The following is via NY1:
t’s been a difficult decade for the city’s Catholic schools – a steady and significant decline in enrollment means there are now 47,000 fewer students and a hundred schools where the doors are closed for good.
It’s the exact opposite of what’s been happening with the city’s Jewish schools, where a growing Orthodox population has fueled a boom in Jewish education.
Now these opposing trends have crossed, and for the first time, the city’s Jewish schools serve the most students outside of the public system.
“That trend of growth is certainly going to continue, particularly in the yeshiva and more Hasidic circles, where the growth is really exponential,” said Yeshiva University Vice Provost Scott Goldberg.
Looking at state data, the city’s Independent Budget Office found that 10 years ago, there were 134,948 Catholic school students compared to 73,254 Jewish school students. Now the number in Catholic schools has dropped to 87,301, significantly fewer than the 94,589 in Jewish schools.
NY1 also analyzed the state’s numbers and found the enrollment differences will likely increase rapidly over the next few years.
As of now, the state says Jewish schools have about eight percent more students than Catholic schools. But when you compare enrollment for the first and second grades, Jewish schools have 53 percent more students.
From the Orthodox section of Williamsburg to the research centers at Yeshiva University, everyone says the expansion is easy to explain. In Orthodox communities almost every child goes to Jewish schools and most families have many children.
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5 Responses
Baruch Hashem! This is the best news I’ve read in a long time.
So what’s all this bubbe maaisas that most of the young families are moving from Brooklyn to Lakewood (and supposedly the Litvish classroom sizes in Brooklyn’s kindergartens and younger grades are going down)? Clearly the Yeshivas in Brooklyn have grown exponentially over the past 10 years as the city data above is demonstrating.
this is mainly a growth in the Chassidishe community. You don’t need a survey to know that Lakewood schools are booming and Brooklyn’s are not closing down but they aren’t booming. Ben Torah, don’t put your head in the sand
roshvrishon: Brooklyn going from 73,000 10 years ago to 95,000 today is called booming.
#2. No jobs in Lakewood for women and difficult Parnassah for men, trend is shifting.
Lets not forget the Five Towns and Rockaways where schools all across the Orthodox spectrum have exploded over the past ten years