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| Yeshiva in Williamsburg (Forward) |
The truth is that they have a point. It seems that their biggest problem is that the government should not have any say at all in how and what they teach their children. They consider it an intrusion into their religious rights guaranteed by the constitution..
I suppose that insisting that any secular subject be taught at all - that would replace a religious subject might qualify as such intrusion. There are those among us that believe we have the right teach our children in any manner we wish. Even if that means not teaching any Limudei Chol (secular subjects) at all. Forcing them to do so is seen as an infringement of that right.
The irony of maintaining this view is that the majority of Orthodox schools, including most Charedi schools actually do teach those subjects. And among those, many require their students to take the New York State’s Regents exam. Which exempts them from any government scrutiny.
As it should. On average Yeshiva High Schools students typically do much better on those exams than do public high school students.
And yet it appears that all of those schools have argued in favor of allowing the few schools that don’t to continue doing so.
I find that to be somewhat hypocritical. But I suppose they would counter and say that despite the fact that they actually do place value on those subject and teach them in a manner that is substantially equivalent to public schools (as the Regent’s exam proves) they nevertheless belive that schools should have the tight to refuse to teach any of those subjects.
They might also argue that the only reason they teach secular subjects is to comply with state law. And that if it were not the law they wouldn’t teach them either. But I find that hard to believe. Historically many of their students have gone on to have successful careers made possible only by the core subjects they took in high school that enabled them to further their education.
Are they really saying that if they had the choice they would have preferred those students not to have had the opportunity to have careers that not only help them support their own families but enable them to contribute and help maintain institutions vital to that community? Including advocacy groups like the Agudah? Would Agudah have preferred that someone like their executive vice president, Rabbi Chaim Dovid Zweibel not have an education that makes the effective and erudite leader he is? I somehow doubt that.
Another issue that those schools are troubled by is that NYSED does not grant any value to the analytical skills learned in the Limudei Kodesh curriculum.
I agree that here is tremendous value in learning those skills. I believe that those skills aid in the study of some of those secular subjects. But they are not a substitute for them. To ask NYSED to evaluate skills that are developed during the daily study of Gemarah is a task that is practically impossible for a state official - unless they have studied Gemarah themselves. Instead of trying to assign value to it as part of a secular curriculum they should instead see that as an advantage over public schools.
What about the fact that it is becoming increasingly the case that a college education is not necessary for financial success? This is true. But it is also true that a college degree is still required for most decent jobs as way of screening the people that apply for jobs. Seeing success in college as a way of predicting success in their jobs.
Yes, there are a lot of wealthy Jews that became wealthy despite their lack of a secular education. Some of those successful people can be pretty illiterate. But I find hard to accept that this is the majority. My guess is that the opposite is the case. There are a lot more poor people living off of charity because of a lack of an education than there are successful businessmen.
I think the schools that offer a secular studies curriculum actually value it. I will never forget the indignant response at a Torah U’Mesorah convention that Telzer Rosh HaYeshiva, R’ Avrohom Chaim Levine, ZTL, had to a suggestion made by Rabbi Aharon Feldman. He suggested that there be a track in Yeshiva high schools that would exempt the motivated brighter students from the Limudei Chol curriculum.
Rabbi Levine got up and said that he would match the Torah knowledge of any of his students that have been educated in Limudei Chol - which Telshe offers B’Shitta - against those who have been exempted form it.
And yet those schools that have a similar approach to Limudei Chol all advocate for the right to deny their students such an education. Not a single word about the value of a secular curriculum is ever uttered:
Agudath Israel of America, which represents Haredi Orthodox Jews, is urging its members to make their opposition to the proposed oversight known to state officials. “We cannot allow the government to come in and unreasonably control how and what we should be teaching our children,” Rabbi Chaim Dovid Zwiebel, Agudah’s executive vice president, said in a statement.
It is only a relatively small number of schools that do not offer any Limudei Chol curriculum. Advocating on behalf of those schools does a disservice to the students of those schools.
Another group opposed to the guidelines, Parents for Educational and Religious Liberty in Schools — or PEARLS — has launched its own campaign, asking parents and yeshiva graduates to write to state education officials. According to its website, it has directed more than 64,000 comments to the education department.
I understand what PEARLS is doing and why they are doing it. But at the same time they ought to be insisting that all religious schools offer what the vast majority of religious schools offer. Who are they really benefitting by not insisting on that? Clearly not the students.
To perpetuate a faulty system as a matter of religious freedom is criminal in my view.
Like I said, as a general principle the government should stay out of our schools. But at the same time we should assure that all of our schools teach the necessary skills to function in our world today. If for no other reason to reduce the number of people subsisting on government welfare and charity. And if we can’t do it ourselves, maybe the government should.
My only quibble is that I do not believe that a parent should go to jail for sending their children to a non compliant school.
If as PEARLS suggests there ought to be a massive campaign to write state education officials objecting to the new guidelines, there ought to be a simultaneous campaign that parents insist that their children get the education they need to best survive in the 21st century.