“There is a shocking lack of content necessary for understanding of the world,” he said. “Students have never heard of the Civil War, the Revolutionary War, how many states are in the country. They’ve never heard of Martin Luther King.”
The Journal News has a detailed report on the lack of secular education in haredi yeshivas in the haredi stronghold of East Ramapo, which is located in Rockland County, New York. The East Ramapo school board, which had been plagued with scandals for almost a decade, has been under haredi control for much of that time, resulting in this:
…An untold number of private religious schools under the district’s jurisdiction are failing to offer sufficient secular studies, according to parents, former students and education officials. Yeshivas run by insular Hasidic Jewish sects have raised the most concern.
“We don’t track the specifics of their programs,” admitted East Ramapo schools Superintendent Joel Klein, referring to the 80 yeshivas in his district. “We don’t have the manpower to do that.”
While eschewing a 1928 state law requiring that the quality of private school education is “substantially equivalent” to that of public schools, district administrators have closely adhered to laws ensuring that the yeshivas receive the public funds to which they are entitled.…
Ian Blake Newhem, a Rockland Community College English professor who has taught in two Monsey yeshivas, offered his take on the secular education concern.
“There is a shocking lack of content necessary for understanding of the world,” he said. “Students have never heard of the Civil War, the Revolutionary War, how many states are in the country. They’ve never heard of Martin Luther King.”…
[Yoel] Falkowitz’s sons have trouble understanding English street signs. The three yeshiva students, ages 8, 10 and 11, were born in this country but, as their father puts it, “Their (secular) education is deficient in every area. There is no art, history, music, science, geography. Nothing exists.”
What his children are learning, he said, is “a far cry from the minimum requirement by law.”…
[Local school superintendent sin Rockland County say they are not responsible monitor the quality or even the existence of secular education in private schools. The New York State] Education Department says [local school] district administrators are, indeed, responsible for upholding state education law 3204, however toothless it may be.
“A nonpublic school that is determined not to be providing substantially equivalent instruction is operating illegally,” said Jeanne Beattie, a spokeswoman for the Education Department. Still, she said her department is “unaware of any penalties exacted against districts or superintendents for failure to determine substantial equivalence.”…
Read it all here.