Brooklyn yeshivas often fall short in secular education

[Baltimatt]

Government officials don't have a clue.

Shmueli Lowenstein's experience is much more common. The 25-year-old is a former student at Oholei Torah, the most prominent yeshiva in Crown Heights, where, he said, “I did not grow up learning English or any kind of secular studies at all,” and subjects like phonics and math were “nonexistent." “Everything was done in Yiddish until seventh or eighth grade, and then they would switch to Hebrew," Lowenstein said. "I don’t think I ever received a paper with English writing on it, except for maybe a permission slip for a school trip.”

Under New York state and federal regulations, stories like Lowenstein’s shouldn’t be possible — all New York schools, public and private, are required to offer "equivalency of instruction" in basic general subjects such as American history and math.

Mayor Bloomberg not sure if city has oversight; state says the city does.

Asked during an unrelated press conference whether his administration was aware of the issue and planned to do anything to address it, Bloomberg seemed unsure about the city's oversight role. "I don’t think our Department of Education has anything to do with it," he said.

"My guess would be it would be up to the state Department of Education. But we’ll be happy to check and see if they’re the ones that have the standards and have to enforce the standards for all the schools.” According to a state DOE spokeswoman, it's up to the board of education in each of the state's school districts to make sure children attending non-public schools and being home-schooled are "receiving instruction which is substantially equivalent to that provided in the public schools."

[Wizard777]

What they are doing to the children is both a crime and a sin. They need to quit begging these schools to comply with the terms and conditions of the federal programs they receive funds from and just start tossing them in jail. Just like anyone else that defrauds the federal government. The corruption goes all the way to the top. The DOJ needs to investigate the Federal, State and Local DOE's along with the schools. Anyone that cannot account for a single penny of government funds needs to be in jail.

[Baltimatt]

Girls get a better education

For a marriage-minded girl in Brooklyn's Orthodox community, there is no match more prized than a religious scholar. Yet when it comes to secular subjects like English and math, most brides are better educated than even the most learned grooms.

As DNAinfo.com New York reported in the first installment of a three-part series, boys in Brooklyn's 84,000-student Jewish parochial school system devote the bulk of their time to studying religious texts in Yiddish and Hebrew, while beneath ironclad social restrictions girls enjoy an education rich with algebra, modern literature and American history.

The girls, with a better education, tend to marry earlier and raise large families, while the men tend not to get good educations and good jobs. Many families rely on public assistance. Then there's the issue of not learning English, as most instruction for boys is in Yiddish and Hebrew.

[Wizard777]

This is Crown Heights and Crown Heights is just insane. They are for all intents and purposes a settlement. Not only is there this scandal with the private schools. They have Shomrim and Shmira that are officially neighborhood patrols. But they function as the local police. These two groups also feud and fight over patrol areas like street gangs. Shomrim usually prevails. If anything happens in crown heights they call Shomrim and Shomrim decides when and if the NYPD will be called. This includes when your child is missing or has been kidnapped. In the case of Leiby Kletzky Shomrin did not report his being missing to the NYPD for 2 1/4 hours while conducting their own search. Leiby was drugged, smothered and dismembered by Levi Aron. It's just insane.

[Baltimatt]

Wiz--

I started a thread on Leiby Kletzky when he was murdered, if anyone wants to read about it.

BTW, his killer got 40 years.

And then there's the child abuse that has gone unreported to authorities in these insular communities, or the boys who were infected by herpes, one fatally, after having the blood sucked by mouth from their penises following circumcision.

[Wizard777]

Wiz--

I started a thread on Leiby Kletzky when he was murdered, if anyone wants to read about it.

BTW, his killer got 40 years.

And then there's the child abuse that has gone unreported to authorities in these insular communities, or the boys who were infected by herpes, one fatally, after having the blood sucked by mouth from their penises following circumcision.

With what I already know about the goings on in Crown Heights. This school thing does not surprize me one bit.

[Hexexis]

"Just like anyone else that defrauds the federal government."

In Israel, the hyperorthodox haredim make up about 9% of the population but receive 40% of the welfare. They're also given a pass on compulsory mil. service; altho their Torah heroes were @their best when raising armies & going in harm's way, they seem to miss that in their studies.

The orthodoxy here seems determined to wind up similar wards of the state, & the Israel boosters in Congress will go along, despite the average Israeli having little respect for the haredim or for that intrusively all-American Israel lobby.