העורך Editor

Comment on NYSED’s Attempt to Control Yeshiva Curriculum

Dear Parents, עמו”ש

You may have heard that the New York State Education Department (SED) recently published proposed Regulations about “substantial equivalency of instruction” required for students attending nonpublic schools.

The most important, 2-minute action every parent can do now is send a comment to SED at:

voice.yeshivosbychoice.org

Alternatively, you can mail your comment to:

Assistant Commissioner Christina Coughlin

NY Education Department, SORIS

89 Washington Avenue, Room 1075 EBA

Albany, NY 12234

Re: Comment on ID# EDU-27-19-00010-P

Here is some quick background, based on questions we are receiving:

Q: How might the proposed Regulations affect our school?

A: The Regulations, on their face, require many schools – including our own – to make significant adjustments to their limudei kodesh and secular programming.

For example, the proposed Regulations specify: 1) the number of required hours of secular studies – e.g. nearly 4.5 hours per day for grades 7-12; 2)more than 12 required subjects, including, in many grades: consumer and family science, visual arts, music, dance, theater, career development, occupational studies, etc.; 3) assessment of teachers and general oversight to undefined standards.

Our school’s results, grades, graduation rates, and other real markers indicating “equivalency” to public schools are not taken into account for these purposes.

Q: Will our school be required to proactively teach non-Jewish values and lifestyles to students?

A: The proposed Regulations may require this. Even if not currently required, once control of nonpublic school curriculum is given to the state, the state can add additional requirements as society “progresses.” This, unfortunately, has been the case in England and other countries.

Q: Didn’t the court already strike down the SED Guidelines 3 months ago?

A: Yes, those Guidelines were thrown out by the NYS Supreme Court following lawsuits brought by Agudath Israel, PEARLS, Torah Umesorah, and the Catholic and independent schools. The court struck down the Guidelines because SED did not have the authority to unilaterally impose them. SED is now trying another approach: asking the Board of Regents to adopt these proposed Regulations after a mandatory public comment period.

Q: How do the new proposed Regulations differ from the previous Guidelines??

A: The new Regulations are substantially identical to the previous Guidelines.

Q: What happens now?

A: There is a brief public comment period when individuals can voice their concerns about the proposed Regulations. At the conclusion of the process, the Regulations come before the Board of Regents for a vote, expected this fall.

Q: I heard that State Education Commissioner Elia resigned. Does that mean this is over?

A: No. While the long-term impact of Commissioner’s Elia’s resignation on this issue remains to be seen, the proposed Regulations have already been published and the process has been set in motion.

Q: What is being done to fight for parents like me, who choose and sacrifice dearly, for their children to attend a yeshiva precisely because its curriculum is very different from a public school’s?

A: The Agudah has been working with school leaders and organizations like PEARLS and Torah Umesorah to oppose the newest incarnation of the state’s attempt to control yeshivos. The Catholic and NYSAIS independent prep schools (which, with Jewish schools, form the majority of NYS nonpublic schools) also strongly oppose these Regulations.

Q: Is there anything I can do?

A: Yes! SED is required, by law, to read comments submitted. While many have previously signed petitions, which was helpful, comments submitted now to SED are required to be read by law. The Agudah has created a system where, with just a few clicks, you can submit a form or personal letter. See the addresses above, at the beginning of this letter.

There is no reason SED should not receive tens of thousands of comments –

one from every parent in the community!

Q: My sister’s family lives out of state, but the overreach of these Regulations concerns them. May they register their comments? How about grandparents?

A: The Regulations do not restrict comments to NYS residents or parents. Anyone – parent, grandparent, graduate, student, concerned citizen – can comment.

May we continue to be able to raise our children in the way of Torah and in the manner that the parents of Siach Yitzchok have chosen.

Sincerely,

Rabbi Moshe Dovid Goodman

Administrator

Download (PDF, 157KB)

Quoting from Dr. Block’s correspondence:

… I don’t see the problem, however, with privatizing Central Park. Presumably, it would be owned by very acute, astute, businessmen, who would try to maximize its present discounted value. I really don’t know whether or not a few skyscrapers in it would do that, but, the market rewards profitable decisions, that serve most people, and does the very opposite for bad decisions.

Rockefeller Center has long been in private hands. They are doing pretty well with it, right? If not, it would tend to be transferred to other entrepreneurs.

Lookit, private investors are forever making mistakes. We have a profit and LOSS system. But, when they err, they lose money. If they make enough mistakes, and/or big enough ones, they go bankrupt, and their capital moves to other hands. When government is in charge, this system splutters. For example, the Army Corp of Engineers was responsible for the failure of the levies in New Orleans during Katrina. Are they still in business? To ask this is to answer it. Of course they are. They are part of the statist system. If a private firm made an error of this magnitude (1900 people died) they would not likely remain in business.

So, yes, if you compare free enterprise, peopled by flesh and blood creatures, with Nirvana, laissez faire capitalism does not look all that good. But, if you contrast it with government, it smells of roses.

See here for a bibliography on the aforementioned Katrina example.

Learn more here on HaTanakh.com.

Here’s an interesting example dealing with the apparent contradictions in the account of the start of the monarchy in Sefer Shmuel (Cluck on “Full Article”).

Here is a brilliant analysis, excerpted from Thomas Sowell’s “Intellectuals and Society” (p. 46 or thereabouts) concerning the laws against supposedly “predatory”, “exploitative”, etc. payday loans:

The underlying costs of providing financial services to people in low-income neighborhoods are likewise ignored by much, if not most, of the intelligentsia. Instead, the high rates of interest charged government intervention to put an end to “exploitative” and “unconscionable” interest rates.

Here verbal virtuosity is often used by stating interest rates in annual percentage terms, when in fact loans made in low-income neighborhoods are often made for a matter of weeks, or even days, to meet some exigency of the moment.

The sums of money lent are usually a few hundred dollars, lent for a few weeks, with interest charges of about $15 per $100 lent. That works out to annual interest rates in the hundreds—the kind of statistics that produce sensations in the media and in politics.

The costs behind such charges are seldom, if ever, investigated by the intelligentsia, by so-called “consumer advocates” or by others in the business of creating sensations and denouncing businesses that they know little or nothing about. The economic consequences of government intervention to limit the annual interest rate can be seen in a number of states where such limits have been imposed.

After Oregon imposed a limit of 36 percent annual interest, three-quarters of its “payday loan” businesses closed down.

Nor is it hard to see why. At a 36 percent limit on the annual interest rate, the $15 in interest charged for every $100 lent would be reduced to less than $1.50 for a loan payable in two weeks—an amount not likely to cover even the cost of processing the loan, much less the risks of making the loan.

Any amount of Ribbis (interest) is forbidden among Jews, and not because it is unfair.