The Unintended Consequences of a Good Cause

Children in Kiryas Joel - What will their future look like? (NYT)

Last Wednesday I discussed what I believed to be a positive new directive by NYSED (New York State Education Department). After a cursory look, I thought we finally had a state mandate for all Yeshivos that would assure they teach their students basic secular subjects. I believe that such a curriculum is necessary for the vast majority of students so as to enable them to get better jobs and be better citizens.

The emphasis in that post was that I did not –and do not consider this an infringement on the religious rights of religious schools. I believed that such claims were (and still are) an attempt by certain schools to maintain their isolationist practices. This is unlike the vast majority of Orthodox schools across the entire Hashkafic spectrum of Orthodoxy who have no issue having a secular curriculum of one type or another. 

Their argument that this was a freedom of religion issue falls flat on its face. There is absolutely no religious issue in having a secular studies curriculum. Even in the most extreme of Chasidic communities.  This is made more than obvious by the fact their female students are actually offered a secular studies curriculum.

Most of the subjects that the new guidelines mandate are what most religious schools already offer.

I was glad to see that this development seeing it as a possible beginning of an educational paradigm change. One that would bring them in line with the rest of Orthodoxy. What I did not realize was that there was another component that makes these guidelines virtually impossible to implement*. Even for the most academically inclined modern Orthodox Schools: the time allocation requirement.

At first glance I thought that 'equivalent' meant that the time component was flexible as long as the material was covered. There is also the fact that there is value to the religious side of the education that can satisfy a portion of the secular requirements.

Unfortunately that does not seem to be the case. If one adds up all the time the state mandates per subject, it would leave little time for religious studies in a typical school day.

I have been contacted by someone intimately involved in this issue at the highest levels and he told me that after speaking to officials at NYSED the state did not seem eager seem to be flexible at all on this point. 

This is not the outcome I was hoping for. While I tend to doubt that the vast majority of schools will be negatively affected by this, it is not a good place to be in educationally when you are on the wrong side of the law.  And as the guidelines stand now virtually all schools would technically not be in compliance. As my contact noted, it is dangerous to create an environment in which yeshivas are all in non-compliance.  That is true even if the government doesn't immediately seek any penalties or sanctions.

It is my sincere hope that this part of guidelines will be altered. I can’t imagine that schools that produced some of the most prominently successful people in America -  like Alan Dershowitz (who attended a Modern Orthodox Yeshiva) would be ‘demoted’ to having had a substandard secular education. Most MO schools are ‘college prep’ schools geared towards getting their students into the finest universities in America. Most of the time successfully. How can that be seen as substandard?

Whether that will have any influence on them to alter those guidelines remains to be seen. But I surely hope it does. Probably the best course of action is to look at the successful curricula of these academically oriented Orthodox schools and reformulate their guidelines around them… and include some flexibility even then.

How sad that it has come to this. But I don’t blame anyone who sought to improve the education in those extremest schools for this development. I blame those schools for their intransigence in refusing to offer any kind of secular curriculum. In my view had they joined the rest of the Orthodox world and done so, none of this would have ever happened.

*The following are the problem clauses

Grades 5-8 (8 NYCRR § §100.2, 100.4, 135.3, 135.4) Instruction in:

English language arts, two units of study or the equivalent 

Social studies, two units of study or the equivalent 

Science, two units of study or the equivalent 

Mathematics, two units of study or the equivalent 

Career and Technical Education, one and three fourths unit of study or the equivalent 

Physical education 
Ed. Law §803(4); 8 NYCRR §135.4(b) 

Health education5, one half unit of study or the equivalent
Ed. Law §804; 8 NYCRR §135.3 

Visual arts, one half-unit of study or the equivalent 

Music, one half-unit of study or the equivalent 

Library and information skills, the equivalent of one period per week in grades 7 and 8 

Career development and occupational studies or the equivalent

NOTE: A unit of study means at least 180 minutes of instruction per week throughout the school year, or the equivalent (8 NYCRR §100.1[a]). In nonpublic schools, the unit of study requirements may be met, or their equivalents may be met, by the incorporation of the State learning standards of such subjects into the syllabi for other courses. Such integration must be documented in writing and kept on file at the school.