 |
| Chasidic classroom (Mosaic) |
Once again, I feel like I am swimming against the tide of my co-religionists. Including Centrist organization like the OU who are with Agudah on this issue. It seems like they are universally opposed to the new state education guidelines and are willing to go the ‘extra mile’ and fight to rescind those rules. Believing that they interfere with our First Amendment rights. Regardless of the fact that the vast majority of Orthodox schools have been in compliance with substantial equivalency requirements for decades. Including the Yeshivos that joined in the lawsuit.
Perhaps they feel it’s a ‘slippery slope’ before new rules pop up that will in fact violate the religious rights of al of us. I don’t know. But I’m not buying it. The one thing I do know is that if they win this lawsuit, they will be doing no favors for the Chasidim whose rights they say they are fighting for. A win will perpetuate their status quo ignorance of the English language and other important core curricular subjects.
Is this lawsuit really fighting for our overall religious rights? Is it really fair to say that insisting all schools be required to teach a core secular curriculum is anti religious? ...a curriculum that the vast majority of Orthodox religious schools are already in complance with? Not in my book.
A lot is being made of the ‘peripherals’. From Hamodia:
The suit argues the new regulations will impose on yeshivas “obligations and restrictions not found in other schools,” arguing that only yeshivas will be subject to the intrusive LSA reviews...(LSA is the local school authority, defined as the schools chancellor in New York City and the local school board elsewhere).
LSA reviews will consider not only whether a school teaches the core curriculum of English, math, science and social studies, but also patriotism and citizenship; history; the significance and the effect of the provisions of the Declaration of Independence, the United States Constitution and the New York State Constitution and their amendments; New York State history and civics; physical education; health education regarding alcohol, drugs and tobacco abuse; highway safety and traffic regulation; fire drills, fire and arson prevention and injury prevention, and CPR and AED use.
The claim is that none of the public schools are subject to those kinds of reviews. OK. I hear that. If that is what they are really fighting for, I can hear that it is discriminatory. (Not that those are unimportant subjects. But that is an entirely different discussion.)
However, even if all that is true, I have to ask what their position would be if the ONLY issue was requiring a core curriculum of English, math and science? Would they have supported that? My guess is they would not. They would be fighting with the same intensity they are now.
(The lawsuit also claims that the Board of Regents request for public input before implementation of their new rules generated over 300,000 letters of protest. And that they were all but ignored. In response The Board of Regents said that none of those letters offered any alternative suggestions about how to fairly implement substantial equivalency requirements. The vote in favor of implementation was unanimous.)
At the end of the day this is a fight for the right of a very large and very fast growing segment of Orthodox Judaism to remain ignorant of a basic secular education. A segment that considers illiteracy of the English language to be a religious ideal!
I maintain that it is wrong headed to allow a religious group to perpetuate such nonsense.
I may be a minority of one in the Orthodox world that does not agree with this lawsuit. It might be odd for a Centrist like me to ‘swim’ against the tide of my own Centrists who might support this lawsuit in theory. I may be a ‘lone wolf’ among my co-religionists here. But I am with the state on this – at least as far as the actual core curriculum requirements go.
With respect to the above mentioned ‘peripherals’ ...well I can agree that they should be modified to better protect against unfair intrusion to our schools - if that is indeed the case. But as far as I am concerned that is not the real issue. The real issue is whether we should be party to perpetuating illiteracy and ignorance. I don’t think we should.