Saturday, January 02, 2010
East Ramapo: Bad schools unravel communities
Preserve Ramapo, an organization that fights against overdevelopment, recently received an e-mail about our reporting on activities of the East Ramapo school district. What, the writer wanted to know, do schools have to do with the preservation of Ramapo? It is a good question and perhaps the answer is not as obvious to others as it is to us.
When people have a commitment to their communities, their communities are better places to live. Their attachment encourages them to get involved and to fight against the self-interested politicians who are all too common today. There are few things that are more important to the residents of a community than their schools.
Where schools are poor, the middle-class residents whose political participation and taxes are so important to their communities either flee or take their children out of public schools and withdraw from political life. They lose interest in quality education for all children and are likely to move as soon as their children graduate from high school.
There are those who argue that now that a majority of children in the East Ramapo school district go to religious schools, their representatives should control the public schools. But who are the people who have initiated what one school administrator called a "civil war" within the East Ramapo school board? Do these individuals — who have declined during elections to participate in a Journal News candidate interview or tell us anything about their education, their goals, or how they earn a living — really represent the religious community?
Their arrogant behavior tells the secular community that these individuals have no respect for democracy or for their secular constituents. It also tells us that they have so little respect for their own religious community that they are willing to offer such a negative portrayal to the secular community.
Thanks to the efforts of these board members our East Ramapo public schools are losing millions of dollars a year as hundreds of students are sent to expensive special schools outside of Ramapo. This does not help our local Hasidic community, but it is helping to destroy public education.
http://www.lohud.com/article/20100102/OPINION/1020309/1076/OPINION01/East%20Ramapo+:%20Bad%20schools%20unravel%20communities
When people have a commitment to their communities, their communities are better places to live. Their attachment encourages them to get involved and to fight against the self-interested politicians who are all too common today. There are few things that are more important to the residents of a community than their schools.
Where schools are poor, the middle-class residents whose political participation and taxes are so important to their communities either flee or take their children out of public schools and withdraw from political life. They lose interest in quality education for all children and are likely to move as soon as their children graduate from high school.
There are those who argue that now that a majority of children in the East Ramapo school district go to religious schools, their representatives should control the public schools. But who are the people who have initiated what one school administrator called a "civil war" within the East Ramapo school board? Do these individuals — who have declined during elections to participate in a Journal News candidate interview or tell us anything about their education, their goals, or how they earn a living — really represent the religious community?
Their arrogant behavior tells the secular community that these individuals have no respect for democracy or for their secular constituents. It also tells us that they have so little respect for their own religious community that they are willing to offer such a negative portrayal to the secular community.
Thanks to the efforts of these board members our East Ramapo public schools are losing millions of dollars a year as hundreds of students are sent to expensive special schools outside of Ramapo. This does not help our local Hasidic community, but it is helping to destroy public education.
http://www.lohud.com/article/20100102/OPINION/1020309/1076/OPINION01/East%20Ramapo+:%20Bad%20schools%20unravel%20communities
Comments:
Post a Comment
