Who Will Speak for the Children?

Meeting in Boro Park about NYSED's new guidelines (Hamodia)

It is being reported in Hamodia that the latest development in the ongoing struggle to provide our youth with a quality education - that NYSED (New York State Education Department) has resubmitted the educational guidelines (or a slightly modified version of them) originally struck down by a court because they violated the New York State constitution.

One may recall that the guidelines as then constructed would have destroyed the ability of just about any religious school to properly educate their students about their religion by limiting in the extreme the time available to do that. That limitation was true even among schools that were academically very successful. The difference now is the following: 

Before that happens, the proposed regulations must go through a period of “public comment,” which allows all who take an interest in the matter to make their feelings known to the state. 

To the extent that this concerns us, a meeting took place in Boro Park urging the community to speak up and express their displeasure with NYSED. The message is that the religious community deserves the right to educate their children in any manner they wish as a constitutional right guaranteed by the first amendment. To put it the way Rabbi Chaim Dovid Zwiebel,, Agudah Executive Vice President did:           

“This is something that affects the yeshivah community across the board…it’s about a fundamental question of who will control our yeshivos,” “Our shtadlanus (activism) is important, but when [the state] see the large numbers that are behind that shtadlanus, it means a lot.” 

I appreciate the very real concern about the right to educate our children via the dictates of our conscience. - in accordance with our values. The Catholic Church has joined the fight - sharing the same concerns.

In that cause the Agudah and other organizations are urging their public to get involved and make thier feelings known to the state. They have also made form letters available online opposing the implementation of NYSED’s guidelines. According to Hamodia: 

So far, some 15,000 comments from individuals opposing the guidelines have been registered, but speakers at the press conference announced that the goal is 100,000 comments from the yeshivah community. 

Here are my thoughts. We absolutely should have the right to educate our children the way we choose. The problem lies in when that right ends up short changing the students. I maintain my belief that some yeshivas (most of them Chasidic) severely short change their students in ways that not only harm them, but harms society at large by limiting their earning power in the future and causing more of them to rely more heavily on government financial aid. Not to mention the increased chance that some of those children may go OTD because of their impoverished circumstances - which might otherwise be avoided.

It is one thing to have the right to educate our children as we see fit. It is another to allow an entire community to limit opportunities for a brighter financial future by ignoring a curriculum that would better help them achieve it.

It is therefore my humble opinion that any protest against these guidelines include testimony* by parents that actually do feel their children are being cheated out of that kind of education. It should be legitimate but allow for anonymity for those who fear negative societal repercussions from community in which they live.

It should not be lost on anyone who is in the forefront of the opposition to the NYSED Guidelines. It can be seen by who is sitting at that meeting in Boro Park, an activist from the very community whose schools refuse to offer any meaningful Limudei Chol (secular studies) curriculum. If past is prologue, I question whether there ever will be if their demands to teach their children as they see fit are fully granted.

Someone has to speak for the children. What better advocates can there be than parents who are actually upset by the lack of any Limudei Chol in their children’s schools? I urge all parents in that community that feel that way but have never expressed it publicly for fear of public condemnation, to do so now. Any guidelines being fought because they limit what we can do religiously must be counterbalanced by what should be done to advance the cause of educating our children so that they can better function in a 21^st century economy.

*Data, views or arguments may be submitted to - Christina Coughlin, NY Education Department, SORIS, 89 Washington Avenue, Room 1075 EBA, Albany, NY 12234, (518) 474-7206, email: seregcomments@nysed.gov