Albany, where the one true religion is political expediency, is on the cusp of weakening state oversight of religious schools, including Hasidic yeshivas where thousands of kids get scant education in the basics. That would be a shanda.
Typical of the state Capitol, this is happening not in the light of day but in behind-closed-doors negotiations. If it happens, it’ll be because it got slipped into the uber-mega-must-pass omnibus bill that is the state budget, not hashed out in an intelligent and open process. Double shanda.
New York is a free society — and, we’re proud to say, home to more Jews than anywhere outside of Israel — parents have a right to send their children to private schools, including religious ones. That’s an essential right all should work hard to protect, no matter what faith we’re talking about.
But this is also a society that protects children from neglect, including educational neglect, which means that all schools, including religious ones, have a concomitant responsibility to give kids the foundational secular knowledge and skills they need to succeed in society.
And for those who interrupt this conversation to shout “but some public schools fail!”, we say: Don’t change the subject; district-run and charter schools are already regulated every which way. Religious schools benefit from taxpayer money; we have a shared obligation to ensure that they give kids at least a rudimentary grounding in the basics.
For years, dozens of ultra-Orthodox yeshivas have failed that test, even as many others have easily passed it. Yet when the state has stepped in to try to help youngsters by requiring a modicum of educational accountability by the schools, there have been strenuous efforts to undermine that oversight.
At issue today are regulations passed in 2022 which tried to make good on a requirement long in state law that private schools must provide instruction that is “substantially equivalent” to that of public schools. Starting in December 2023, the schools were going to have to begin offering ample instruction in English, math, science and history — and establish a process for state and local authorities to review their progress.
If and when the government established that obligations weren’t being met, consequences would kick in, including the possible loss of taxpayer funding. A related state law taking effect at the end of June would begin withholding state money from schools that fall short of the “substantial equivalency” standard. Earlier this year, the state Education Department announced it was yanking funding from several Brooklyn-based yeshivas for persistent failure to meet the standards, established through a six-year-long investigation.
All of which amounts to real progress on a problem far too long ignored. Progress that’s now at risk of unraveling.
Proposals getting passed around back rooms would lower the criteria for compliance, delay enforcement and potentially diminish or postpone repercussions for noncompliant schools. In other words, surgically remove each and every tooth from those long-overdue rules and regulations.
Protect religious education. Protect the kids who get it. Don’t let schools that systematically fail their kids keep on miseducating children by the thousands.
