Statement by PEARLS:
For the past three years, New York’s Orthodox Jewish communities have been forced to endure a relentless campaign of slander against their schools and way of life.
Today the City’s Department of Education transmitted its findings to the State Education Department. The letter confirms that YAFFED’s allegations against the yeshivas have no basis in fact. To the contrary, the city’s letter cites one example after another of our yeshiva children receiving a rich education.
The state must now recognize this matter for what it is: An attempt to usurp parents’ rights to select the best education for their children – particularly if the schools in question are located in orthodox Jewish neighborhoods. It is time to end this assault on our community once and for all.
The DOE found YAFFED’S allegations of substandard education to be false. DOE officials visited 15 of the 30 schools listed in YAFFED’s complaint, and found quality teaching and learning environments in those schools.
The DOE’s investigation also established that YAFFED’s complaint involved at most 30 schools, not the 39 that were previously cited, and that after interviewing the complainants it turned out that they had first-hand information about only 11 of those schools.
Any suggestion that the yeshivas were less than cooperative in arranging the remaining visits is false. We have spent endless hours working with the DOE to address YAFFED’s attacks on our yeshivas. We facilitated visits to 15 schools and repeatedly offered to arrange more. DOE is more than welcome to see any of our classrooms and witness the extraordinary education we offer our children.
Significantly, the yeshivas visited by DOE to date have been those with the largest enrollments. Specifically, the 15 schools visited educated more than 13,000 students, while the remaining eight elementary schools have an aggregate enrollment of only 3,000.
That means that DOE has visited schools with more than 80% of the students in all elementary schools listed in YAFFED’s complaint.
It is not the city that is mostly at fault here. YAFFED’s tiny group of media-savvy activists ginned up the debate by disseminating information that few bothered to fact-check. They released a report on secular education at the yeshivas that many cited as a credible source – even though its findings were based on a survey of the YAFFED founder’s Facebook friends.
YAFFED’s caricature of a backward culture deliberately keeping its children ignorant played into awful stereotypes about the orthodox communities. Years of hard work by civic leaders to combat such prejudices were undermined by the controversy.
There are more than 425 yeshivas in New York, educating more than 165,000 students. Of those, more than 275, with approximately 115,000 students, are in New York City. The schools not yet visited by DOE educate a small fraction of those students.
We remain proud of our yeshivas, our students, teachers and entire community and continue our commitment to the belief that parents deserve the right to choose the best education for their children.
DOWNLOAD:
+ NYC Schools Chancellor Letter on Yeshiva investigation
Yes, you’re right. ULY did accept the officials. And but OT did not. SO what’s you’re point?
Do people really believe the Rebbe wants a moised under his name to flout the law in such a brazen way. Back in the day it wasn’t enforced and it wasn’t a big deal if a yeshiva didn’t teach secular.
OT needs to figure out how to be within the law or take the Rebbe’s name off the moised.
I’m actually kicking myself right now. You claim to be all big shot and that you’ve read the report and you’re such an expert. So I ACTUALLY read the report and ULY was visited by DOE! In your comment you back Chabad for not allowing them to come when ULY clearly did! Maybe it’s you who is the lazy one…
Always knew they were a bunch of loshon hora frauds. BH for the honest and smart DOE!
What is quality education? The goal of education is not how many classics the students have read, not whether they know what a logarithm is.Quality education is learning how to learn, how to put in one’s best effort, how to be honest, how to interact with people in a positive and productive way, how to look for solutions, and how to take responsibility.
All of that should be covered in any worthy yeshiva.
If necessary, any specific subject needed for parnassah could be mastered later. Those who are blaming the yeshivos for their problems seem to have missed those lessons!
It’s funny to me that some of the same Yeshevas that illegally eject student who are not vaccinated . Ignoring the parents rights and the state mandate which allows for religious exceptions esp in Yeshevas that accept federal funds such as the lunch program and vouchers . Yet when these same Yeshevas when it comes accepting federal or state money choose to ignore the law regarding secular subjects due to parental rights . If these schools believe that parents have rights regarding their children’s education then those rights certainly extend to their children’s medical care and which substances we as… Read more »
You obviously cannot be a proud tomim, you can be proud-but not a tomim. You obviously have not heard of the Rebbes directive of “Chinuch al Taharas Hakodesh”, had you ever learned of it, you would not have posted your ignorant comment.
While you write
“navigate in the workforce thereby accomplishing the ultimate goal of dira lo yisborech b’tachtonim”, may I suggest to you that you can also “make that dira without the limudei chol.
You are part of the “modern chabad problem, trying to eat the cake and leave it whole.
ULY of course granted access. They teach limudei chol and produce Tmimim that can also navigate in the workforce thereby accomplishing the ultimate goal of dira lo yisborech b’tachtonim.
There are other Lubavitch schools, and some are frightened to give access and show the naked emperor. These schools can’t hold a candle to Tomchei Tmimim Lubavitch!
The source of poverty is not inadequate education, it’s the cost of our lifestyle. If your household makes $75k and you’re a typical US household, you’d be middle class, but if you’re the typical Chareidi household making $75k, you’d be in poverty. So the yeshiva education is not the source of poverty, more like its’ price-tag (which although a reasonable price usually), yet how do you compete with free? We need alot of siyata dishmaya to be a top 10% income household, so we can be living a upper middle class lifestyle. If you’re mediocre, you’re condemned to poverty. And… Read more »
You have to compare apples to apples so when you ciew the performance of a child in a Yeshivah, you must compare him to the average public school pupil’s performance in that state. We all know how abysmal the state of public school education is with the Columbia Law School students in very large numbers not knowing the constitution, something a seventh grader knew 40 years ago. And can you inagine if yeshiva’s were supported by government to the tune of however much secular studies they’re rendering? (Meaning if the yeshiva is devoting 1/3 of the school day to secular… Read more »
Our boys BH gain the right learning skills to learn all of public School in much shorter time. Their minds are BH sharpened that they can succeed where they want to.
Whining and blaming the yeshivas is an over used blame that some ppl just can’t get enough of. The most brilliant businesman in our community never learned the secular subjects. And some of the poor…did.
Parnassa is from Hashem. Bottom line . Believe it.
Speaks an uncomfortable truth about the source of a lot of poverty in our communities.
the first rule of writing: never treat your reader as hostile (if you’re writing to a broad audience). perhaps you don’t know that due to your inadequate education – hence your support of yaffed.
seriously, you’re way too condescending.
That we are meeting the state standards in yeshiva with minimal focus on secular subjects. Additionally, America runs on gelt no matter how you get it. So if yeshiva’s are producing enough money makers per student as the public schools, then we are “on the money” with our education. Besides for the fact that Torah is “ki heim CHAYEINU”. A person who lives with Torah has a much better PHYSICAL life than one who does not. L’chaim. The whole yaffed is a pogrom against what we hold dear as yidden. If you personally want yout kid to be knowledgeable in… Read more »
what do our schools do? They teach a child how to learn. My son went to oholei Torah. I had gone to public school. he can run rings around most public school kids in his knowledge. the people going after our schools are formerly frum. They didn’t succeed in our schools so they want to shut them down.
While that may be true about beis rivka and other girls schools, yaffeds claims are directed to boys schools like ot, which BTW don’t take the general exams – (thus disputing ur evidence). To suggest that ot grads have an education that equal to or better than the average NY kid is ridiculously. They don’t.
If you have an opinion in this matter, especially about the positions of Yaffed and PEARL and this report, I strongly suggest you read the report. Not just skim. Read. (That is if you have the discipline and attention span, and that might be affected by the Yeshiva in which you were “taught). I titled my post Wowx3 becuase I didn’t expect ( I was floored by) how purely false and mainpulative the “Statement by PEARLs” is and this COL post. It behooves COL staff to read the report and decide whether the PEARLs statement deserves space on its site.… Read more »
If you read the report, you will notice that they were not allowed access to Oholei Torah. Interesting…
Actually, it says in the letter from the chancellor that of the 30 schools listed, only 15 have to date granted access for viewing classes. 15 of the schools have either not replied or have replied but haven’t set up viewing times. Oholei Torah is on that list… The chancellor also said that it has not yet been determined whether or not the education provided does indeed meet the equivalency standards required by law, he says that they seek further guidance from the State Education Department to make that determination…Just sayin.
There is no rational for not educating children. Unless the fear is that if you teach them what’s out there they’ll leave. I wasn’t afraid.
The worse thing is that this “organization” claims that they are advocates for the chassidishe schools. That clearly is not true.
The report doesn’t say the author claims it says. Besides, anyone who reads this site knows that everything Yaffed says about no secular education is true about Oholei Torah, they just have the wrong attitude.
I believe what it indicates is that the New York City department of education has very low standards of education. Our kids in yeshivas who do learn secular subjects are not learning any less than public school kids. And our kids tend to pass regents with average marks way higher than public school kids.
While I’m fully supportive of our education system and I don’t really care about secular education, yaffeds claims are accurate: we provide an inadequate secular education (not that that’s a problem). The fact that the department of education declared otherwise is interesting as it indicates a lot of internal settings which were pulled. Vd”l.
PEARLS keep up the good work.
may hashem be soisem piyos mastineinu umkatrigeunu.
A suit for discrimination and harassment or libel should be initiated against this group by a lawyer who understands exactly what charges can be brought up against them.