Joseph

The New York State Council of Catholic School Superintendents, representing all 500 Catholic schools in New York State, announced this week that it has rejected the recently released “substantial equivalency” guidelines and is directing all diocesan Catholic schools not to participate in any review carried out by local public school officials. They further stated they will be working with state legislators to change the state law to override the regulations.

(Thank you Rebbe Yid for bringing this to attention.)

The Agudah has successfully worked with them in the past on mutual legislative goals. They have a lot of influence in the state.

frumtd: In addition to DaasYochid’s excellent points, and aside from ignoring your continual ad hominems attempting to make your post sound sophisticated despite its logical fallacies, I’ll address some of your erroneous points.

Impoverished families generally get social programs.

Impoverishment is determined by the Federal Poverty Level (FPL) set each year by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). This table is based on family size. In New York the law uses 200% of the FPL to determine eligibility for SNAP and various other social safety net programs. So a Jewish family of two parents and seven children in New York earning $93,000 will qualify for income based entitlement programs, as they are considered impoverished despite their $93,000 annual income. Whereas a goy living with his wife, child and dog earning $42,000 a year will be considered to be middle class, per the FPL guidelines, as his family income is over 200% of 2018’s FPL. Capish, dear frumtd? The goy who graduated from NYC’s esteemed P.S. 74 is considered middle class, apparently due to his terrific NYC public school education, whereas our local heimishe yid who graduated from Bobov (see my previous post as to where Bobov stands in the totem pole compared to local public schools) and earns $93,000 is “impoverished”.

And frumtd is telling us the above public school kid is doing better than the kid from Bobov, so we must now force Bobov to be “equivalent” in education to the public school.

It is the child’s life after all that is at stake here.

And it is the parents who are best suited and able to determine what is best for their child’s life rather than Big Brother or Uncle Sam.

The rules will apply to all private schools, but if a school performs well, most likely there will be no significant changes required.

This is a falsehood. The new regulations propagated several weeks ago by the NYS DOE make very clear that all private schools are subjected to their full guidelines, including requiring seven hours a day of secular studies, alone. Whether the private school is Ramaz, Yeshiva of Flatbush, Satmar, or Torah Vodaas.

If the State can clarify the rules/standards so that the Yeshivas that provide an adequate education feel comfortable that they are not affected by this, then you would see very quickly that Satmar and few others would be out there on their own. The position of those that do not provide an adequate secular education is not something that a lot of the Rabbonim expressing concern here, actually support.

Another untruth demonstrating you haven’t been paying attention to the issue in recent day. Just this very week Rav Yisroel Reisman, Rosh Yeshiva of Torah Vodaas (yeah, the one mentioned in my above comment, where the students whipped the public school students in their overachieving Regents exams scores) said in a video statement that the Chasidish, Litvish (like him) and modern Orthodox need to unite to fight the Department of Education on these regulations. Rav Brudny , Rosh Yeshiva in the Mir Yeshiva (hint: Not Chasidish), said the very same the day before.

1. Parents have an inalienable natural right to choose how to bring up and educate their children. Even if that vastly differs from the choices of the majority population.

2. The, by far, primary reason Orthodox Jews are overrepresented in statistics of government needs based social safety net program participation, such as SNAP and HUD, is because of large family sizes. it really is that simple. You can be making a lot of money, but with a lot of children, K”H, you *will* qualify for those programs. Period. So while the average heimishe Yid earns MORE than the average goy, the former is getting programs for his family of 9 while the latter is not for his family of 3 and a dog.

So even with his public school education the average goy is making less than a Chareidi Yid with his Yeshiva education. Clearly the Yeshiva is not a cause of lower income later in life.

3. New York yeshiva students are outperforming their public school peers in the four core subjects of English, math, science, and history – by far. This fact is clearly bore out by data from the Regents examination scores. They show yeshivas earning 19 of the top 20 average private school scores in New York’s English Language Arts exam. Beis Yaakov High School of Boro Park’s 91.1 average was the highest in the state, with Bobov’s Congregation Machna Shalva, Shaare Torah, and Bais Yaakov Academy in Flatbush coming in with 89.6, 87.3 and 87.2, respectively – well ahead of the local public school average of 58.4. In Rockland County, Bais Yaakov of Ramapo’s 88.1 average surpassed the public school’s 63.4.

Rounding out the top 20 with average scores of 85.4 or better were, Torah Vodaath High School, Congregation Machne Chaim, Mesivta Tiferes Yisroel, Bais Yaakov High School of Spring Valley, Bais Menachem, Rambam Mesivta – Maimonides High School, Shulamis, Bais Brocho of Karlin Stolin, and Yeshiva Ohr Shraga D’Veretzky in Flatbush.

In the Algebra 2/Trigonometry exam, yeshivas earned nine of the top 10 private school scores in the state. Seven out of the top 10 private school scores reported in the Global History Regents exam were also earned by yeshivas. While Brooklyn schools averaged a score of 64.7, Bobov’s Congregation Machna Shalva and Bais Yaakov High School tied for the second highest average with a score of 92.7, two tenths of a point ahead of the Bais Esther School. Similar results were seen in the Physics Regents, where the highest average score in the state – 90.1 – was earned by Shevach High School in Queens, closely followed by Yeshiva of Far Rockaway and Torah Academy for Girls High School, while local public school students averaged just 71.8. And in Brooklyn, Mesivta Tiferes Yisroel’s average of 88.1 was well ahead of the public school average of 73.2.

Joseph, the story with the Netziv closing the yeshiva was because the russian government wanted to influence the curriculum of secular education.

Sounds similar to what the NYS DOE is proposing to now do.

Yoder made no reference to participation in social programs and that was a non-issue in SCOTUS’ decision in that case.

Yoder is very much applicable to the Orthodox Jewish community. And it is nationally binding law of the land by Supreme Court precedent.

This isn’t the first time Agudas Yisroel and Satmar joined forces. About six years ago Satmar and Agudah organized an anti-Israel draft rally in Manhattan when the Israeli government was considering a new draft law for Yeshiva bochorim.

And none of this is remotely new. You can easily find historic photographs of similar public protests against Israel with the Satmar Rebbe zt’l sitting on the dais next to the Mirrer Rosh Yeshiva Rav Kalmonovitz zt’l and Rav Zak’s zt’l, son in law of the Chofetz Chaim and Rosh Yeshiva in Radin.

YWN picked up the story a day after I posted this.

WATCH: Member Of Moetzes, HaRav Elya Brudny Describes Threat To Chinuch With NYS Education Policy

sariray: “Gee… if anti vaxers hate vaccines so much, maybe they would agree to give one or two or even three… but why would they choose to give one for a disease that hasn’t been seen in the US for about 30 years?”

The reason it hasn’t been seen in decades is because of vaccinations. And herd immunity.

Do anti-vaxxers refuse to immunize for polio, too?