Lev Agranovich has pulled papers to run for the Ward 5 School Committee seat currently held by Steve Siegel, who is stepping down due to term limits. (Emily Prenner has been campaigning for the seat since late last year.)
According to his Facebook page, one of Agranovich’s “main policy goals is to Eliminate anti-Semitism from Newton school curricula.”. He does not list any secondary policy goals.
Emily has this one in the bag.
I agree MMQC. And it doesn’t hurt that she went out into the community to meet people and collect their signatures on her nomination papers, rather than asking them to come to her.
While this is an important issue has he mentioned his opinion on other items?
School lunch?
Transportation?
Long term goals of the school.
This post makes it seem like he only cares about one issue.
One non-issue.
There is reportedly a candidate from Ward 6 who may share a similar platform.
The silver lining is that this candidate or candidates will give Newton voters an opportunity to decisively declare that they do not believe these widely discredited claims.
I don’t have, and never have had, kids in NPS so I don’t know a lot about this controversy – except that it keeps coming back up. I do know that I was at my neighbor’s house one day when her daughter came in crying over an assignment. I had forgotten about this (it was a couple of years ago) but this post reminded me of it. The teacher’s last name (I think) was Beder and the assignment was if the Jews should have a state solution. The question was an essay on the pros and cons to the one state solution and two-state solution?” She was upset because by necessity of the assignment, she would have to talk about the end of the world’s only Jewish state, and didn’t understand why that was being debated (they are Jewish) since this debate was not being applied to other nations that ostensibly behaved badly (in this particular class, and according to her). She said to her mother (and me) The German people have their own sovereign state, but Israel can’t? So, it sounds like although this anti-Semitic curriculum has been discredited, is there something else going on?
You may say that Emily Prenner has this in the bag, but there is a largely ignored community of Newton parents out there who will happily vote for ANYONE in the upcoming election that is not on the current school committee. That extends to anyone who is on the Equity Working group or the Equity Committee. Emily Prenner may have been community minded at one point, but she has been part of a movement that is dividing the Newton parent community and pitting them against each other. There were many, many other ways to make sure that parent and PTO funds were equitable in Newton and the villainizing of certain parent groups has not gone under the radar as may have been hoped by school committee members who put together a committee that was missing representatives from a few elementary schools yet had high school and beyond parents on it (Emily). Would it make sense to ask an ex-employee who’s been working at another company for six years how the processes of their old company worked? No. Emily isn’t a shoo in. Many voters will be looking for anyone other than incumbents and their anointed successors on the ballot come November.
@Newton Runner wrote: “I don’t have, and never have had, kids in NPS so I don’t know a lot about this controversy – except that it keeps coming back up…. So, it sounds like although this anti-Semitic curriculum has been discredited, is there something else going on?”
Newton Runner, to answer your question, what appears to be going on is that the Newton School Administrators/teachers do not grasp the fact that the curriculum they are providing for the students IS BIASED AGAINST Jews and Israel.
Like you, I have never had any kids in the Newton Public Schools, so I have no firsthand knowledge of what goes on in the schools. However, as someone who grew up among many Jewish people, and who therefore knows quite a bit more about Jews and Judaism than the average American, I believed that the alleged “hate groups” who complained about the anti-Israel bias in the schools were intelligent Jewish people who were trying to convey complex concepts to less intelligent individuals (Keep in mind that Jews are only 0.2% of the world’s population, yet have won 22% of the Nobel Prizes). In other words, I believed them when they said there was bias in the Newton Public School Israeli-Palestinian Conflict curriculum.
I was able to confirm the validity of their claims of bias when I downloaded and read the lawsuit information packet which was compiled when a group of Newton parents filed suit over this matter in March 2019. The information packet is 469 pages long. I HAVE READ EVERY WORD OF IT (that’s right, all 469 pages).
My short response to the legal documents I read is: “Holy sh*t!!!!”
My longer response is that I now understand why, in a City with a large Jewish population, we have had so many anti-Semitic incidents in and around the schools. The students are being misled about Jews, Israelis and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by a poorly-constructed curriculum and some biased teachers.
Even if Newton residents don’t care about anti-Semitism, they should care that MANY of the “facts” that are being taught in this curriculum are INCORRECT. In addition, many facts which would provide a more balanced and realistic picture of what is going on in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are being omitted. This leaves the kids with a very one-sided, inaccurate view. How would this teach them “critical thinking” as the teachers claimed they were doing?
For example, the curriculum leads the students to believe that Israel is a racist aggressor, who will not make concessions to the poor, downtrodden Palestinians in order to create peace. What is *omitted* is Israel’s many offers of peace and statehood to the Palestinians — all of which were turned down. The omitted peace and statehood offers are as follows: The 1947 U.N. Partition Plan, 1967 at Khartoum, 2000 at Camp David, 2001 at Taba and the 2008 Olmert Plan.
Unfortunately, I can’t provide all of the facts here. (Hopefully, the lawyer will do a good job representing the Jewish parents in their lawsuit.) I can, however, give you a specific example of bias in the curriculum.
According to the documents contained in the lawsuit, one of the Newton South history teachers, who is being sued, believes that religion does not play a part in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As one who has visited the Middle East myself and who knows a great deal about the history of that part of the world, I know that he is wrong.
From the lawsuit: “141. Two years before, on February 13, 2014, Defendant Rinaldi wrote to Defendant Morrill and Defendant Stembridge regarding some of the first outside critical analyses of the South Middle East unit, which had then just been obtained through the 2014 APT Production: Now, in regards to my classroom agendas: This I stand by with no hesitation and no caveats. . . . I don’t believe the [Arab-Israeli] conflict is fundamentally ideological or religious and I think a robust historical analysis would lead us to this conclusion. Our unit today rests upon the question of land and resources. . . APT wants to frame this conflict in terms of a holy war, but we can’t allow this mistruth to be taught in our classrooms.”
As was pointed out in the lawsuit, religion actually plays a significant role in the conflict. The lawsuit provided a document which explains this. It is listed as Exhibit QQ, “Religion and the Israel-Palestinian Conflict: Cause, Consequence, and Cure.” The author is: “Mohamed Galal Mostafa, [who] is a former Egyptian diplomat, and currently a researcher at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University.” (https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/experts/view/Mohamed-Galal-Mostafa)
Here is an excerpt from Mostafa’s paper, refuting the Newton history teacher’s view that religion does not play a role in the conflict:
“The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is driven by several factors: ethnic, national, historical, and religious. This brief essay focuses on the religious dimension of the conflict, which both historical and recent events suggest lies at its core. That much is almost a truism. What is less often appreciated, however, is how much religion impacts the identity of actors implicated in this conflict, the practical issues at stake, and the relevant policies and attitudes — even of non-religious participants on both sides. It follows that religion must also be part of any real solution to this tragic and protracted conflict, in ways a concluding paragraph will very briefly outline.”
The rest of this document can be found here: https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/religion-and-the-israel-palestinian-conflict-cause-consequence-and-cure.
I agree with Casey that Emily Prenner does not have the election in the bag. As a Newton resident and a taxpayer, I am very disappointed with the poor quality of the curriculum being taught in the schools. Too much of the information provided to students comes from the Internet (in this case, primarily from activists). Not enough information given to the students is written by legitimate scholars. If the Israeli-Palestinian conflict curriculum is filled with factual inaccuracies, what else are Newton students being taught that is inaccurate?
If Lev Agranovich is willing to tackle this issue, he has my vote. And, I will even travel to his office, if necessary, to provide my signature on his nomination papers so that he can run for the Ward 5 School Committee seat.
Ubiety: two quotes from your post:
“Like you, I have never had any kids in the Newton Public Schools, so I have no firsthand knowledge of what goes on in the schools.”
“As a Newton resident and a taxpayer, I am very disappointed with the poor quality of the curriculum being taught in the schools.”
If you have no first hand knowledge of what goes on in the schools (fyi – it’s curriculum and instruction) can you explain where you’re getting your information about the quality of the NPS curriculum?
Ubiety’s initial assertion that individuals belonging to certain ethnic or religious groups are inherently more intelligent than others renders the rest of her argument on this topic – and an other topic – meaningless in my book.
I think Emily did excellent work with the equity policy. I know that opinions of the equity policy vary from demographic to demographic, but in my neighborhood and our school almost everyone I speak to is a staunch supporter of the new policy.
Mary, no one is upset about equity among Newton’s elementary kids. The issue is the flawed procedure that the committee and working group has used and the manner in which the group was created. Also at issue is the concept of policing such a tiny amount of the budget that should never have rested on the parents in the first place. We do have a pool of money that’s distributed equally, it’s called taxes. Emily is extremely experienced at bringing the town together in order to raised money for only three schools to be rebuilt. What’s happened here is the opposite of bringing people together. This issue is a sham and red herring. No equity in the middle schools or the high schools because that’s not possible (From David Fleishman himself). This is an elementary school issue only? There should only be elementary school parents working on it. From all the elementary schools. Done. Emily Prenner will not sail easily onto the school committee. Neither will the incumbents.
And let me add, Mary, how offensive and telling it is to say that “I know that opinions of the equity policy vary from demographic to demographic”. You’re actually parroting the divisive party line that this is a case of haves vs. have nots. It’s the flawed math, the flawed research on how funds are used and what they are used on, and the flawed methodology that exemplifies taxation without representation. It’s disgusting to try and take away parental contributions without understanding why they are needed and how they are needed. It’s also disgusting to have a less than competent group making decisions that work against what they are trying to accomplish. The school committee is working with a 300mm+ budget. Parent contributions are a drop in a bucket of funds. I, like many others, watched the televised school committee meeting last week. Did you? Did you hear the treasurer of an elementary school say that due to the equity guidelines that the school would have to spend $11,000 more on tech that the school committee considered necessary? $6,000 or $15,000. Seems like an easy choice until people unfamiliar with finances and school processes get involved. This is only creating discord in a community that could have come together to identify needs instead of creating unnecessary ones. “Demographics” have nothing to do with this. Again, she will not sail through based on the performance of this abysmal group and it’s murky work and findings.
Yikes. What I said must have been weighing heavily on your mind to return two hours later with an angry essay-length comment like that! I’m done here but will say: Go Emily!
This whole issue is weighing on me and others. No one wants to be accused of keeping something away from children and no one wants to do that. But when you zoom in, like I and others have, that’s NOT what’s going on and if we don’t take the time to point out the many details to point that out, we’re left with competing “demographics”. This oversimplification is the problem. All I’m doing is shedding light on the issue and reiterating that there are many eyes on the school committee and on its workings. The upcoming election will be a necessary correction.
As someone who has not followed the details on this, is there a link to the document that details the charges against the NPS?
I know the NPS has categorically dismissed the accusations. Presumably, the NPS has a document that refutes all the specific charges. Is there such a document? Is there a link?
@Tricia wrote: “Ubiety’s initial assertion that individuals belonging to certain ethnic or religious groups are inherently more intelligent than others renders the rest of her argument on this topic – and an other topic – meaningless in my book.”
Tricia, you proved me right about how less-intelligent people are unable to understand the concepts involved in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
I did not say anything about one ethnic or religious group being more intelligent than another. YOU MISUNDERSTOOD. I pointed out that among the Jewish people there are many who are very intelligent and scholarly (That is why they have made so many major contributions to Human Civilization, for which they have won a high number of Nobel Prizes.).
Not only did you misunderstand what I said, but you then proceeded to DISMISS all of the TRUE STATEMENTS I made about the problems with Newton’s Israeli-Palestinian conflict curriculum because of your interpretation of my statement about intelligent, scholarly Jews.
Your comment demonstrates low intelligence. And, a mindset similar to yours seems to be driving the Newton school curriculum. I would like to see more intelligent people on the School Committee, who will look at facts, and who will use logic and reason to evaluate those facts.
I know that the Israeli-Palestinian curriculum is wrong because I read the actual material that is given to the students as part of their Middle East course. The course material was requested by people associated with those who filed the lawsuit (as part of an FOIA request).
What you did with respect to my comment is exactly what the Newton Administrators and teachers (and parents) did with respect to their Middle East curriculum. They called the Jewish group who complained a “hate group” instead of weighing the facts the group presented.
I took the opposite approach. Due to the track record of Jewish people in being right with respect to research and scholarship, I assumed that what they said was true and then proceeded to review the evidence they presented in their lawsuit.
It’s unfortunate for the Newton students that there are more less-intelligent people than highly-intelligent people looking out for their interests.
@ubiety – Yikes!
@Jane Frantz wrote: “If you have no first hand knowledge of what goes on in the schools (fyi – it’s curriculum and instruction) can you explain where you’re getting your information about the quality of the NPS curriculum?”
Jane, I have already explained this, but I will reiterate.
I only have knowledge of and am only speaking about the Middle East curriculum that the Jewish parents complained about. The people who complained about the bias in the curriculum made several Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for the actual learning materials the students were given in the Middle East curriculum. Several groups have been involved in obtaining the materials. I do not know any of the people who run these groups, however, I have downloaded and read the documents they obtained from the Newton Public Schools.
Among the documents they requested are lesson plans, assignments, actual texts of teaching materials and e-mails exchanged among the teachers and administrators about the curriculum and how they planned to teach it. Much of this is explained (and copies of the documents are provided) in the lawsuit filed by the parents in March 2019. The plaintiffs provided 496 pages consisting of their complaint and supporting documents, many directly from the curriculum, which they are using to prove their case. Given that there are numerous factual inaccuracies in the Middle East materials the students have been given, I was WONDERING whether there were inaccuracies in other areas of the school curriculum.
I would like some reassurance that someone with scholarly/educational credentials is fact-checking and reviewing the Newton school curriculum teaching materials (including what is provided by way of instruction) for accuracy. In the case of the Middle East curriculum, this does not appear to have happened.
I hope this answers your question. If you know anything about how the curriculum is reviewed and whether the problematic Middle East curriculum is an isolated incident, please let me know.
@Jeffrey Pontiff
The original download link for the lawsuit is no longer active. However, you can view the entire amended complaint and exhibits online at the following URL:
https://www.scribd.com/document/403845866/First-Amended-Complaint-and-Exhibits
I’m fairly certain you can view this document online for free, but to *download* it, you may have to sign up for a Scribd account. (Scribd offers a 30-day free trial during which you can read unlimited books, audiobooks, magazines and documents from their collection).
If for some reason you want to view the original complaint from 3/11/2019, you can view it here:
https://www.scribd.com/document/402383317/Newton-Complaint
Also, if you have access to a Law Library, you should be able to look up the case number there (Dechter et al v. City of Newton School Committee et al).
COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS THE TRIAL COURT
MIDDLESEX, SS
SUPERIOR COURT DEPARTMENT CIVIL ACTION No. 1981-CV-00692.
As far as a reply from the NPS refuting the charges, I have not seen such a document. You can check the court docket for this case to see what the NPS has submitted there.
It’s unfortunate we’re going to have to listen to these baseless charges and fear mongering for the next election cycle. Ubiety, this Zionist Jew thinks you’ve made the case for critical thinking in our curriculum all too well.