main guy attend adams jewish forum council JUST LAST WEEK?
QUESTION TO AGUDAH:
What part don’t you understand of where they are doing an evaluation, if it meets substantial equivalent. Somehow they found the other yeshiva’s are complying, but these few are NOT. Lets see how do they determine it ?? Not very hard to understand – no English subjects, maybe one hour English with a joke for a teacher, cant speak the language, etc.
Comes along the Agudah and asks they want a – detailing how the city does reviews of nonpublic schools. Like nobody can figure it out!
2 PIONTS :
A – Agudah Stop playing games on how they determine it. It is not a hard science or a Chatoz and then starting to split hairs.
B – Agudah you really want your kids to get that kind of education, You yourselves want better for most Yeshivah’s. So why stick up for the ones that don’t care about a kid coming out, not knowing how to speak English, not knowing how to spell, denying him a better chance to make a parnusah.
Missing the point here: No one is saying that this yeshiva or that yeshiva does or does not provide a good education. New York is simply saying “If you accept our money, you have to follow our rules.” They have every right to hold this way. The overwhelming majority of New York taxpayers aren’t paying to provide a Torah-true education. They are paying for an education that meets the State’s standards.
Can we see the actual Report? Agudah attacks the Report, but we need to see it.
Whatever the Yeshiva drop outs so called activist say, one thing is for sure Frum Chasidic schools will never ever change the education they now provide.
If we should ever change here what’s needed to be done:
a)We need to install metal detectors in all Yeshivas and to pat down students daily for knives and guns.
b)We need to start teaching our kids how to use the most foul language among themselves and toward teachers and parents.
c) We need to teach our kids that being a degenerate is nothing wrong. In fact one should be proud about it.
The list is just tool long what we need to do to be equivalent to the failed public school system.
At face value 7.03% of yeshivos are failures compared to the NYC public school system that has a 18.8 %none graduation rate.
At that measure the yeshivos are better than any public school.
But the thoses.03% of yeshivos exist that way because the parents want their children to learn without that outside information.
Public schools should take lessons from yeshivos who give parents 100 % of what they want for there children.
Has anyone seen the level of “education” NYS officials have?? No Thnks
Why are they defending the weak schools rather than fundraising to make them strong?
out of over 500 yeshivos they found a few that didn’t meet some arbitrary guidelines and from that the anti frum hate org yaffed, the odious hate peddler who founded it and their echo chamber in the media are spouting hate and lies about our heiliger yeshivos –SICK