A second state report released this week recommending a monitor be given authority over the controversial East Ramapo School District in upstate Rockland County has reignited the conflicting passions of Midwood Assemblywoman Rodneyse Bichotte and Borough Park Assemblyman Dov Hikind over the issue, which has a spillover affect in Brooklyn’s large Orthodox Jewish and Haitian-American communities.
The 33,500-student school district about 30 miles north of New York City has an unusual makeup in that only about 8,500 students attend East Ramapo public schools while 25,000 attend mainly yeshivas and other private Jewish schools. The school board is controlled by Orthodox Jewish men, who have largely funded the private schools with busing, textbooks, security and other services, while cutting staff and programs in the public schools.
Most public-school families are poor and black or Latino with many being Haitian-American, and many have complained for years of crippling cuts to services, arts programs and Advanced Placement courses – a complaint backed up by a state report on the issue.
This led to Bichotte backing legislation introduced by Rockland County lawmakers Sen. David Carlucci, and Assemblywoman Ellen Jaffe to appoint a fiscal monitor to oversee the school board. Hikind and many in the Orthodox Jewish followed suit with an intense and successful lobbying effort whereupon the state Board of Regents convened a three-member panel led by former City Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott to again study the district and recommend workable solutions.
The report, titled, “Opportunity Deferred: A Report on the East Ramapo Central School District” released this week recommended 19 proposals including giving monitors increased authority, including veto power over the elected school board, and ensuring the school board has at least one parent on it representing the public schools.
Hikind immediately dismissed the report as being a witch hunt smacking of anti-Semitism, with recommendations being unAmerican and Walcott stabbing the community in the back.
“The idea of giving a state monitor the authority to usurp an elected school board, voted by the people, sets a terrible precedent,” said Hikind. “If you allow an appointed monitor to veto decisions of the duly elected East Ramapo School District, then other appointed monitors can do the same in other districts. Where will it end?”
Here is a video with more of Hikind’s comments:
But Bichotte pointed out the recommendations were anything but unAmerican and pointed out legendary Supreme court Justice Thurgood Marshall who fought for school children in the Brown Vs Board of Education case and won. A case that integrated children for equal learning and rights to equal resources denouncing the act of ‘separate’ because separate brought about unequal and disparities in the nation’s education system.
“This case was tried and won in 1954 over 60 years ago. So why are we revisiting acts of injustices in the 21st century? I’m appalled to hear that some are saying that the recommendation put forth by the panel is “unamerican” and “undermine the democratic process,” said Bichotte in an email.
“When slavery was law, was it undemocratic and unamerican to free slaves? When women were not allowed to vote was it undemocratic and unamerican to change that?
“Or was it the just and right thing to do since God created all men/women equal?
“My position has not changed. My colleagues and I in the Assembly, including the Speaker voted for a state monitor so that things are done in an equitable fashion and that no child is left behind. I continue to stand with the sponsors of the bill, Assemblywoman Ellen Jaffe, Assemblymember Kenneth Zebrowski, the many Rabbis and members of NAACP in East Ramapo to install a State Monitor. The recommendations are good as it will bring transparency and accountability to the process.”
