Haredi "Hidden" Dropout Rate 2X Higher Than National Average

17% of elementary school-aged haredim are hidden dropouts, as are 30% of junior high and high school students, sharply higher than the national average of 10% and 15% respectively.

30% of haredi teens - 'hidden dropouts'
Matthew Wagner , THE JERUSALEM POST

Nearly a third of junior high and high school-aged haredi youths are "hidden dropouts," who are registered in an educational framework but are dysfunctional students, according to a study released Wednesday by the Myers-JDC-Brookdale Institute.

In response to the findings, the Joint Distribution Committee's Ashelim program for youth at risk this week launched a NIS 5 million project designed to help the haredi community cope with the high level of hidden dropouts, which is double the national average.

"Rabbis and leaders in the haredi community who realize they have a serious problem are beginning to open up to outside intervention," said Dr. Rami Sulimani, director-general of Ashelim-JDC.

"A growing number of haredi teenagers are simply not functioning in educational frameworks and they are making up an increasingly growing fringe group within haredi society," he said.

Sulimani added that few, if any, of these dropouts made their way into non-haredi education frameworks.

According to Brookdale's data, a total of 17% of elementary school-aged haredim are hidden dropouts, as are 30% of junior high and high school students. This is sharply higher than the national average of 10% and 15%, respectively.

Sulimani admitted that part of the explanation for the higher rates of hidden dropouts among haredim was the haredi educational institutions' willingness to accommodate dysfunctional students.

Nevertheless, he said that the main problem in haredi schools was the lack of professional psychological counseling available to teachers and students.

According to data provided by the Central Bureau of Statistics and the Education Ministry, there are presently 225,000 haredi children ages 5 to 17 in the nation's schools, 21% of the total. Assuming that between 17% and 30% of these children are hidden dropouts, the total number is at least 38,000.

According to a study conducted in 2008 by Eliyahu Hurvitz and David Brodet under the aegis of the "Israel 2028 Project," haredi children are expected to make up a third of all Jewish children in the nation's elementary and high schools and a quarter of the total for both Jewish and non-Jewish students.

This projection is based on the assumption that each haredi woman will have an average of six children - 25% lower than the present average.

Dr. Uzi Rebhun, a Hebrew University demographer who recently wrote a position paper for the Metzilah Center on the possible ramifications of the rapid growth of the haredi and Arab populations for the modern Jewish state, said that there were signs of a drop in haredi fertility.

"In cities such as Betar Illit and Modi'in Illit we have noted a fall in fertility rates," said Rebhun. "Nevertheless, the main source of Jewish population growth will continue to be from the haredi sector."

Rebhun and Gilad Malach pointed out in the their study that even students who succeeded in the haredi school system were unprepared to enter the labor market, were discouraged from doing mandatory army service and were not educated to respect Zionist ideals.

If a large percentage of haredi students are also dysfunctional, this complicates the problem of integrating this rapidly growing population into mainstream Israeli society.

Although the Ashelim-JDC program is being launched in cooperation with the government, significant funding was provided by the New York Jewish Federation. Methods that would be used to treat dysfunctional students here were borrowed in part from experience gained working with the haredi community in Brooklyn, said Sulimani.

"We will be sharing knowledge with US organizations such as the Federation Employment Guidance Services (FEGS) and the Education Alliance," he said.

Haredi youths exposed to post-modernist trends that encourage personal expression and a rejection of religious hierarchy and authority were finding it more difficult to cope with the stringent limits and rules of the haredi society, said Sulimani. This tension leads to emotional difficulties often exacerbated by haredi parents' reluctance to enter into open dialogue with their children, added Sulimani.

"Parents remain oblivious to their child's needs and continue to apply the same traditional, restrictive norms to their children's behavior without recognizing the child's rights," he said.

The NIS 5m. program will train a total of 240 educators, 120 school advisers and 120 principals in the haredi school system.

"These educators will be proactive in recognizing signs of distress among students whose emotional needs are not being fulfilled at home," he explained.

Sulimani said that the goal to encourage a dialogue between children and parents would ultimately lead the parents to ease up on the demands they made of their children.

"We want to start putting the child and his needs at the center of care and attention," he said.

Sulimani said that the most common problem he faced with haredi youths, especially teens, was their lack of recreational time.

"There is a constant demand on them to learn Torah and there are no other options. So they end up looking for other activities that are not condoned by their parents," he said.

Sulimani admitted that the approach that he intended to implement had never been tested before. However, he said that he was certain that as soon as modern educational psychology theories were applied to the haredi community there would be an improvement in dropout rates.

[Hat Tips: It's a Bird, It's a Plane; Joel Rich.]

Comments

[MisterApikoros]

A study in the Forward a couple years back shows that ultra-orthodox yeshiva students in NYC score extremely poorly, ranking at the levels of the worst NYC public schools, with both grade school and high schools faring equally poorly.

Schools such as Heschel, Solomon Schechter, and Ramaz scored near the top, so the problem isn't with Jewish day schools as a group, but with the Haredi yeshivas.

[Yochanan Lavie]

Shul's Out (apologies to Alice Cooper)

Well we got no choice
All the boys and boys
Makin' all that noise
'Cause they hate the goys
Well we can't salute ya
Wanna burn a flag
If that black-suits ya
It's better than drag

School's out for chareidim
School's out for chassidim
Future's been blown to pieces

No more job skills
No more work
No more taxpaying, that's for jerks

Well we got no class
And we got no menahalim
And we got no ethics
We can't even think of a word, with our limited vocabulary

School's out for the black hats
School's out for frummies
Future's been blown to pieces

No more army
No more navy
Some more of the taxpayers' gravy

Out for Shabbat
Out for Chol HaMoed
We might not even know it

School's out for black hats
School's out for chareidim
School's out with fervor
[Secular] Education's out completely

[ah-pee-chorus]

they are correct in dropping out. there is nothing in school which will help them carry out their life's work. there are no classes in smoking outside the bais medrash, rock throwing, spitting, schnorring, avoiding army service, theater torching, dressing like a penguin, sniffing out chametz, how to hate and degrade women. nothing useful for these kids.

[rebbe nachman]

according to a haaretz piece which I read a few months back, hareidi men who do take the various israeli state exams, usually later in life, score the highest of any sector in the country.

[rebbe nachman]

here is the link...http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1005336.html

of course it doesn't change the fact that charedi yeshivas are not preparing their general student body for the working world, however there must be something said about the positive effects of rigorously studying gemara.

[Shmarya]

according to a haaretz piece which I read a few months back, hareidi men who do take the various israeli state exams, usually later in life, score the highest of any sector in the country.

AFTER getting special remedial training.

[Althelion]

Even if they stay in school until graduation, what do they get? - A degree in functional illiteracy. And the Tzadik says: Go out there and sell that dvar Torah on the street, boy. The gedolim, in their quest for control over the community, have orchestrated a systematic process of academic ignorance. They effectively prevent young people from learning anything that will increase their ability to be independent of the community. It is evil. It is sinister. It is wrong. And it is gonna bite them in the tuchas when the demographics become so out of whack that all their energetic, young, and illiterate bochrim get bored and pissed off when they can't find a job.

[Ben]

Nachum, Haaretz article is foolish. A small group of self selected motivated Haredi adults had better exam results than General Population of non-haredis. This is an example of un-scientific use of statistics. The only valid comparison would be between General Populations of Haredi and the Secular. The result will be very bad for Haredis. Another option is to take a small group of very motivated secular learners and compare their exam results with this selected group of very motivated haredi ones. The result again would not be in Haredi's favor.

You, Nachum, are jumping to conclusions. It seems to me that you are not trained in the shadowy science of statistics at all.

[Althelion]

Ask a haredi-schooled adult what the square root of 16 is and they'll give you a blank expression. That's basic literacy that a public-schooled 8th grader would know.

[ah-pee-chorus]

ben: very well put. i was going to write exactly that. kudos

[justayid]

"Ask a haredi-schooled adult what the square root of 16 is and they'll give you a blank expression. "

In the US haredi men become accountants and computer programmers. I guess this is the Ner Israel approach? Is that lacking in Eretz Israel?

[BaltimoreYid]

No HS diploma, no college equals no jobs. Whether it's in Israel or here it reduces young men to begging. I've always been surprised that these young men have endless time to beg instead of learning but no time for job related education.

[shmuel]

Good point, Yid.
And yet, here in the US many chasidim become small business owners, shopkeepers of everything from sforim to furniture, real estate barons, slumlords, diamond merchants, life insurance salesmen, bus and truck drivers, other blue-collar jobs, etc. Many are very wealthy, some not so, but hey, they're giving it the old college try. Why can't they do that in Israel? Because work is a 4 letter word there.

[A. Nuran]

YL, You owe me a new keyboard.

[Yoel Mechanic]

Yeah, I too heard about these glowing reports about Hareidi students doing better, on average, on various exams... presumably math and science exams. Naturally I felt that I need more information. Whenever evaluating statistics, examination of the sampling methods are an essential step. I try to maintain a disinterested attitude, but naturally one tends to get skeptical of the contradictory news stories floating around. "Hidden dropouts" is also an issue that supposedly messes up the statistics of a lot of American high schools too.

[Yoel Mechanic]

Comments above are pretty interesting. Some of the made some rather broad generalizations, so I'm wondering if people would (voluntarily) indicate the source of their information. No need for formalities.. answers could simply be "I live in frum community for XYZ years..." I read XYZ books, "I'm a professor of Jewish history..." I went to XYZ Litvish Yeshivah, and say ABC happening. I'm not trying to drag out personal information, just sometimes I wish I knew where people were coming from when they are blowing off steam