The decision back in April made by a New York State Supreme Court judge to strike down NYSED’s (New York State Education Department) draconian guidelines is being widely heralded as a victory of near miraculous proportion.
Those guidelines would have made any serious religious education in Orthodox day schools practically impossible in the State of New York. The typical day in a Yeshiva elementary or high school is divided between religious studies in the morning and secular studies in the afternoon. The required time to be allocated to secular studies by NYSED would have effectively eliminated any time for religious studies. That would have hurt even modern Orthodox schools that place a heavy emphasis on secular studies. Their religious studies program would have been destroyed too.
Modern Orthodox and most Charedi schools were given some relief after NYSED explained that their schools need not worry about their status. That the new guidelines were designed to install a decent secular studies program in schools where there were little to no secular studies at all. But the relief they felt was tempered by the feeling that NYSED fell short of what they felt was a threat to the right to teach their children fully guided by their religious beliefs.
That was finally taken care of by the judicial system.
Like the Charedi world, I too believe this was a victory for religious freedom. What gets lost in all of this is why this entire thing happened in the first place. For decades NYSED left the status quo ante alone. That’s because the vast majority of Orthodox Jewish students that attended religious schools had decent secular studies programs. Many schools even on the right required their students to take the New York State Regent’s Exam before they graduated high school. And most of those students did well on them. Better on average than public school students. They also saw most Orthodox Jews that had attended those schools become highly productive members of society. In other words, our schools had a good track record. Most of our schools followed the overall guidelines of educational equivalency.
The problem is that there were (and still are) a number of schools that did not follow those guidelines at all. All of this celebration ignores the root cause of NYSED’s overreaction. I can't even count the number of times YAFFED was vilified by saying that they had an ulterior motive of destroying Judaism. But Yaffed was just the messenger.
Regardless of the motives attributed to them - whether true or not - their message was accurate.True they were the catalyst for NYSED to act on it. And true NYSED overreacted in ways that made things much worse. All YAFFED did was bring NYSED’s attention to the woefully under-educated Chasidim that attended the 39 religious schools identified as having little to no secular studies curriculum. They demanded that NYSED enforce their equivalency requirement.
So as positive as striking down those new requirements is, it returns those Yeshivos to the status quo ante of little to no secular studies curriculum for their children. Thus producing a population that can barely speak English without sounding illiterate. Let alone writing a sentence without any spelling or grammatical errors. (Yes, there are some exceptions that speak and write well. They are generally self taught. But that is what they are. Exceptions.)
Many Chasidic leaders prefer it that way. They believe that speaking English too well is Chukas HaGoy. Which the Torah tells us not to follow. They believe that as long as you can communicate, that is all that matters. One does not need to speak English that well. They consider it positive to not speak English too well!
And that doesn’t even address any of the other subjects a decent secular studies program includes that they do not offer. A program that would help them become better citizens and give them better job opportunities.
I can understand the celebration by the right. But I can’t understand ignoring the consequences of Chasidim attending those schools continuing to graduate under-educated. Their numbers are increasing. The ignorant attitude about non Jews they are taught by teachers (who are themselves ignorant because of the same lack of education they had when they were in school) is based on attitudes brought by their ancestors from Europe (mostly Poland and the Ukraine) where antisemitism was in the mother’s milk of their gentile neighbors. That attitude has been successfully transplanted here. And it the basis for one influential Rebbe I heard a while back preaching that while we must be cordial to non Jews in everyday relations, we must secretly HATE them! (Why is that ignored? Why is it OK to tolerate this attitude among such a large segment of Orthodox Jewry. A segment whose growth outpaces the growth of any other segment?)
That is what you get when you refuse to participate in the culture even to the extent of offering a secular studies program.
The typical explanation I get from their defenders is that even though they don’t agree with them, they have the right to education their children the way they see fit. They will also point out the many successes of their system. Meaning that many Chasdim that attended those schools may be illiterate, they manage to do quite well. They build successful businesses and in more that a few cases become multi millinonaires.
They add that if you really want to judge the success of any community, look at how they feel about their lifestyle. Most of them are very happy with their lot. They live relatively modest lifestyles and seem to not want more.
That is all true. What is also true is that most Chasidim that have attended schools like this are not anywhere near that successful. Not everyone can build a successful business. Many have jobs that do not require an education and therefore don’t pay that much. Meanwhile they still need to put food on the table and pay the rent. How do they do that considering their low pay and their typically large families?
That is where the welfare system comes in. Most of them are eligible for government financial aid. And they are encouraged to use it. They are taught how to maximize what they are legally entitled to. In short you have a way of life that comes to financially depend on a government consisting of people that they are taught they must hate! Which might cause some of them to cheat the system.
So yes, the Judicial decision to strike down NYSED’s draconian new guidelines was indeed something to celebrate. Be it comes at a cost. Mostly to those Chasidim that attend those schools.It also reinforces a negative stereotype of Jews as a bunch of clever crooks milking the government of taxpayer money. All it takes is a few and a media willing to exploit them.
So as happy as I am about the judicial decision to strike down those guidelines, I don’t think we ought to be celebrating it without some serious reservations. In my view, that decision left a serous problem unsolved. One that ought not be ignored by those of us that are not subject to it. Those who proclaim the religious right of these Chasidic communities to teach their children as they see fit - even while admitting that they would not subject their own children to such an education - does that community a great disservice. They ought to be working to change it instead of defending it. When that happens I might join them in celebration. But I am not holding my breath.