Betsy DeVos toured two Orthodox Jewish schools on her first official visit to New York City. Having attended religious schools herself, she supports vouchers for religious education.
Orthodox yeshivas have been in the news lately because critics charge they spend disproportionate time teaching Yiddish and religious studies and ignoring English, math, and science.
DeVos demonstrated is her contempt for any separation between church and state. There is no other way to interpret an official visit by the U.S. Secretary of Education to two religious schools while ignoring the city’s public schools.
The leading critic of yeshiva education, Naftuli Moster, is a graduate of one of them. He protested DeVos’ visit, which undercut his efforts to force the state and city to require at least some English-language instruction at yeshivas.
“Critics said the Manhattan girls’ school — which costs roughly $20,000 a year — was not representative of less-polished yeshivas, 39 of which are being probed for inadequate curriculums.
Naftuli Moster, a longtime detractor of ultra-religious yeshivas, protested at DeVos’s visit Tuesday. The activist praised the Upper East Side school for its curricular balance — but said Zwiebel was purposefully presenting DeVos with an outlier to mask the true scope of the problem.
“He brings Betsy DeVos to this high-performing school,” Moster said. “But Agudath Israel is not bringing Betsy DeVos or other government officials to the yeshivas that really need a ton of improvement.”
Moster said 9 out of 10 Hasidic boys’ high schools offer no secular education at all, noting that Agudath Israel lobbyists aligned with state Sen. Simcha Felder to relax scrutiny of yeshiva teachings.
Smiling students massed at the school’s windows and waved goodbye to DeVos on Tuesday as she made a beeline for an awaiting SUV.
Moster was born in Brooklyn, one of 17 children, and Yiddish was his first language. He attended an Orthodox yeshiva that frowned upon English, mathematics, and science. He has become one of the most prominent critics of the religious education he received and that Secretary DeVos wants taxpayers to fund. He founded a group called YAFFED, Young Advocates for Fair Education, to press the state to require yeshivas to provide a balanced curriculum that includes secular studies.
Moster criticized the recently concluded state budget, which relaxes state oversight of yeshivas and allows them to skip secular instruction. Because the State Senate is equally divided between Democrats and Republicans, the balance of power is held by one man, Simcha Felder, who represents the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, who do not want English taught in their private schools.
Last month, another graduate of Yeshiva education, Shulem Deen, wrote a powerful critique in the New York Times of Orthodox schools that refused to teach English, mathematics, or science. It was titled “Why is New York Condoning Illiteracy?”
Deen wrote:
“I was raised in New York’s Hasidic community and educated in its schools. At my yeshiva elementary school, I received robust instruction in Talmudic discourse and Jewish religious law, but not a word about history, geography, science, literature, art or most other subjects required by New York State law. I received rudimentary instruction in English and arithmetic — an afterthought after a long day of religious studies — but by high school, secular studies were dispensed with altogether.
“The language of instruction was, for the most part, Yiddish. English, our teachers would remind us, was profane.
“During my senior year of high school, a common sight in our study hall was of students learning to sign their names in English, practicing for their marriage license. For many, it was the first time writing their names in anything but Yiddish or Hebrew.
“When I was in my 20s, already a father of three, I had no marketable skills, despite 18 years of schooling. I could rely only on an ill-paid position as a teacher of religious studies at the local boys’ yeshiva, which required no special training or certification. As our family grew steadily — birth control, or even basic sexual education, wasn’t part of the curriculum — my then-wife and I struggled, even with food stamps, Medicaid and Section 8 housing vouchers, which are officially factored into the budgets of many of New York’s Hasidic families.
“I remember feeling both shame and anger. Shame for being unable to provide for those who relied on me. Anger at those responsible for educating me who had failed me so colossally….
“This experience — of lacking the most basic knowledge — is one I have come to know well. Ten years ago, at age 33, I left the Hasidic community and sought to make my way in the secular world. At 35, I got my G.E.D., but I never made it to college, relying instead on self-study to fill in my educational gaps. I still live with my educational handicaps.
“I now have two sons, ages 16 and 18. I do not have custody of them — I lost it when I left the Hasidic world, and so I have no control over their education. Today, they cannot speak, read or write in English past a second-grade level. (As for my three daughters, their English skills are fine. Girls, not obligated with Torah study, generally receive a decent secular education.)
“Like me, my sons will be expected to marry young and raise large families. They too will receive no guidance on how to provide for them and will be forced into low-wage jobs and rely heavily on government support.
“They are not alone. Across the state, there are dozens of Hasidic yeshivas, with tens of thousands of students — nearly 60,000 in New York City alone — whose education is being atrociously neglected. These schools receive hundreds of millions of dollars in government funding, through federal programs like Title I and Head Start and state programs like Academic Intervention Services and universal pre-K. For New York City’s yeshivas, $120 million comes from the state-funded, city-run Child Care and Development Block Grant subsidy program: nearly a quarter of the allocation to the entire city….
“According to New York State law, nonpublic schools are required to offer a curriculum that is “substantially equivalent” to that of public schools. But when it comes to Hasidic yeshivas, this law has gone unenforced for decades. The result is a community crippled by poverty and a systemic reliance on government funding for virtually all aspects of life…
“According to a report by Yaffed, or Young Advocates for Fair Education, an organization that advocates for improved general studies in Hasidic yeshivas, an estimated 59 percent of Hasidic households are poor or near-poor. According to United States Census figures, the all-Hasidic village of Kiryas Joel, an hour north of New York City, is the poorest in the country, with median family income less than $18,000.”
Betsy DeVos came to New York City to visit yeshivas because she believes that the federal government should pay for vouchers for religious schools. She believes that all of us should pay the cost of schools that don’t teach English, science, or math. These are schools far out of the mainstream. Orthodox Jews are free to attend them, but the public should not be expected to subsidize them.
She is also likely paying back the Orthodox community which has been a big supporter of Donald Trump https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-orthodox-jews-are-now-trumps-truest-believers-1.5454934
Yup, wouldn’t surprise me one bit.
Nothing to say. I am appalled. Children have the right to be educated.
yeshivas = madrassas
The fact ?
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2014/11/vladimir_putin_chabad_what_s_behind_the_russian_president_s_close_relationship.html
As a start, it is time to remove the tax exempt status of the church and 501Cs. It is hard to make arguments that the church (any) is not inherently political. As Janus is correct Unions are inherently political. They exist to steer economic benefit to their members and that is the definition of Politics.
As Jefferson said;
“In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own”
And
“History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes.”
One does not have to look any further than the blind eye that NYSED is paying to the abuses; to know that these are political decisions and they violate the separation clause of the constitution. If this were a tiny cult is there any doubt the state would be looking to press charges for child abuse. As upsetting as it is to know that a Christofascist like DeVos is pushing for vouchers. It should be more upsetting that Cuomo is also. The tax credit he proposed is a voucher. And it would be used primarily at religious institutions.
Parasitical religious fundamentalists, all…
It seems weird that the Fundy Christians would support the Fundy Jews until you realize that it’s all part of some supposed Biblical prophesy having to do with the Rapture.
Yes, the world has become an even more bizarre place than it ever was. where those who oppose Zionist expansioon are invariably called anti-Semites, while actual anti-Semites, in the form of fundamentalist Christians become ever more enthusiastic supporters of Zionism…
Only betsy devos operates like a chicken without a head in anything she does. This woman is so bizarre and what puzzles and disturbs me is that this woman has balls like i have never seen! She has the guts to continue this fake news parade of garbage conversation, fake praise for students she will never see again in a million years, phony fake photo ops….its truly sickening to watch
Trump is relying on federal faith-based initiatives to help him get re-elected.
https://newrepublic.com/minutes/146311/christian-right-facing-rare-trump-era-setback
Q DeVos demonstrated is her contempt for any separation between church and state. There is no other way to interpret an official visit by the U.S. Secretary of Education to two religious schools while ignoring the city’s public schools. END Q
How can you reach that conclusion? There are educational enterprises all over this nation, which are operated by religious institutions. These institutions often receive public tax money, to operate. Students attend these institutions, often with some or all of their expenses being paid from public funds.
The Supreme Court has ruled repeatedly, that supporting individuals who are receiving educational services, and utilizing public funds in obtaining these services, is entirely constitutional.
The SecEd has not ever expressed nor demonstrated any contempt for the constitutional requirement prohibiting the establishment of religion.
and
Q yeshivas = madrassas END Q
This analogy is somewhat accurate. A Yeshiva is a school operated by people of the Jewish faith. A madrass is a school operated by people of the Islamic faith. They are both schools, but not the same. Roman Catholics and Lutherans operate schools, as well. There is an excellent madrass operating here in Fairfax, VA. Religious organizations operating schools, is part of our splendid American tradition of religious tolerance and diversity.
BTW- Ramadan begins tonight at the first sighting of the crescent of the new moon. Happy Ramadan! Ramadan Mubarak!
Charles,
Did you read the entire post? Did you see that the fight against the yeshivas is led by men who were “educated” there and rejected what they got? Did you read what they said? Did you know that they spent their K-12 years learning in Yiddish? D you think that a school that takes federal and state funds should teach students English? Or do you think they should take the public money and do whatever they want?
I read your post.
I can see that the struggle is directed by graduates of these institutions.
I read what they said.
Yes, according to their statements, they learned in Yiddish and also in Hebrew.
Yes, I think that an institution in the USA, should teach English as part of their curriculum. (I would like for English to our official national language, but that is for another debate)
Yes, I think that schools and institutions should have a great deal of independence in setting their curriculum. If parents/children are dissatisfied with the curriculum options, they are free to leave and attend a different non-public school (or a public school, as they choose)
Charles,
Most of the yeshivas teach in Yiddish, not English. The boys can’t support their families. Why should these schools get vouchers from our tax money?
I do not think that schools should receive vouchers under any circumstances. I do believe that families should have the ability to opt-out of any school, public or non-public, that is failing to deliver a proper education to their children. Vouchers are provided to families, not schools. ESAs are the families own money, so there is no possibility of a school receiving ESA money.
I too, find it odd that families would enroll their children in schools, which are not delivering adequate skills and education to the children, and preparing the students for college/careers. The Amish send their children to school for only a limited period of time, and the Amish do not seem to engender much criticism for their practices.
Schools and institutions of learning should get a great deal of autonomy in setting their curriculum, and determining their language of instruction. Universities in medieval Europe delivered their lectures in Latin, centuries after the language “died”.
ESA is a euphemism for VOUCHER. It is money that should have been paid in taxes, just as tuition tax credits are VOUCHERS comprised of money that was owed to the state by corporations but transferred to families to pay for Yeshivas, madrassas, and other religious schools
Charles,
We have exchanged emails about the Blaine Amendment. I have written a history of the Blaine Amendment.
The American public strongly, overwhelmingly agrees that public funds should not be used to pay the tuition of students who attend religious schools. The question has been put to the public in more than 20 referenda and every single time the public has overwhelmingly said NO to efforts to repeal state prohibitions.
DeVos and her husband funded a challenge to Michigan’s state constitutional amendment in 2000, and the public voted 69-31 against changing the Constitution.
Let it go.
The next vote will take place in AZ in November.
I agree that the referenda with respect to funding of tuition/costs at non-public schools have failed to win public approval. Stipulated.
The referenda you cite, deal with school choice/vouchers/ESAs, and are not specifically restricted to extending choices to parents to use the vouchers at religiously-based institutions. It would follow, then that the repeated failure of these referenda would also embrace redeeming school vouchers at non-religious private schools, and/or home schooling. It would appear that the majority, who continue to defeat these referenda, are opposed to all types of school choice, and that their disdain is not restricted to religiously-operated schools.
Nevertheless, the constitutional and religious-establishment argument against school choice, and funding of religiously-based schools is a bogus argument. The Supreme Court, beginning with Lemon v. Kurtz, and the Zelman decision, and right up to the Trinity v. Pauley decision, has repeatedly affirmed that school choice, does NOT violate the establishment clause.
Charles, you are dense. The referenda in every state where posed supported state constitutional amendments that restrict public funding to PUBLIC schools. I am deleting all further messages that repeat points you have made several times in the past.
To clarify: 37 states have constitutional amendments saying that no public money shall be spent in any way, shape, or fashion in religious schools. There have been 20 or so referenda intended to repeal these amendments. Every single one of them has failed to repeal the amendment. The public wants public money spent in public schools, not religious schools. Period. Rightwing legislatures have passed various schemes to get around their state constitution, claiming that the money goes to the parent, who can then spend it wherever they want. In Arizona, at least one parent spent it to get an abortion. Others have taken their ESA debit card, bought computers, returned them and bought whatever they fancied. Thus squandering money that should have gone for education. Taxpayers’ money. Not their own.
I have researched, and I could only find two(2) referenda, in recent years, where citizens were given the chance to repeal the Blaine amendments in their states. These are Florida (2012) and Oklahoma (2016). Have there been other attempts to repeal the amendments by referendum?
Referenda dealing with school choice/vouchers, continue to fail to gain passage.
I would assert that the public is opposed to educational spending going to non-religious schools, as well.
No voucher referendum has ever passed. Ever.
Voucher supporters like DeVos and the Koch brothers expend their dollars buying legislators and trying to block referenda.
That was their tactic in Arizona where they filed suit to keep the voucher referendum off the ballot.
Let’s see if they can buy the vote there.
“…food stamps, Medicaid and Section 8 housing vouchers, which are officially factored into the budgets of many of New York’s Hasidic families.”
Exactly the resouces that Republicans claim illegals ‘steal’ and here is a member of the administration indirectly supporting that lifestyle. The hypocrisy is breathtaking.
As an evangelical, DeVos thinks that all Jews must be annihilated as part of the prep for the second coming of Christ and the “end times”. She is no friend of the Jewish People. https://www.cnn.com/2017/12/08/opinions/jerusalem-israel-evangelicals-end-times-butler-bass-opinion/index.html
The fact ,,,
https://www.economist.com/blogs/erasmus/2018/02/america-russia-and-christianity
More and more facts ,,,
More fact and more facts ,,,
Through a cynical use of an extremely flawed set of anti-extremism laws, Russia has banned for the first time in its history a centrally administered religion,” the chair of the independent bipartisan commission, Thomas Reese, said following the release of the report.
But the ban has been supported by the Russian Orthodox Church, which has become increasingly popular and influential under President Vladimir Putin. Seventy-two percent of the Russian population were identified as belonging to the Orthodox Church in 2008, more than double the percentage from 1991.
http://www.newsweek.com/jehovahs-witnesses-ban-russia-religion-636242