The past week has been Jewish education week in the media as there were several stories that hit the fan all at once. We’re talking about:
* This Washington Post piece on New York state forcing ultra-Orthodox schools to teach secular subjects;
* This New York Times blockbuster — no other word for it — on how Hasidic Jewish schools are operating a network of madrassa-like institutions whereby students barely learn English, much less basic education staples such as history or math.
* The Jewish Telegraphic Agency on a decision by liberal Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor who ruled that Yeshiva University in New York City could — for doctrinal reasons — ban an official LGBTQ club/advocacy group on its campus.
The Times investigation is the behemoth of the lot, taking more than a year to compile and be published before the state’s Board of Regents votes today (Sept. 13) on whether a yeshiva’s (religious school’s) secular curriculum (such as it is) could be rejected by the state.
It was a massive amount of work in terms of plowing through public records, 275 people interviewed, tons of Yiddish documents translated and, according to Brian Rosenthal, one of the two lead reporters, it’s probably the first time the Grey Lady has published a Yiddish translation or a news report. Here’s the beginning:
The Hasidic Jewish community has long operated one of New York’s largest private schools on its own terms, resisting any outside scrutiny of how its students are faring.
But in 2019, the school, the Central United Talmudical Academy, agreed to give state standardized tests in reading and math to more than 1,000 students.
Every one of them failed.
Which was by design, the article continued, because these schools are meant to steep students solely in Jewish law and tradition in Yiddish-only surroundings to the point that many students never learn English, so find it impossible to get a job in the outside world.
Offering little English and math, and virtually no science or history, they drill students relentlessly, sometimes brutally, during hours of religious lessons conducted in Yiddish.
The result, a New York Times investigation has found, is that generations of children have been systematically denied a basic education, trapping many of them in a cycle of joblessness and dependency.
The schools appear to be operating in violation of state laws that guarantee children an adequate education. Even so, The Times found, the Hasidic boys’ schools have found ways of tapping into enormous sums of government money, collecting more than $1 billion in the past four years alone.
In terms of boys schools alone, we are talking 50,000 students.
The students in the boys' schools are not simply falling behind. They are suffering from levels of educational deprivation not seen anywhere else in New York, The Times found… Girls receive more secular education because they study fewer religious texts. But they, too, are struggling: About 80 percent of the girls who took standardized tests last year failed.
The boys’ schools cram in secular studies only after a full day of religious lessons. Most offer reading and math just four days a week, often for 90 minutes a day, and only for children between the ages of 8 and 12. Some discourage further secular study at home. “No English books whatsoever,” one school’s rule book warns.
The piece goes on to tell how beatings are common at these schools; how the instructors are rarely better schooled than their students; how the few people who fled the system have found themselves so educationally bankrupt –- imagine having to catch up after missing 12 years of basic schooling –- they are unemployable.
Moreover, because the region’s 200,000 Hasidic Jews are a major voting bloc, politicians look the other way. Of course, clashes between Orthodox Jews and state officials over religious and moral issues — think gender issues, for example, loom in the background, as well.
Those seeking an in-depth look at the arguments of those opposed to this Times report, see this Tablet essay: “The Plot Against Jewish Education.” While this essay was written before the Gray Lady published its story, it predicted:
… Unless the muse of objective journalism intervenes in some way none of us should reasonably expect, we can assume the report will read something like this: We’ve talked to dozens of (self-selecting) people in the Hasidic community, reviewed documents handed to us (by interested parties), and were troubled to find that Hasidic schools have fallen far behind. Despite receiving enormous amounts of government assistance, these (money-grubbing) private schools don’t bother teaching children basic tenets like history or science, the result being graduates who are illiterate and an embarrassment. This Dickensian grimness is made possible because those crafty Hasidim vote en masse and hold local politicians under their sway — power these black-hatted Rasputins inexplicably choose not to exert when it comes to charging and convicting assailants who beat up members of their own community.
Back to the Times report, itself. Were I to suggest any missing elements to this huge story, it’d be a paragraph or two explaining how other religious traditions toe the line on basic requirements for students just to give the piece some context. For instance, do local Catholic schools get this kind of government handouts? Are tensions emerging over cultural and moral issues in classrooms?
Private schools in New York, by the way, are not required to administer state standards tests in core subjects like reading and math — so many don’t.
Some in the comments section asked why the story could not have featured one well-adjusted graduate of one of these yeshivas. Most of the Jewish school officials refused comment for the story and only made public statements when they got word that the story was coming out. The Jewish Forward details how certain Orthodox leaders protested the piece.
Then there were the cheap shots, like Salon’s piece on how anyone upset by the Times’ expose on yeshivas should know “That’s what the GOP wants for all American kids.” Someone needs to inform the writer, Andrea Marcotte, that the home-schooled students she attacks have been some of the brightest students in the country, acing out all manner of test scores.
Naturally state officials are reacting to the Times’ story, promising reforms. JTA ran a piece describing the widely negative reaction among Orthodox leaders toward the story; some of them saying that yeshivas help their students keep much stricter moral codes than those in the allegedly better public schools.
The Washington Post jumped into the fray with a follow-up stating that the state is considering rules that will force the ultra-Orthodox to teach secular subjects in their schools.
The new regulations, which are expected to be approved next week by the state Board of Regents, set up a fresh test of religious liberty and schooling, and people on both sides of the debate predicted the dispute will be appealed in court, possibly to the highest levels. They come at a time when a more conservative Supreme Court has recognized broad religious freedom rights.
Some observers took this to mean the state was going to impose some kind of rainbow curriculum on unwilling religious students, but –- and the Post story didn’t mention the New York Times investigation to give some badly needed context –- what’s at stake are schools so isolationist that people can’t read English when they graduate.
Abigail Shrier, I believe, misinterprets what the core issue is, in this case. Again, these yeshivas operate more like madrassas than like private schools. Watch this debate, as it will be a fascinating one.
The third story I mentioned, a JTA piece on a gay club being blocked at Yeshiva University for the time being, is an interesting counterweight on what’s happening in Christian colleges across the country. Last week a group called Campus Pride released a list on what it considers “the absolute worst, most unsafe campuses” for LGBTQ students. Not surprisingly, Yeshiva University is one.
By the way, YU is Orthodox but it’s not ultra-Orthodox, landing it in a different camp than the Hasidim. It’s on the other end of the scale, battling sexual trends that it feels forced upon its common life. The piece said in part:
The decision, handed out late Friday, does not represent a judgment about whether the Modern Orthodox institution can prohibit the YU Pride Alliance permanently, as it is seeking to do. Still, it is a setback for LGBTQ students and advocates who had felt momentum was on their side after a New York court ruled that the university must recognize the club and a state appeals court said the university’s appeal was no cause for delay.
One interesting JTA tidbit:
Yeshiva University’s case could be complicated by the fact that it removed religion from its charter, essentially the text that gives it permission to operate in New York State, in 1967 in an effort to secure more state funding. Some in the Yeshiva University community, reflecting on the simmering tensions around the Pride Alliance, want the school to add its religious mission back to its charter.
If they don’t, I’m guessing they are toast in terms of the law. Comparable Christian institutions have — for a decade now — been adding religious references and signs of denominational ties into their founding documents as fast as they can to avoid just this sort of debate.
FIRST IMAGE: Photo of Yeshiva University drawn from the website of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, the law firm representing the university.