NY state budget weakens oversight of yeshivas in blow to secular education advocates

JTA — New York lawmakers have voted to weaken oversight of yeshiva education as part of the state budget deal struck under Governor Kathy Hochul in late April and approved on Thursday evening.

The outcome represents a dramatic victory for the state’s Hasidic leaders, who have been fighting for more than a decade against efforts to ensure that Hasidic all-boys schools provide at least basic instruction in secular topics such as math, English and science, as required by a century-old state law.

Orthodox state Assemblymember Aron Wieder, who represents a district that includes Hasidic enclaves in Rockland County, praised the legislation as protecting “educational freedom” and ending the unfair targeting of Hasidic schools. His framing of the issue was echoed by a major Hasidic Satmar account on X in a statement celebrating the budget deal.

Hochul reportedly allied with Democratic state lawmakers in districts with large Hasidic concentrations on the changes with an eye to next year’s election. Because the Hasidic community tends to vote as a bloc, it is influential relative to its size and could be critical for Democrats in stemming recent Republican gains in the state.

Under the new legislation, the deadline to comply with state education standards is delayed until the 2032-2033 school year, more than seven years away, and demonstrating compliance is made much easier. Yeshivas will have more power, for example, to pick their own accreditation agencies — potentially even letting Hasidic communities set up agencies tailored to their schools. Schools will also be able to meet the requirements by giving students a year-end exam of some sort, and the state will check how many students took it, but not how well they did.

The changes come despite the opposition of the head of New York’s education department, Betty Rosa, who warned about the impacts of the changes on Hasidic youth in an interview with The New York Times, saying, “We would be truly compromising the future of these young people.”

Members of ultra-Orthodox communities protest before a Board of Regents meeting to vote on new requirements that private schools teach English, math science and history, outside the New York State Education Department Building in Albany, New York, September 12, 2022. (Will Waldron/The Albany Times Union via AP)

It was only a few months ago that Yaffed, a group advocating for secular education in yeshivas, praised state education regulators for launching a crackdown against schools that weren’t complying with requirements that they offer a curriculum that is “substantially equivalent” to that of a public school. The new legislation will undo years of advances on Yaffed’s signature issue.

“The governor and legislature have chosen to ignore the judgment of education professionals and the concerns of families — and in doing so, they are jeopardizing the futures of tens of thousands of children,” Yaffed’s executive director, Adina Mermelstein Konikoff, said in a statement.