Education or Incarceration?

Power of Ten Update
In This Issue:
1. Strong East Ramapo Event Jan 14
2. MLK Day Event at Ramapo High School
3. Statement of Support
4. Education or Incarceration

1) Strong East Ramapo Event

Strong East Ramapo is hosting a a fun event where people can learn about the ward system, meet others, and helped bring about change. Power of Ten will be there too, and we will be asking if anyone is interested in volunteering for this year’s campaign to elect public school supporters to East Ramapo’s school board in May.

When: Sunday, Jan. 14th, 6 pm
Where: The Hillcrest Fire House, 371 North Main St. (Route 45), in Spring Valley.

There will be a free dinner, so please RSVP to strongeastramapo@gmail.com by January 7.

2) MLK Day Event at Ramapo High School

The Martin Luther King Multi-Purpose Center will hold its annual celebration of the life of Dr. King on Monday, January 15th at 3:00 PM at Ramapo High School. As always there will be fantastic entertainment, food, and exciting speakers. The event is free. 

3) Statement of Support

Strong East Ramapo is asking you to sign their statement of support for the ward system in East Ramapo. Please go to www.strongeastramapo.org and add your name.

4) Education or Incarceration?

In our struggle to improve the quality of education in East Ramapo schools, it has often been said that a failure to educate will result in a need to incarcerate.  This was actually used as a defense in the trial of one local resident, who served eight years in prison for a crime he says was directly related to being deprived of a quality education.

When he took the stand, his defense lawyer questioned him about how the lack of education had led to his becoming a defendant in this criminal trial:

Lawyer: Let’s talk about you. Specifically, let’s talk about your education. How many years of formal nonreligious education did you take?

Defendant: I — I graduated eighth grade.

Lawyer: What other education in the rabbinical or religious sense have you had?

Defendant: Most of my studies, I went to — I went to — are schools that have English — a Jewish program in the morning and then English program in the afternoon. And then I went to high school, a religious program(…).

The defendant, Sholom Mordechai Rubashkin, currently of Monsey, NY, served eight years of a 27 year term in prison before being released by President Trump.  The cost to society from the failure to educate just this one individual was high.  There are the millions of dollars spent on the trial and the prison.  There was all the harm to the workers and the town and the company he was in charge of.  He was running a meat packing plant.  Accidents at the plant resulted in amputations.  Child labor was common.  The closing of the plant hurt the town and disrupted the supply of kosher meat throughout the whole country.  All of this caused by incompetence due to lack of education.

Thousands of children still languish in schools that don’t educate. The burden on our society is growing. It is only political will that is lacking. How will future generations judge those who sat by and did nothing? Please support www.Yaffed.org, an organization that is working for better education. Together, we can end the yeshiva to prison pipeline.