It’s a matter that took eight years, under two separate mayors, for the New York City Department of Education to conclude an investigation into a formal complaint that some ultra-Orthodox Jewish yeshivas were not teaching their students basic concepts like English and mathematics. .
Naftuli Moster, who says her Hasidic yeshiva education didn’t teach her much beyond Torah and Talmud, started Young Advocates For Fair Education, or Yaffed, in 2012. After years of going nowhere with the authorities state and city officials, on July 27, 2015 their The group sent a detailed letter to city schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña at the Tweed Courthouse, charging that 39 yeshivas (38 in Brooklyn and one in Queens) were not teaching secular subjects as required by state law.
On Friday, seven years, 11 months and three days later, the results came back.
Four Brooklyn academies, Yeshiva Kerem Shlomo, Yeshiva Bnei Shimon Yisroel of Sopron, Yeshiva Oholei Torah and Yeshiva Ohr Menachem, received letters from Chancellor David Banks saying that each school “has not demonstrated that it provides an instruction that is substantially equivalent to the schools public schools of the New York City school district as required by Education Law § 3204 and Part 130 of the Commissioner’s Regulations.” Meaning: They didn’t give the children the lessons they needed.
Unacceptable delay means that some boys have spent eight years in schools that did not teach them essential skills and knowledge, such as reading and writing. The reason for the delay in the review is that politicians, including mayors, do not want to do anything that could upset the community.
The banks also sent letters to seven yeshivas that had made the grade. Another 14 did not, but the state Department of Education must do the final evaluation before those names are released. According to the secular math that should be taught everywhere, this makes 18 yeshivas did not fail and seven did not, for a total of 25 that were examined.
Remember that Yaffed initially marked 39 institutions, so what happened to the other 14 should be accounted for. And it should not take eight years.
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