New York lawmakers are brokering a deal that would delay and weaken educational requirements for religious schools — a major setback for yeshiva reform advocates who believe all students should receive some secular instruction, the Daily News has learned.
The plan is to include the changes in the next state budget, which is in its final stages more than a month late, according to sources familiar with the negotiations. On Thursday, the state education commissioner, Betty Rosa, called the last-minute effort a “travesty” for students during an interview with The New York Times.
“It’s gutting this whole mechanism that exists for compliance and caring if kids are able to get a basic education,” said Adina Mermelstein Konikoff, executive director of the group Young Advocates for Fair Education.
The New York State Education Department passed regulations in 2022 related to government oversight of private schools. The schools were given multiple ways to show how they were complying with a century-old state law, which requires private schools provide secular instruction at least “substantially equivalent” to that offered at a public school.
The vast majority of private schools, including most yeshivas, are following the law. But the years-long fight came to a head this year when the agency moved to revoke funding from six ultra-Orthodox schools in Brooklyn, seemingly not cooperating with regulators — the initial cohort of which was first reported by the Daily News.
The agency’s Board of Regents is expected to take up the topic at their monthly meeting on Monday.
With the final details of any possible deal still under wraps, some proposals have included extending the deadline for schools to comply with the regulations by as much as eight years, sources said. Others add potentially less rigorous assessments for schools to demonstrate compliance, or allow those with older grades to skip a test entirely if they meet requirements in younger grades, though one source had not heard those specifics.
The most sweeping changes, which have been called for by the Legislature’s Republican leadership, would involve repealing the regulations in the name of parental rights in education and respecting the autonomy of religious schools.
“I have a general rule after 23 years in Albany,” said State Sen. Liz Krueger (D-Manhattan), chair of the finance committee. “If someone comes along at the last second and tries to stuff something into budget negotiations — where there’s been nothing in writing, no opportunity for public review or expert review, and you’re being told, ‘we’ve got to do this to get the budget done’ — whatever that proposal is, it smells to high heaven, and you should run the other way.”
Sources said there appeared to be more enthusiasm for changes in the Assembly than the Senate. The governor’s office did not return a request for comment on Friday afternoon. There is speculation Gov. Hochul could have her own re-election prospects in mind as gubernatorial candidates start to vie for a powerful Hasidic voting bloc.
“It’s three-dimensional chess — with the yeshivas as just a pawn,” said David Bloomfield, a professor of education leadership, law, and policy at Brooklyn College and The CUNY Graduate Center.
