Lawrence Schools Proposal Nixed by NYCLU
Apparently, Donna Leiberman of the NYCLU told Steven I. Weiss today that in her opinion, none of the three different proposals would work from a Church/State point of view. From their conversation:
The question is whether the plan to tailor the public school education in order to fit a religious agenda impermissibly supports religion, and the answer in regard to both of these proposals is yes. Configuring the school day to fit religious instruction, and have students split their day between religious and secular education is fine, but it’s not a fine undertaking for public schools, it’s a fine undertaking for religious schools.Plan D, anyone?
posted by orthomom at 3:50 PM
9 Comments:
It's hard to believe what a great job Weiss is doing with this story.
Without opining on the legality of the plan (or plans) I would not take the NYCLU as the final word by any means. NYCLU is very pro-establishment clause and all their opnion means is that they may file a lawsuit. If these people are serious about it (and I have my doubts) they should hire their own lawyer and do their own analysis.
Two consecutive SIW stories? C'mon, this is getting ridiculous even if he is doing a great job. Why don't you just forward your link to his site already?
I guess you have a point. he has just been posting at such a furious pace and I'm trying to keep up.
You are erally anal about including that middle initial. what's up with that.
Plan D is stop taking wasteful Pesach vacations and invest the money in Jewish education.
Plan E is start raising endowments for Jewish day schools -- can't we get 20 major frum philanthropists to start endowments?
Plan D:
1) Ensure that classical Hebrew is taught at the Public school. (no church-state problems's you're only teaching a language, right?) Hebrew skills are the basis for all other Jewish academic progress. Classical Hebrew texts (Tanakh, Midrash, Mishna) can also be taught in public schools if they're taught as literature. I know, I studied Bible in a "World Cultures" course i took in 10th grade.
The students will thus get exposure to quite a bit of classical source material and become familiar with the texts.
2) Jewish history can be taught in public schools. After all, they teach black history, why not the history of another ethnic group? Of course, this would have to be standard academic history, not Artscroll hagiography.
3) After-school Talmud-Torah would be for the purpose of religious indoctrination, and would be completely seperate from the public schools. The subject matter would be taught on the assumption that students have the basic Hebrew skills and know something of the classic texts from their regular school work.
4) Informal education (NCSY/USY/NFTY according to denomination) would reinforce the religioous indoctrination of the Talmud Torah and provide a positive social atmosphere relatively free of preachy interfering adults. This way, the kids could rebel against their parents in a Jewish environment.
5) Current expections regarding desirable Jewish academic achievement for high school graduates are totally unrealistic and are not necessary for sucessful indoctrination of your children. Institutions of higher education are available and are prefectly capable of handling the minority of students who are interested enough in studying this material at a higher level.
6) As always, the personal religious practices at home are an essential part of ensuring proper Jewish education and indoctrination. There's no reason a parent needs to send a kid to a $10,000+ a year day school to teach them berachot, home rituals, and how to daven. I learned this stuff by watching my parents and going to shul regularly.
Last time I checked African history was NOT taught in the high school as a class. It was an elective that was elimintated due to budget cuts. Perhaps it was brought back, but if it was, I'm not aware of it.
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