East Ramapo Tries to Heal Rifts Over School Cuts

Yesterday, a Latino pastor, a Haitian reverend, and a lot of Hasidic rabbis walked into a room in Monsey, the ultra-Orthodox enclave outside New York City. Inside were residents and elected officials of East Ramapo, the divided district where ultra-Orthodox Jews and Haitian immigrants, many of them refugees from the 2010 earthquake, have been battling over control of the local schools and, more importantly, of the money to fund them.

They were there to mark the launch of a new initiative, Community United for Formula Change, that would change the way Albany allocates money to districts like East Ramapo’s, where almost two-thirds of children—22,000 of them, mostly Jewish students sent to yeshivas—are enrolled in private schools, while the public schools serve 8,000 predominantly minority children. Parents of children who attend the public schools have accused ultra-Orthodox members of the school board of gutting the district’s programs. But those gathered yesterday said the problem is more basic than that: They simply aren’t getting enough money from the state.

Continue reading "East Ramapo Tries to Heal Rifts Over School Cuts" at...

From Tablet Magazine