<p>Did anyone read this article in The New York Magazine about Ramapo School district? <a href=“The Conflict Between the Hasidic and Immigrant Communities in East Ramapo -- New York Magazine - Nymag”>http://nymag.com/news/features/east-ramapo-hasidim-2013-4/</a>
It’s a pretty incredible story of a School board whose majority decided to siphon funds from the public schools. I have a hard time believing this is true. It’s a long read but worth it. </p>
<p>It is an interesting article–but it’s from April of 2013.</p>
<p><a href=“East Ramapo on 'This American Life' radio show”>http://www.lohud.com/story/news/education/2014/09/12/east-ramapo-radio-american-life/15528583/</a> the this american life show was jaw dropping. How this story isn’t national I really don’t know. I suppose people will be afraid of being seen as anti semitic if they even have an opinion. </p>
<p>Although the presence of the Hasidim makes it a more exotic story, it’s not so different from what has happened in many other communities where those more concerned about property taxes have taken over school boards. Perhaps that’s why it hasn’t gotten more traction as a national story.</p>
<p>The Ramampo school district has been a scandal and disgrace for years. It’s bad enough when seniors and other no tax people don’t want to pay for schools, and vote down budgets, but this is a group that choose not to send their kids to the schools but run the school board.</p>
<p>Inequities about. We have lots of college students who think nothing of raising taxes that they don’t pay. C’est la vie.</p>
<p>(They either live in dorms not subject to property tax because they’re state-owned, or live in apartments with mom/dad/financial aid paying the bill; either way they don’t care.)</p>
<p>I heard it on NPR also and it was horrific. Classes and teacher and budgets were cut to the degree that even motivated HS’rs couldn’t graduate. </p>
<p>Here’s an article from the Yeshiva University school paper, about East Ramapo and other area districts with similar problems, like Lawrence NY (on Long Island) and Teaneck NJ
<a href=“Our Education Problem - The Commentator”>http://www.yucommentator.org/2014/04/our-education-problem/</a></p>
<p>I’m not surprised. </p>
<p>Those of us who did not choose to send our children to the public school system do get very tired of having to pay twice (we pay for public school education - which we don’t use - and then we pay for private education). And then the local kids come around door to door selling (fill in the blank - candy, wrapping paper, pretzels…) stuff to raise more money for the local public school. ENOUGH. I already ‘donate’ several thousand dollars a year and every year my required ‘donation’ goes up because the citizens are viewed by the school board as an always-full piggy bank. </p>
<p>bookreader, I think this is a different scenario. On any school board you are likely to have people that have kids in private schools, people that want an emphasis on athletics, people that want the BEST whatever. This board however, has a majority (not just one or two) of members whose kids do not attend the public schools and whose agenda seems to have little to do with bettering the school district. Most people that move into a school district, even if they don’t have kids in the schools, want a good school district for at least good resale value and because an educated populace is much better to live with. This group doesn’t care about that because they live in a gated community where they don’t have to worry about any of that. </p>
<p>I also heard an interview about this on NPR. I can’t remember the full details but even their lawyer was on the take.</p>
<p>Hunt’s right, it’s an old story but shameful nonetheless. Quite frankly, some in the Hasidim communities are content with what is essentially Jim Crow segregation in their school districts. Not necessarily race-based but premised on whom is orthodox Hasidic and who is not. Years ago a group of Hispanic parents in New York City went to court to remove a barrier/wall at a public elementary school that their Hasidim neighbors demanded be installed. The Hasidim wanted a wall to separate the Hasidim boys from the girls in the school; A PUBLIC SCHOOL!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Why does the community continue to elect these people to the school board then?</p>
<p>There are a lot of Hasidim in the county–enough to get their candidates elected, maybe a majority. It’s a sad example of the breakdown of democracy, really.</p>
<p>Not a breakdown, but democracy in action.</p>
<p>The Hasidim are an organized voting block close to if not the majority already. Much of the rest of the community is recent immigrants - not necessarily illegal, but not necessarily eligible to vote either. </p>
<p>Among their shenanigans:
from <a href=“East Ramapo Central School District - Wikipedia”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Ramapo_Central_School_District</a></p>
<p>They recently tried to have a vote to change the voting system to wards instead of at-large candidates and it’s been sunk in court challenges.</p>
<p>Hunt, I don’t agree that it’s a breakdown of democracy. School boards are elected by majority vote - that is the democratic way. Clearly, a majority of the voting population voted them in. Now I’ll bet that the school board election had low voter turnout (turnout for this kind of election in my town is abysmal) and that’s how they keep getting elected. </p>
<p>
I say that it’s a breakdown, because it shows that democracy doesn’t work if the majority doesn’t have a sense of civic responsibility. In this case, the majority is an insular group that feels responsibility only to their own group, and not to the community at large.</p>
<p>We see that everywhere, though. People who are elected only act in favor of the group that elected them, even to the detriment of the entire electorate at large. It’s a sad thing.</p>
<p>But this is really an extreme case–the group in charge is not even pretending that what they are doing is for the benefit of everyone.</p>