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HERE WE GO AGAIN! NY State Education Proposes New Regulations Of Yeshivas And Other Private Schools


State boasts of input from “stakeholders” such as YAFFED!

The State Education Department just announced that it is advancing new regulations of private schools, requiring local school districts across the State to conduct periodic and regular inspections of all nonpublic schools to determine whether they are substantially equivalent to the local public schools. If they are not, parents will be directed to enroll their children in different schools and funding for the schools will be cut off. The regulations also require local school districts to assess all those who teach at nonpublic schools.

This is the State Education Department’s third recent attempt to regulate nonpublic school. The first effort was declared illegal by the courts and the second was abandoned after being met with an outpouring of outrage and opposition from all across New York State.

These regulations do provide some yeshivas with a path to equivalence if they are “registered” to administer Regents examinations. This can help those yeshivas that have high school programs, but what about all the yeshivas across New York that don’t go beyond 8th grade. They will be at the mercy of the local school districts.

YWN will continue to update you on this major breaking development. For now, we should all be very concerned about New York’s progressive government seeking to assert its control over yeshivas. Once they get their foot in the front door, who knows how far they will try to go.

Part of the press release reads as follows:

Stakeholder Engagement Process

The Department first released guidance for determining the substantial equivalency of instruction of nonpublic schools in November 2018. In April 2019, a court ruled the Department must undergo a rulemaking process. As such, the Department proposed draft regulations in July 2019, which received more than 140,000 public comments. Given the volume of largely negative comments, in February 2020, the Board of Regents directed Department staff to re-engage stakeholders to inform policy decisions related to the substantial equivalence of instruction in nonpublic schools.

In Fall 2020, the Department conducted six regional stakeholder meetings, which were attended by more than 500 people, to gather stakeholder input on substantially equivalent instruction for nonpublic school students.

In May 2021, the Department released a report with a summary of the feedback at the stakeholder meetings. From Fall 2020 to the present, Department staff held over 20 meetings both virtually and in person with groups representing tens of thousands of students to gather their input and feedback into developing draft regulations. These stakeholders included the Commissioner’s Advisory Council for Religious and Independent Schools, Amish school leaders, local Orthodox Jewish groups, public school leaders, including Superintendents, Young Advocates for Fair Education (YAFFED), Parents for Educational and Religious Liberty in Schools (PEARLS), and many other leaders of interested parties. Feedback from these meetings is reflected in the proposed regulations.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)



14 Responses

  1. They aren’t fighting the schools they are fighting a culture. They will never win such a battle. Most parents in the so called chasidishe are very stringent to talk only Yiddish. In many chasidishe schools they wouldn’t even allow a school library. In the litvisher chadorim they are also for the most part happy with their curriculum. As far equivalency with public school do they want equivalency in crime, bulling, dropout rates?

  2. > funding for the schools will be cut off

    Seems that if your school does not get government funding, you don’t have to teach your kid English. If your school gets government funds, then they are paying for English and are entitled to verify that this is happening. Surely, you don’t want to have state of NY to pay for your kid’s Torah and get the schus that you are entitled for this precious mitzva! And for those who would like kids to know how read, write, and count – government supervision might help ensure that it is actually happening.

  3. The public school “education” consists of perverts, abusers and groomers “educating” kids about all kinds of immorality. They will not tell us a word how to educate our children.

  4. We need to be equivalent to public schools and bring pocket knives to school and not know if you’re a man or a woman and have mixed bathrooms and pass the regents 52.3% of the time

  5. > They aren’t fighting the schools they are fighting a culture

    I don’t see how the state is fighting such schools. They are simply saying that NYS government has no interest in paying for those schools. It is not oppressive or offensive. Would you rather them pay for churches also?

  6. AAQ: “Seems that if your school does not get government funding, you don’t have to teach your kid English.”

    Where did you get that idea? It’s not true at all. This has nothing to do with funding, and turning down funding would not save anyone. It would just be stupid and self-harming. Funding for yeshivos is not for English, it’s for buses, lunch, etc.

  7. As usual the comments range from rediculous to inane.
    Maybe this will help.
    1. By law you are required to send your child to public school.
    2. If for whatever reason you decide you don’t want to send your child to public school you may do so as long as the private school provides a substantially equivalent program.
    That is all.
    Nothing to do with future crime rate, knives in school or any other issue.
    If you think you have a right to do what you want then sue. Let the Supreme Court decide Jews are exempt from the educational requirements. It hasn’t happened because it’s a losing case from the start.
    All these boich svaras why we don’t have to follow the law is precisely the reason they are calling for better education.

  8. Is public school education substantially equivalent to Yeshiva education? If a public school student reads a few more books and knows his arithmetic, does that guarantee he’ll come out with Critical Analysis and Reasoning Skills? Does anyone happen to know which university had the highest amount of graduates pass CPA exam the first time (in the whole state of NJ)? (HINT, it’s called BMG and they aren’t “substantially equivalent”)…

  9. Ah yid, what responsibility does the nyc governing body have to fund yeshivas that don’t adhere to their curriculum? To fund a culture that wants nothing to do with secular society? In all fairness, you can’t possibly rely on the finances of the same people you disparage.

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