Yoel Falkowitz, 38, IT worker

It’s not uncommon for parents to hope their children have a better life than they did. But it’s especially important to Yoel Falkowitz, the father of three sons, ages 10, 11 and 13.

“I never heard the word ‘algebra’ until I was an adult. I only know addition, subtraction and multiplication,” said Falkowitz, who’s a member of the Satmar movement and attended United Talmudical Academy in Kiryas Joel, NY.

“That’s still going on now, but it’s worse. [My sons’] lessons are for children half their age.”

His boys’ secular studies consist of about an hour a day for only part of the school year. He added that the yeshiva tends to hire unqualified former students as teachers, “but they can’t string a decent sentence together.”

The boys attend a yeshiva in the town of Monsey, NY, where Orthodox communities are “growing exponentially,” Falkowitz said. But he added that many people in his community don’t see the lack of secular education as a problem because “they have a case of Stockholm syndrome.”

Falkowitz, an information-technology worker who taught himself reading and writing in English and earned his GED, admits that even his wife is “not on the same page. We’ve grown apart on this issue.”

Still, he feels passionately that his children need to stay in yeshiva in order to avoid any stigma. “It could affect marriage prospects” if the boys are pulled from the yeshiva system. Entering public school would make them “immediate outsiders. Everyone will run away from them like the plague.” So he’s doing what he can at home. “I bought the full Rosetta Stone English series,” Falkowitz said, adding that he has his sons read books like “The Hardy Boys” series, even though the vocabulary is a challenge. “I’m trying to give them as much as I can.”

I don’t want my boys to end up like me.