The price of separatist schools

Last Updated: 1:47 AM, March 16, 2010

Posted: March 16, 2010

Comments: 29

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Does a radical Muslim have a right to head a New York City public school? The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission seems to think so.

That panel ruled last week that city officials discriminated against Debbie Almontaser when they forced her out as principal of the taxpayer-funded madrassa she helped found.

Yet the Khalil Gibran International Academy, which is billed as an Arabic-themed public school, was a bad idea from the start -- and Almontaser was an even worse choice to lead it.

As The Post reported in 2007, Almontaser served as spokesman for an organization that shared office space with an Arab group that hawked T-shirts bearing the slogan "Intifada NYC" -- an apparent reference to the bloody Palestinian terror campaign against Israeli civilians.

Christopher Sadowski

Debbie Almontaser.

Incredibly, Almontaser defended the shirts, claiming that "intifada" was really just an Arabic word for "shaking off."

Never mind, as The Post also reported, that the group's co-founders were members of an outfit that advocates the elimination of the Jewish state.

At best, in other words, Almontaser -- a self-styled "moderate" -- was willfully blind to the reality of Islamic terror and has no business teaching city schoolkids for that reason alone.

More likely, she played the folks at the Education Department for fools.

The city, to its credit, has vowed to appeal the EEOC ruling, which is nonbinding for now.

But it deserves full blame for agreeing to segregate students in such a school in the first place: After all, the purpose of public education has always been, in part, to instill the next generation with a sense of shared citizenship.

Khalil Gibran is one of several public schools devoted to cloistering kids.

That's entirely inappropriate, and it leaves city schools especially vulnerable to dangerous frauds like Almontaser.

Just close it, already.

Have an opinion on this Post editorial? Send it in to LETTERS@NYPOST.COM!

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Comments (32)

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Lou_(bx67)

03/17/2010 8:02 AM

Why not just rip up the Constitution, declare Shia Law the law of the land, surrender ourselves to the muslims, and get it over with now?
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DAR

03/16/2010 6:30 PM

Why shouldn't she be allowed to head that school? Obaba is allowed to be our president, isn't he? These clowns are turning a once great and proud nation into a disgusting, pathetic joke.
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Ed Greenspan

03/16/2010 3:24 PM

The Department of Education will love Almontaser. She will begin to harass teachers-those Caucasian and of the Jewish persuasion can forget it.
May I add that there is no exam now required to become a supervisor. You take your Administrative Credits, you mail a copy of the transcript to Albany and presto-you're a supervisor!!!!!!
Imagine if other ethnic groups demanded schools with emphasis on their cultures. Let's start a Hebrew school now! Yeah right!
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Ed Greenspan

03/16/2010 3:19 PM

I taught in the N.Y.C. school system for 32 years. In 1984, my outstanding principal retired and was replaced by a Muslim nun. Things went downhill very quickly as everyone tried desperately to get out of the school. Besides being incompetent, the new principal preached hatred.
We don't need separatist schools. Almontaser knew plenty of hatred but was smart enough to keep quiet about it herself. Let her followers do her dirty work. This woman has no business being a principal in the N.Y.C. school system. Probelm is that we have plenty of principals out there who never taught one day and are now supervising teachers.
Years ago, you had to take an exam to become a supervisor in the N.Y.C. school system. This followed years of service in the classroom.
I lived through a Muslim as a principal and I sincerely hope that others don't have to be subjected to something similar. These people can give courses in Hatred 1.1
District 17 Survivor who fled to another district.
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Uncommon Sense

03/16/2010 3:04 PM

Classic NYC nonsense. It is alright to set up a public school like this, probably at soem ridiculous price like $25K per student per year, but it is wrong to give parents the choice to take their education dollars and spend them to educate their children at established, high quality parochial schools for half what the NY DOE average cost per pupil.
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landon

03/16/2010 2:37 PM

Intifada means shaking off? Intifada Debbie Almontaser.
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MacCane

03/16/2010 10:30 AM

Whatever happened to saying NO? Folks with no backbone, most media with no integrity to US, politicians who,,,,arggh!
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gogiantsgo

03/16/2010 10:29 AM

Muslims are not the problem - is the right wing fools.