A committee of the New York State Board of Regents approved a proposal on Monday for the city’s first Hebrew-language charter school, all but clearing the way for the school to open in Brooklyn’s District 22 this fall. While the full board will consider the proposal on Tuesday, it is widely expected to echo the committee’s approval.
The school, to be called the Hebrew Language Academy Charter School, would begin with 150 kindergartners and first graders, and is designed to eventually serve 675 students from kindergarten through eighth grade. Students would be chosen by lottery, with preference for residents of the district, which includes the Sheepshead Bay, Mill Basin and Midwood neighborhoods.
Charter schools are publicly financed but independently operated, and this one is being backed by philanthropists including Michael H. Steinhardt, a former hedge fund manager who has given away some $200 million since retiring 13 years ago, much of it to programs aimed at boosting Jewish identity among young people. Mr. Steinhardt played a crucial role in creating Taglit-Birthright Israel, a program that has sent more than 200,000 Jews ages 18 to 26 on free trips to Israel since 1999.
Sara Berman, Mr. Steinhardt’s daughter and a former parenting columnist for The New York Sun, is the charter school’s lead applicant.
At Monday’s meeting, eight members of the Regents committee that oversees charter schools voted in favor of the proposal. One regent, Betty A. Rosa, abstained, and another, Saul B. Cohen, voted against it.
Dr. Cohen questioned whether a Hebrew-language school was needed in a relatively high-performing district and whether a broad swath of students in the district, which is predominantly black, Hispanic and Asian, would be interested in learning Hebrew. (The district also includes neighborhoods with many Jewish immigrants from Russia and Israel.)
“It’s a way of getting a good private school with public funds,” Dr. Cohen said.
But another regent, Karen Brooks Hopkins, predicted that the school would have a “diverse population,” describing the proposal as “excellent.”
The school’s planners have taken pains to assure state officials that it would not cross the church-state divide, and they are in negotiations with a candidate for principal who is not Jewish but who has experience in dual-language education.
The committee’s approval of the Hebrew charter comes nearly two years after a series of protests engulfed the Khalil Gibran International Academy, the city’s first public school dedicated to the Arabic language and culture. Khalil Gibran’s founding principal resigned under pressure before the school opened, after giving a controversial newspaper interview.
(Source: NY Times)
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8 Responses
would such a school teach kodesh and/or serve kosher food?
A Jewish school devoid of Torah isn’t all that interesting to us. This sort of school might prove serious competition for the “solomon schechter” type schools (non-frum day schools), since many of the parents want something Jewish but aren’t interested in yiddishkeit, and in fact, are looking for something Jewish that is an alternative to Torah.
What might be interesting would be if someone proposed a charter school that would be single-sex (no legal problem, there are even a few single-sex public schools already), meeting half a day (morning or afternoon) covering only a core secular curriculum. Students at such a school could then go to the Jewish school for the other half day. Not having to provide a secular curriculum could be a significant cost saving for the Jewish school. While there would be some issues (possible presence of goyim as teachers and perhaps students as well, use of the government curriculum), many frum schoold hire non-frum teachers as it is, and many frum people do want a curriculum that qualifies for college admission. Indeed, based on the Supreme Court decision in the Kiriyas Yoel case, we might be able to make an argument that the government is obligated to offer such an option for secular studies, and of course, not having to pay for the “English” curriculum would be a massive source of financial relief for the yeshiovs.
#3 – and in fact many frum schools in the US follow a government (in New York, it was historically a “Regents”) curriculum. In some countries the government hires and sends in the secular teachers.
A charter school that provides “English” for the yeshivos would also allow for a smaller Torah program, since it is often easier to combine grades in Torah studies than in secular studies (using a government curriculum).
mamash a churban! this is a way for the barak obama gov to infiltrate yiddidshkiet! rachmana litzlan this will cause assiminlation!
Seculer Jews who know yeshivas provide a better education might opt to send their children to this school.
#5 – Senator Obama has nothing to do with state education policy. He has always preferred private schools.
BTW, a large number of frum American schools have students who prepare for standardized exams (e.g. the SAT, the New York Regents). Also, many if not most frum schools do NOT require the secular studies teachers to be frum, or even Jewish. A charter such as we’ve been discussing would transfer the cost of the English program to the government, without impacting on Torah studies. While some parents easily pay full tuition, presumably in cash on the first day of school, most of us are going broker paying tuition, so why
should be pay for teaching the goyish subjects, if the goyim could be persuaded to pay for teaching themselves.
Obviously, this does not apply to those school who teach the secular studies in Yiddish, or who avoid secular studies all together.
This is not a Yeshiva that offers a full secular studies department. This would be a secular school that also teaches Hebrew Language a la Haskalah, and totally void of Yiddishkeit. They have a couple in Florida, mostly for Israelis.
#8 – a charter school can do English from 2-6 p.m.
The boys can be in yeshiva in the morning and come to the charter school in the afternoon.
While it would have to be open to goyim, I doubt that many would want a crammed “bedievad” secular program, especially if it met Sunday-Thursday. The exception would be if the non-frum kids also had an intensive morning program of their own, but so what.
A charter school can not teach religion, but can respect religious preferences in terms of schedule and separate gender. And it could reduce the cost of yeshiva schools by 30%. We pay taxes like everyone else, and we should look for a way to get something for our money.