If you haven’t yet had a chance to check out The New York Times‘ reporting on the failing private schools in the Hasidic enclaves of New York, we strongly encourage you to do so. You see, every now and then, we flag an article as the best piece written in the realm of education in a given year. This year, Eliza Shapiro and Ben M. Rosenthal win the grand prize for their Pulitizer Prize-worthy piece in The New York Times entitled “In Hasidic Enclaves, Failing Private Schools Flush With Public Money.” It’s as well researched as it is insightful. It’s as alarming as it is data-driven. Heck, they even published the piece in Yiddish as well so members of the Hasidic community can learn about their own failing private schools rather than rely on the translations of others.

As Shapiro and Rosenthal so eloquently write, “The Hasidic Jewish community has long operated one of New York’s largest private schools on its own terms, resisting any outside scrutiny of how its students are faring. But in 2019, the school, the Central United Talmudical Academy, agreed to give state standardized tests in reading and math to more than 1,000 students. Every one of them failed. Students at nearly a dozen other schools run by the Hasidic community recorded similarly dismal outcomes that year, a pattern that under ordinary circumstances would signal an education system in crisis. But where other schools might be struggling because of underfunding or mismanagement, these schools are different. They are failing by design. The leaders of New York’s Hasidic community have built scores of private schools to educate children in Jewish law, prayer and tradition — and to wall them off from the secular world. Offering little English and math, and virtually no science or history, they drill students relentlessly, sometimes brutally, during hours of religious lessons conducted in Yiddish. The result, a New York Times investigation has found, is that generations of children have been systematically denied a basic education, trapping many of them in a cycle of joblessness and dependency.”

We at Ivy Coach salute these New York Times reporters for their remarkable reporting on the failing private schools within the Hasidic enclaves of New York. The State of New York can and must do more for the young people who attend these failing, publicly-funded schools. In fact, we’ll do more. If you’re the parent of a young person who attends one of these very schools in a Hasidic community of New York, we will offer you a pro bono college counseling session so your child can learn how to improve their chances of attending one of our nation’s top universities. If you’re interested, reach out to us by completing Ivy Coach’s free consultation form. We’ll then be in touch.