Shape up or else, yeshivas
Critics of Orthodox Jewish yeshivas recently found to be providing woefully inadequate education to thousands of children called on the city and state to make sure those institutions speed up reforms — or shut down if they can’t be fixed in the short term.
“We call on [city Schools Chancellor Richard] Carranza to not let this notoriously corrupt mayor bring him down,” activist Naftuli Moster said Monday. “There’s still time for him to turn this around and be a true champion for the helpless children.”
A majority of yeshivas targeted in a city Education Department probe aren’t providing teaching on par with classes at public schools, the agency said in a report issued last week. Of almost 140 elementary and middle-school classes that investigators attended, about a third were taught exclusively in Yiddish, with the remainder taught in a mix of English and Yiddish.
City investigators also found Mayor de Blasio engaged in “political horse-trading” by delaying a preliminary report on the yeshivas in exchange for state lawmakers’ support for Hizzoner’s bid to maintain oversight of city schools.
Carranza plans to ask the worst-performing yeshivas to submit improvement plans by Jan. 15, and the Education Department has more inspections in the works. De Blasio spokeswoman Jane Mayer said the city is helping yeshivas develop and implement the improvement plans, marking “a new phase in the process” of boosting performance at the schools.
“This administration believes engagement is the path to school improvement and that by working together we can achieve what’s best for all our children,” she said.
Moster, who founded the Yaffed group dedicated to reforming yeshivas, said that approach is not nearly enough.
“While it is now clear that thousands of children are being denied an education, and it is clear that the yeshiva leaders have not been cooperative throughout the process, the [Education Department] and the mayor insist they will pursue the same type of lengthy time line and work with the same obstructors as they have until now,” he said outside City Hall. “It’s a true example of the wolves guarding the henhouse.”
Activist and Brooklyn College Prof. David Bloomfield took things a step further, saying the state should take over oversight of the city’s roughly 100 Hasidic yeshivas, which receive taxpayer dollars.
He said foot-dragging during the Education Department probe, in which some yeshivas barred investigators from entering, was similar to Southern states’ Jim-Crow era efforts to keep schools segregated.
“When President [John] Kennedy saw massive resistance in the South, he sent federal troops,” Bloomfield said. “Instead, the mayor colluded with yeshiva leaders to delay this investigation. It’s time for action.
“We have no faith in the mayor, we have no faith in [the city Department of Investigation], we have no faith in the [city Education Department] to make this happen,” he continued. “It’s time for the state Education Department to use all of its enforcement powers including loss of funding [and] also closure of these yeshivas which are denying an education to their students.”