Once Again, New York is Sticking it to Religious Schools
New York education bureaucrats are rapidly and gleefully ditching standards for what children in public schools should learn. Why then are they increasing their imposition on private yeshivas?
The State Board of Regents has finalized new regulatory oversight of yeshivas, and the standards by which these and other private schools can demonstrate that their education is “substantially equivalent” to what is offered in government-run schools.
The new regulations represent another salvo in a years-long government campaign to address concerns that yeshivas — private Jewish male-only institutions that prioritize religious instruction — do not confer the type of skills or knowledge necessary to compete in the 21st century labor market.
Yeshivas tend to focus on religious instruction at the expense of other subjects. Debates about whether and how to regulate yeshivas get to the heart of complex questions about the limits of educational freedom and government authority to supersede parental rights.
Concern about yeshivas is largely predicated on the assumption that such schools fail to prepare students for economic success. The evidence base for that assertion is notably weak. Plus, it isn’t obvious that new curriculum standards would produce different outcomes.
Hasidic Jews characteristically ascribe greater importance to spiritual richness than material wealth or status, so it is plausible that to whatever degree their earnings might be lower, that it occurs by virtue of choice rather than dearth of opportunity.
The optics of the impending regulations are especially problematic given the assault on standards in public schools. Albany educrats have temporarily lowered the Regents score required for graduation from 65 to 50. The decision is justified by learning loss associated with COVID school closures, but some influential progressives are clamoring to remove stakes from standardized testing altogether. Before the pandemic started former Councilman Mark Treyger was advocating for the State Education Department (SED) to do away with Regents Exams. Shino Tanikawa, appointed to the Board of Regents in April, said testing should not be used for admissions into specialized high schools. Congressman Jamaal Bowman (D-NY-16) flatly declared that “standardized testing is a pillar of systemic racism.”
Directives from Albany notwithstanding, public school officials already operate with the understanding that employees face no accountability for student learning, which is why many are eschewing proven teaching methods in favor of those that feel politically righteous. State officials are also notably silent when curriculum clearly privileges political indoctrination over student learning. In Buffalo, for example, the “associate superintendent of culturally and linguistically responsive initiatives” designed a curriculum that includes “’dismantling cisgender privilege,’ creating ‘queer-affirming network[s] where heteronormative thinking no longer exists,’ and accelerating ‘the disruption of Western nuclear family dynamics.’”
In 2019, only 25% of Buffalo City School District students in grades 3-8 were deemed proficient in English, and 21% proficient in math.
Put differently, New York “learning standards” represent a toothless recommendation with limited oversight and even less accountability. The “substantial equivalency” mandate for private yeshivas threatens to be more forceful and burdensome than the “standards” that exist for the schools that the government itself is tasked with operating.
State officials don’t deserve the benefit of the doubt when it comes to their relationship with orthodox Jews. In October 2020 Governor Cuomo threatened to cut funding to yeshivas that were not compliant with closure orders in so-called “coronavirus cluster zones” despite emerging consternation about the wisdom of shuttering schools. And both Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio scapegoated the community as responsible for spreading COVID-19 while applauding the mass demonstrations that occurred in the wake of the murder of George Floyd.
In a recent academic study, my coauthors and I observed that double standards are a hallmark of antisemitism. Unless New York authorities are ready to get serious about enforcing standards in their own schools, they have no business dictating the affairs of yeshivas.
Dr. Ian Kingsbury is an adjunct fellow at the Empire Center.
