Democracy works when the group voting has a vested interest in the system working. In this case, the group voting has a vested interest in the system failing.
Well, that’s also democracy in action, or at least trying to fix the problem invites the creation of more problems, which in this case I guess would take the form of putting limits on what electable boards of public school systems can do, which sooner or later will result in complaints about infringement on freedom of religion, etc.
Personally, I’d like to just ban religion or least ban it from being taught to children. It’s probably best that I’m not in charge.
I can only hope you will pay as much attention next time a thread will include the word “Muslims” without qualification, and insist on it being replaced by “Extremist Muslims”, “A given Islamic sect”, “Some Muslims in country Y”, “A Muslim leader, though it must be made clear that not all Muslims think like him”, “Religious fundamentalists whose specific religion doesn’t really matter for this rant”, “People motivated by an unspecified cause that might or might not be related to their religious beliefs that we won’t mention”, or something similar.
Under normal circumstances, I’d say you’re right. But in most yeshivot, there is no such thing as secular instruction. In fact, the seminal SCOTUS case Lemon v. Kurtzman is exactly on point here. In that case, Pennsylvania state law allowed the state to use state funds to reimburse private schools (the vast majority of them Catholic) for teachers’ salaries, and to provide textbooks and other instructional materials. The SCOTUS struck down the law on the basis that this reimbursement constituted a violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment because government money was being used to advance religion. In this case, too, since there is presumably no secular instruction in East Ramapo’s yeshivot, any funding for the vast majority of special education services, such as aides, assistive technology, or any other differentiation of instruction would constitute a gross violation of the Lemon test on at least two of the three prongs:
[QUOTE=Lemon test, prong 1]
The statute must not result in an “excessive government entanglement” with religious affairs. (also known as the Entanglement Prong)
[/quote]
Clear fail. The curriculum of the yeshivot is determined by the local religious authority, not by a secular agency, such as a school board or a state department of education. Therefore public funding for special education would constitute excessive government entanglement because any funding would come with strings attached and place restrictions on what the school could teach. (There’s a reason Bob Jones and other fundie Christian universities turn down federal funds.)
[QUOTE=Lemon test, prong 2]
The statute must not advance or inhibit religious practice (also known as the Effect Prong)
[/quote]
Again, clear fail. Funding special education services in a school that only provides religious instruction by definition advances religious practice.
[QUOTE=Lemon test, prong 3]
The statute must have a secular legislative purpose. (also known as the Purpose Prong)
[/quote]
This one is probably a pass, because making sure that all children, even those with learning disabilities, receive an appropriate education is in the best interest of the state and society. But since the other two prongs fail, it doesn’t matter.
Furthermore, in New York State, schools organized as religious schools (as yeshivot are) may not necessarily require state approval if they don’t offer a traditional diploma, so there’s no secular oversight to ensure that funding is used for its intended purpose, even if they got such funding.
I was going to write a thoughtful response, but I’m truly puzzled as to what is going through your mind. What’s the evidence that such a thread would be treated in that way?
I will also say this.
Anytime people can vote themselves money from the public trough, they will do so. It’s simple human nature. There’s nothing that says that good old Charlie who owns the local insurance agency can’t run for school board when the district’s benefits package comes up for negotiation, or that Fred who owns the Ford dealership can’t run when he hears that the district wants to buy some new vans, or that Rev. Shaw Moore can’t run because he’s afraid that kids will be exposed to evil ideas. As long as they meet the qualifications for the office for which they are running, and as long as they can get enough people to get them on the ballot or write them in, they’re elected. Motivation isn’t really an issue here; you may have the most pure reason, or your reason can be the most venal. It doesn’t matter. The best you can do is have conflict-of-interest regs in there to avoid the most egregious abuses.
And that’s what happened here. The local dossim (thanks for the new word!) were able to bully their way into compromises that benefited only them, and when they were able to do so, managed to take over the school board and didn’t have to make any compromises with anybody; the money was theirs for the taking and if the local public schools starved, those people were perfectly free to move. I don’t think the intent was to chase people out so they could have their little utopia. Nothing more nor less than simple selfishness and greed. It makes me wonder if they read Ayn Rand in Yiddish.
Can someone please tell me what the word “dossum” means?
“Dossim”. It’s a pejorative that anti-religion bigots in Israel use to denigrate the Orthodox. Comes from “dos” (which is the Ashkenazi pronunciation of the word “da’at”, which is “religion” in Hebrew). Ashkenazi pronunciation because a lot of the Orthodox (though definitely not all) have Ashkenazi roots. “im” is the plural ending.
Anti-religious bigot? Hardly, else I’d be planning to eat a bit more this coming weekend. I have no problem with the orthodox, only with the primitive assholes who try to tell me how to live my life, and especially the ones who do so while living off my tax money.
(Guinastasia: it’s basic the Jewish term for “fundies”).
Or Mario Puzo.
Thanks. So it’s the term that means these guys are just the Jewish version of Fred Phelps, or Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. It would be like your fundamentalist Christians who use the premise of needing funding for special ed to get elected to the school boards, and decide they can start getting rid of science programs. (And start funding schools that teach their own religious beliefs)
I’ve never understood why the US persists in direct election of school officials. Is this done anywhere else in the world? What benefit does it seek to bestow?
To me (Australian) it seems rife with the possibility of abuse, like in this case.
It’s just a side effect of the way that in the US, lots and lots of offices are elected which in other countries are appointed. In my own area, for example, we elect not just the school board but also the hospital board, the water board, the community college board, the transit board, and several others. And that doesn’t even count the people we normally count as politicians, e.g. congressmen, governors, etc.
It’s no wonder that on Election Day our ballot is typically several pages long.
But why? What purpose is this process intended to serve? Why not appoint these positions?
The basic assumption in our system especially at the local level is that elections are always good. We elect judges and sheriffs and coroners too.
School board members are directly elected where the school board jurisdiction does not have the same boundaries as the main political subdivision. If a city (or town or village) has a school district that covers all of that city and only that city , the school board members will either be appointed or there will be no school board at all and the mayor will appoint a single individual to run the school system.
As to why the differing jurisdictions, I guess that's a side effect of very local government where a town or village may not have the population to run its own schools efficiently.
There is no such rule.
I didn’t mean to imply that there was a rule- there could be cities or towns or villages where the school district is exactly coterminous with the city or town or village and the school board members are directly elected. But most school districts (certainly the ones in NY) aren’t coterminous with a city or village or town or even county- the school districts include multiple municipalities and/or part of Municipality A is in School District 1, and the other part is in School District 2. And if the school district isn’t exactly coterminous with the another jurisdiction, you can’t have appointed school board members- otherwise you would have the mayor of Los Angeles controlling schools in 31 municipalities where the residents were not eligible to vote for the mayor of Los Angeles.
What is going through my mind is that anything that can be construed as possibly antisemite (even when, as in this case, nobody is actually suspecting the OP of being antisemite, just of having written a sentence that, out of context, could be perceived as antisemite) provoke strong reactions, including here by mods, while directly offensive statements about Muslims are totally ignored. You’d never see a couple of mods pointing out that the word “Muslims” in a negative sentence should be qualified or removed.
I’ve been bothered for a long time by how lenient this board is with negative or even hateful statements about Muslims. When I see that at the contrary the slightest hint of antisemitism (or suspected antisemitism, or like here, not even suspected, but simply evocative of antisemitism) causes a pile on without fail, I’m shocked by the double standard.
When I’ll see mods equally involved in making sure that nobody ever uses the word “Muslims” in a negative context without proper qualifiers as they seemingly are here regarding the word “Jews”, I’ll change my mind on this issue.
In that situation, the obvious choice would seem to be “Klan takes over…”, don’t you think? And if that was the title of a thread, would you automatically assume all Klan members everywhere were involved in said takeover, or that it was somehow a function of the national organization? Myself, I’d assume it was a function of the local Klan members–it’s a school board ffs, why would anyone non-local want to take it over? The same would hold true if it you phrased it “White supremacists take over…” fwiw.
This is, of course, assuming that it were an organized campaign like this one, with the express purpose of enacting policies that benefit white students to the detriment of students of other races. If everything were going along in fairly typical fashion and it turned out by some weird coincidence that a majority of the board were Klan members, then saying they “took over” the school board wouldn’t be accurate at all.
Although I do have to say, the whole situation is kind of a wet dream for anti-Semites who want talking points. A group of Jews organizes and executes a plan to take total control over something, then immediately starts not wanting to pay for stuff and allocating all the money they possibly can to themselves/their own community to the detriment of all the non-Jews? Oy vey.
It’s so parents and community members can have a direct say in how the schools are run.