MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD

I am writing to you as a parent of children whom I have chosen to enroll in a yeshiva to register my opposition to regulations proposed by the State Education Department.

I chose yeshiva education for my children because studying Torah, Talmud etc. is of the most important obligations in our faith, and there is nothing more important to me than for my children to be raised as a member of the observant Jewish community, adhering to and practicing the Jewish religion, and becoming educated in the texts, values and history of my Jewish faith and we will not deviate from that. Unfortunately, the proposed regulations ascribe no importance at all to the Jewish education taught at yeshivas. This, despite the demonstrated record of success among yeshiva graduates.

Not only do the regulations place no value on Jewish education, but they also require that a large number of subjects be added to yeshiva curriculum. This would have the effect of displacing Jewish studies classes for these new courses and this cannot happen. I am not talking about English, Math, Social Studies and other subjects that are already taught in our yeshivas, but the addition of many other classes that are certainly not core to a sound education.

The regulations also require local school districts to assess the teachers employed by yeshivas. However, the values of the yeshiva are different than those of the local school board, and thus they cannot and should not evaluate or judge yeshiva teachers.

As a parent, had I wanted a school that picked its curriculum and teachers based on the values of the local government, I would have sent my children to public school. I didn’t do so because I want a school that reflects the values that I believe are paramount and that has been carried on for generations even under the most difficult of times.

If adopted, these regulations would undermine my ability to ensure that those values, and not others, are what is transmitted to my children at school.

Indeed, the regulations require local school districts that give a failing grade to a yeshiva to notify parents at the school that they must enroll their children at a different school. With all due respect, that is not a decision or direction that belongs in the hands of local school boards but in the hands of us parents.

Even if a yeshiva gets a passing grade, the regulations would authorize a follow-up review of a yeshiva if anyone files a complaint. That means that these regulations give any outsider as much a say over my child’s education as I have. The regulations even give yeshiva critics the right to challenge a local school board’s approval of a yeshiva in administrative or legal proceedings.

Every step of these regulations has the effect of undermining the education and operation of the private school that I have chosen for my children: the school is told what it must teach; the teachers employed by the school are subject to the approval of the local school board; parents can be directed by local school boards to switch their children to different schools; outsiders can trigger a reevaluation of a school that was already approved; and any person is authorized to bring an administrative or legal proceeding challenging a school’s ability to operate.

On their own, every one of these steps serves to erode the ability of our schools to operate, and the sum of these regulations is to undermine the school choice that I have made. That is wrong as a matter of law and as a matter of policy.

I therefore urge you to reject these proposed regulations.



Sincerely,
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