> They didn’t interview a single average chasidishe businessman – that’s where they mostly go. And they’re very, very successful in business. They’re also very creative;
This is true, but both sides – NYT and bloggers lack hard data in support of their position. Say, NYT quotes millions going to schools but do not divide it per student. Arguments here are similar baseless.
Maybe we can try producing some numbers that will show something that all sides can acknowledge?
Standardized tests would be one. I don’t buy Avira’s argument about minhag of filling tests randomly. If they knew the material, they would fill it out. But maybe they were studying probability theory…. Some of the schools my kids went did state or private school tests but did not disclose results to parents, maybe others know.
There are also some zip codes that are mostly Jewish. We can look at census data: their average incomes, poverty rates, welfare rates – we would need to correct for age and family size. Anyone wants to start?
Also, a small number of yeshivos (that register as educational like YU?) report federally required data for colleges, here are several numbers – percentage of graduates that earn >= 28K/year 10 years afer, I think. Of course, kollel, motherhood, and undisclosed incomes might have effect, but at least these are known numbers:
for comparison:
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK 0.877
JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY 0.897
CUNY BROOKLYN COLLEGE 0.706
CUNY BRONX COMMUNITY COLLEGE 0.613
YESHIVA UNIVERSITY 0.798 (500 out of 4,000)
LANDER UNIVERSITY 0.659
TOURO COLLEGE 0.531
BETH MEDRASH GOVOHA OF AMERICA 0.469
CENTRAL YESHIVA TOMCHEI TMIMIM LUBAVITZ 0.407
RABBINICAL COLLEGE BOBOVER YESHIVA BNEI ZION 0.33
YESHIVA OF NITRA RABBINICAL COLLEGE 0.274
YESHIVA GEDOLAH IMREI YOSEF D’SPINKA 0.271
RABBINICAL COLLEGE OF OHR SHIMON YISROEL 0.156
YESHIVATH VIZNITZ 0.127 (out of 4,000 total colleges, there are 10 lower than this)