Empowering the government to micromanage nonpublic education would homogenize all schools, and there would be no escaping the dominant educational culture.
Empowering the government to micromanage nonpublic education would homogenize all schools, and there would be no escaping the dominant educational culture.
A s a new school year beckons, do you trust education bureaucrats? Post-pandemic, many Americans consider the individuals behind extended school closures and massive learning loss discredited. The New York City Department of Education (DOE) in particular has inflated graduation rates by lowering its standards, while shedding 14 percent of its students since 2019. Yet that same institution judges Hasidic yeshivas, diverting attention from its own failings.
It’s not surprising DOE finds (at least) some yeshivas lacking, given their wildly different worldviews. However, understanding how and why DOE found fault with certain schools reveals its priorities and willingness to flex its muscle against a disfavored group.
Its judgments stem from a 2015 complaint naming 39 yeshivas. That list shrank to 28 after the city determined that one cited yeshiva was a butcher shop, another a nutrition center, and a third was the Chabad Lubavitch worldwide headquarters. Some schools were outside the scope, serving students in preschool or beyond high school. Others had ceased operating. Still, the investigation continued.
The city met the June 30 deadline that Betty Rosa, commissioner of education of New York State, imposed in January, following the state’s defining substantial equivalency — that is, a “sound, basic education” for nonpublic-school students — last September. However, the implementation guidance that the New York State Education Department (NYSED) promised for last winter wasn’t published until July 28. Notably, there was no extension. DOE didn’t respond to two emails asking whether it had requested an extension, nor did NYSED respond to two emails asking whether it would have granted one.
On June 30, New York yeshiva parents learned from secular publications, including the New York Times, that DOE had concluded its yearslong investigation into 25 New York City yeshivas. Remarkably, a DOE spokesperson said that nine Haredi (traditionally Orthodox) publications were not notified because they hadn’t asked.
The Times claimed that 18 yeshivas don’t offer “an adequate secular education,” but, in keeping with their yeshiva series, that’s not quite right. DOE concluded four yeshivas were “not providing substantially equivalent instruction” and recommended that Commissioner Rosa declare likewise for 14 others. Rosa makes those determinations because of the Felder amendment to New York State education statutes that governs nonprofit, bilingual schools with extended hours.
In a statement, DOE’s spokesperson said the department “performed a thorough, fair review” and that its “goal is to educate children, not to punish the adults.” However, completing investigations without implementation guidance undermines both the appearance of fairness and trust in conclusions.
According to last year’s revisions to state regulations, reviews should be “informed by and respectful of the cultural and religious beliefs and educational philosophy . . . in nonpublic schools.” Additionally, “instructional programs in nonpublic schools need not demonstrate perfect congruence between public and nonpublic school instruction.”
DOE’s reviews convey neither respect nor an understanding of yeshiva education. Rather, they highlight that yeshivas fail at being public schools.
The letters to four yeshivas deemed not to be providing substantially equivalent instruction say they did “not satisfy the requirements of any of the [substantial equivalency] pathways.” Neither DOE nor NYSED explained whether the yeshivas were asked to identify preferred pathways, but last September, NYSED officially granted schools until December 2023 to specify them.
Insufficient documentation and DOE’s distrust of submitted documentation are recurrent themes. For instance, one yeshiva reportedly submitted a ninth-grade-curriculum synopsis, along with a “list of ‘skills’ and ‘standards’” but no “curriculum map or scope and sequence.” Further, the principal’s calling a DOE visit “premature” (as NYSED settled “the meaning and mechanisms for satisfying substantial equivalence”) and questioning a visit’s appropriateness while a related legal challenge unfolded is judged a “refusal to cooperate.” Alternatively, the principal was protecting this yeshiva from arbitrary judgments.
Another yeshiva allegedly didn’t prove it taught “patriotism and citizenship” as described in submitted documentation. The school reportedly submitted identical math materials in 2019 and 2021, but curricula don’t constantly change. And while DOE observed a math class, it disapproved, because the yeshiva provided neither “sample lesson plans, curriculum maps, or a scope and sequence” nor “evidence demonstrating which math assessments . . . are used in each grade to measure and document student progress.”
A third yeshiva was docked for teaching secular topics such as supply chains during Judaic studies: Without connecting “subject matter content and alignment to standards,” that did “not constitute instruction in a required subject.” The yeshiva’s materials showing “they teach safety when crossing streets or riding in vehicles” were also dismissed as “not sufficient.”
Finally, and most egregiously, one letter addressed two schools at the same address, complaining that “the school’s failure to respond prevented the DOE from obtaining information about whether the school closed or merely changed its name.” DOE clearly didn’t trust a Parents for Educational and Religious Liberty in Schools (PEARLS) email referencing NYSED’s online schools database; the first yeshiva isn’t listed, but the second was established in July 2019, shortly after DOE’s only site visit. DOE doesn’t report asking NYSED for clarification. Still, unsure whom they were evaluating, DOE flunked the new yeshiva.
DOE’s chancellor closes the letters by offering to work collaboratively on improvement, but that’s unlikely. The four letters radiate bureaucratic rigidity and foregone conclusions.
If Hasidic parents wanted their children in New York City public schools, where a majority of students can’t read proficiently, Hasidic children would be there. They are not.
Yeshiva parents know they face hostile forces, eager to overhaul their way of life. But other Americans with unfashionable values should consider this campaign against yeshivas a warning. Empowering the government to micromanage religious and other nonpublic education would homogenize all schools, and there would be no escaping the dominant educational culture.