Federal Funds Sought for Remedial Program to Aid Orthodox High School Dropouts

A spokesman for Torah Umesorah, the National Society for Hebrew Day Schools, reported today that the agency had applied for federal funding for the third year of a program for Orthodox day high school dropouts who receive remedial mathematics instruction in Yiddish and job training to be assistants in Talmudic libraries and related skills in the day school field. Most of the dropouts are teenage members of the Hassidic community in New York City poverty areas. The school year program is one of two sponsored and directed by Torah Umesorah within the framework of the federal Neighborhood Youth Corps program. A group of 415 teenagers, about 400 of them Jewish adolescents from poverty areas, are currently enrolled in a summer program of paid jobs as junior counsellors, library aids, clerical helpers and recreational instructors.

Rabbi Dov Oustacher, director of the school year project, said 35 day high school dropouts were enrolled in the 1970-71 school year program. The job training phase included instruction in printing, carpentry, secretarial work, kindergarten assistance and librarian assistants. The remedial phase is designed both for job qualification and to motivate the participants to return to school. The 1970-71 program was funded through the Office of Economic Opportunity and the New York City Youth Services Agency for $30,000, Rabbi Oustacher said. He said the remedial mathematics program in Yiddish, entitled “Bo-Ov Chesbon”–“come, let us figure”–uses specially prepared cassette tapes, printed worksheets and questions on job related information. The 35 enrollees were trained in 20 job sites, including the schools from which they dropped out, shops, Jewish libraries and offices. Except for a few girls in the secretarial courses, the enrollees were boys, he added.

Rabbi Oustacher said it was hoped that 20 of the 35 teenagers would resume their schooling in Sept. and that efforts were being made to place the others in jobs, but that the job picture was bleak. He said that while an enrollee trained to be an assistant in the Talmudic section of the library of a day high school, or post-secondary Jewish school could earn up to $80 a week, depending on the hours of work, the agency had been able to place only one such 1970-71 trainee in such a post. He blamed the “terrible financial bind” which the Orthodox-sponsored day school movement was undergoing. He said the names of enrollees were obtained by contacts with administrators of the 60 Jewish day high schools in the Metropolitan area. Torah Umesorah has applied for a grant of $40,000 for the 1971-72 school year and plans to circularize the day high schools for prospective enrollees for the next school year. However, he told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, the level of federal funding is unpredictable and the agency is not making commitments for the coming school year and will be accepting candidates for that period only on that basis.