When I was ten years old, I learned about the educational summer slide which disproportionately impacts low income students who often lack age-appropriate books at home. As an avid reader myself, I was upset to learn that this loss of educational skills over the summer adds up over the years and can significantly disadvantage these…
As a high school English teacher who writes poetry in her free time, I read a poem a day at the start of each class period. Last September, I read poems by Emma Lazarus, because students were going to be writing an essay about her famous sonnet “The New Colossus.” When I introduced her to…
Writing in the Forward, Yitzchak Adlerstein and Michael Broyde recently argued that if New York State tried to force Satmar schools to provide an adequate secular education, the State would lose, because of a 1972 Supreme Court case, Wisconsin v. Yoder. This is a profound misreading of the case. In Yoder, the Court upheld the…
As a sixth-grade teacher of math and literacy at a Hasidic school in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg, I am extremely disappointed by the silence of mainstream Jewish organizations regarding a secular education bill moving through the New York State Legislature. The bill in question, introduced by Assemblywoman Ellen Jaffee, would enforce a law passed in 1928 that…
It is a simple and obvious equation: If you educate girls and women, you improve the world. Economists know this. It’s likely that even the most sexist of humans know it (deep, deep down). But when documentarian Debra Gonsher Vinik set out to investigate the role religious organizations play in securing and perpetuating education for…
This piece is part of a series of perspectives from Diller Teen Tikkun Olam Award Recipients on their experiences in philanthropic work. The basis on and direction in which a country grows is highly dependent on youth. The youth are the ones who are developing alongside a generation; growing and learning more about themselves and…
When I created YMath in 2012, it was a way for me to share my love for learning by providing free one-on-one support in math to students who otherwise would not be able to afford a private tutor. Over the past few years, I have seen the impact of YMath on the academic performance and…
“The middle of the road is for horses,” the famous Rebbe of Kotzk once said. Critics of the Orthodox Union and UJA-Federation seem to share that disapproval for those sitting out the battle over the Satmar school curriculum, according to a recent report in the Forward. Why have those organizations not come out vocally in…
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