The Substantial Lack of Equivalency, State Sanctioned Educational Neglect, Some Yeshivas

Posted to Lost Messiah on April 28, 2021

THE CITY Sues the Department of Education to Get Brooklyn Yeshiva Investigation Documents

THE CITY filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the city Department of Education after the agency refused to provide documents related to its investigation of the content and quality of instruction at Jewish religious schools in Brooklyn.

The DOE launched its probe of the yeshivas in mid-2015 in response to complaints from former students and advocates connected to the group Yaffed, who alleged that little to no instruction in subjects such as English and math was being provided at roughly three dozen Orthodox schools.

In August 2018, after advocates accused the city and Mayor Bill de Blasio of slow-walking the probe, then-Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza wrote a letter to the state Education Department revealing that 15 of 28 yeshivas at the heart of the investigation had refused entry to DOE officials.

State guidelines requiring that education at private schools be “substantially equivalent” to instruction at public schools governed the inquiry, even as those standards have been shifting in recent years.

It wasn’t until December 2019 that Carranza confirmed officials had visited 28 yeshivas, which he identified in a follow-up letter to state education officials, and revealed summary findings without specifying the conditions uncovered at each school.

The investigation found that just two of the yeshivas visited by the DOE could prove they provided “substantially equivalent” instruction to their public school counterparts.

Five of the 28 schools were described as providing an “underdeveloped” level of learning, including some showing “no evidence that English is consistently used as a language of instruction,” according to the update provided to SED.

The City

DOE Excuse Flunks ‘Smell Test’Carranza wrote that his agency was sending a letter to each of the 28 schools “communicating the information, observations, and findings specific to each school.” THE CITY requested copies of those letters under the state’s Freedom of Information Law on Jan. 2, 2020.

More than 10 months later, on Nov. 16, 2020, the DOE provided two of the 28 letters — regarding the schools where instruction was deemed substantially equivalent. Officials denied access to the remaining 26 on the basis that sharing them would “interfere with ongoing law enforcement investigations.”

A month later, THE CITY filed an administrative appeal with the DOE. City education officials denied the appeal on Dec. 28, 2020 — again arguing that the investigation was ongoing and that release of the letters would interfere with the probe.

The City: To Continue reading click here.

Vizhnitzer Rebbe – DO NOT EDUCATE YOUR CHILDREN IN ADVANCED STUDIES!

Vizhnitzer Rebbe condemns advanced academic studies

Yes keep them chained in poverty and in ignorance ……so that we keep shnooring for them ….

At a recent meeting of the Organization of Principals of Haredi Seminaries, the Vizhnitzer Rebbe expressed his strong opposition to haredi girls learning in university, likening advanced academic studies to the “Greek wisdom” that Torah sages have been traditionally opposed to throughout Jewish history, and asserting that the underlying purpose of introducing haredim to advanced university studies is to “implant ideas of heresy” into their minds.

“We are now approaching the festival of Hanukkah, and as is known, one explanation for the Torah verse describing how the ‘earth was empty and formless and darkness was upon the face of the deep’ is that it refers to the rule of the Greek Empire, and the attempts of the Greeks to cloud the vision of the Jewish People via their decrees,” the Rebbe said. “Their sole desire was to teach the Jewish People their Greek wisdom and to separate them, G-d forbid, from the Torah of G-d. Therefore, we use a specific term that hints at this ‘darkness’ when we refer to their attempts to make us forget our connection to Torah, because being connected to G-d and His Torah comes from a place of light, whereas the opposite comes from darkness.”

The Rebbe then linked his words to the current trend of university learning, saying, “I came here in order to arouse the listeners to the urgency of this matter of advanced academic studies which are forbidden, and indeed it should be obvious that such studies are in opposition to the wisdom of the holy Torah which enlightens mankind – they achieve the opposite effect and bring about only darkness.

“Such is the situation today as well,” the Rebbe continued, “in their attempts to convince us with nice-sounding phrases and persuade us that this will enable us to earn a respectable income, and from there things just deteriorate.”

Referring to the commonly made claim that having a degree enables a person to earn a higher income, the Rebbe said that given that this is accompanied by a decline in a person’s spiritual level, it should not be a matter for serious consideration, as “no G-d-fearing person wants his spiritual state to decline, regardless of possible material gains.

Please continue at the home of this article, on Dusiznies, here; and remember to browse their advertisements.

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East Ramapo Central School District – Superintendent Search Meeting. 11.10.20

POSTED BY REQUEST:

On Tuesday, November 10^th there will be a “Special ERCSD Board Meeting” at 7:30 via You Tube with a presentation by the search firm seeking a permanent Superintendent for ERCSD. 

NYS Steps to Review Private Education

New York state takes next step in reviewing private school education, including at yeshivas

The state has set a series of virtual meetings as it again looks to update century-old education requirements for private schools, an issue raised by activists critical of academic instruction in some ultra-Orthodox yeshivas.

Former state Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia started a review in 2016 of the state’s enforcement of a long-ignored law requiring that secular instruction in private schools be “substantially equivalent” to what public schools teach. By the time the state proposed new regulations for enforcing the law in 2019, though, the issue had become perhaps the most contentious in New York education.

The Orthodox Jewish community, along with groups representing Catholic and other private schools, assailed the state’s efforts as government overreach. More than 140,000 comments were submitted to the state before the state Board of Regents decided to reopen discussions with private schools about state oversight.

The scheduled virtual meetings are intended to drive that process. Five of the meetings will be regional, with one aimed at the Hudson Valley: Dec. 7 from 10 a.m to 1 p.m.

To continue reading in Lohud, click here.

Landmark Detroit Ruling – Students Have a Fundamental Right to Literacy – as Constitutionally Protected!

Students walk outside Detroit’s Pershing High School in 2017. A lawsuit claims the state of Michigan failed to provide the city’s students with the most fundamental of skills: the ability to read.

Court Rules Detroit Students Have Constitutional Right To An Education

In a landmark decision, a federal appeals court has ruled that children have a constitutional right to literacy, dealing a remarkable victory to students.

The ruling comes in response to a lawsuit brought by students of five Detroit schools, claiming that because of deteriorating buildings, teacher shortages and inadequate textbooks, the state of Michigan failed to provide them with the most fundamental of skills: the ability to read.

For decades, civil rights lawyers have tried to help students and families in underfunded schools by arguing that the U.S. Constitution guarantees children at least a basic education. Federal courts have consistently disagreed. Until now.

The ability to read and write is “essential” for a citizen to participate in American democracy, the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Thursday. One cannot effectively vote, answer a jury summons, pay taxes or even read a road sign if illiterate, wrote Judge Eric Clay, and so where “a group of children is relegated to a school system that does not provide even a plausible chance to attain literacy, we hold that the Constitution provides them with a remedy.”

 

The Cruel Irony, a Direct Link Between Covid-19 and Education [opinion]

The following is a Letter to the Editor we received. We are posting it with the anonymity attributed to it.

It is premised upon a direct link between secular education and pandemic deaths.

While we do not necessarily agree with the numbers of dead as it relates to education, primarily because there are other factors that might underlie why Covid-19 kills some and not others, the premise holds true if you look to the sheer numbers of sick within the communities our writer cites.

The rate of infection is consistent with the premise, namely that education and respect for secular authority is keeping people healthier.

Read on…

The Cruel Irony, Keep them Uneducated in Secular Subjects and you Keep them Observant…. and they are now Dying in Proportionately Higher Numbers [opinion]

Dear LostMessiah:

Matzav posted a list of those who have died from Covid-19 and the areas where those dead were located within New York and New Jersey. Please accept the following opinion related to that list.

For years now, Rabbi Chaim Dovid Zwibel, the head of Agudas Israel, State Senator Simcha Felder, Attorney Avi Schick and his sister NYU professor Adina Schick, have fought to protect the ongoing education abuse in the Brooklyn Chasidic community.

All four of them fought to keep the Chasidic community uneducated, isolated, and separate from the world and to do so used every play in the book. 

They did this despite the fact that they all personally believe in secular education for their own children and are neither members nor live in the Chasidic community.

The bitter irony is, their own community of Flatbush came out relatively unscathed from the pandemic, as their community believes and trusts the civil authorities and therefore did not congregate.

Not so the Chasidic community, which suffered over 215 tragic deaths to the corona virus.

In the end, all Zwiebel, Felder, and Schick accomplished through their covering for education neglect and abuse was death and more death.

A Shanda if there every was one!

How Can a $5M STEM Grant Benefit Yeshiva Students Who Are not Taught STEM Subjects? Are they?

Orthodox Yeshivas Claim to Need STEM Funding To Hire STEM Teachers. But, They Do NOT Teach Their Students STEM Subjects.

STEM is an acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math. We are the first to advocate for, if not demand the teaching of STEM subjects to ALL schoolchildren. We believe that it is fundamentally neglectful that children are not raised on a core curricula including STEM subjects. But, dream as we may…

That advocacy is all for naught. Yeshivas do not teach their students science, technology, engineering and math. They do not allow their students on the internet (unless it is Kosher) and they do not by implication teach STEM subjects. They therefore should not be getting money geared toward the hiring of STEM teachers, when that money will inevitably and inherently not be used for that purpose.  It is the same scam as e-rate, which was money intended to be used for computer equipment. It’s an oxymoron, Jumbo Shrimp – so-to-speak.