Yeshivas could face closure, eventually, if academics fail state reviews

Kimberly Redmond | Rockland/Westchester Journal News

Show Caption Hide Caption Video: New City's Naftuli Moster puts New York yeshiva education in the spotlight Lohud's Nancy Cutler interviews Yeshiva education activist Naftuli Moster, June 12, 2018 in New City.

Private schools that don’t comply with state requests to improve academic instruction as part of a new review process could face sanctions that would, in the worst cases, effectively shut a school.

On Tuesday, the SED issued its long-awaited guidelines on determining whether private schools, particularly Hasidic yeshivas, are complying with state law when it comes to teaching secular academics.

Based on the new standards, schools districts will be required to start conducting substantial equivalency reviews during the 2018-2019 school year of religious and independent schools within their district. The Education Department expects districts to complete initial reviews by Dec. 15, 2021, and to revisit schools on a five-year cycle.

The review process will be slow moving, in part, because there is no additional funding for school districts that have to review private schools.

If a school falls below the mark, they'll be given extra time and assistance towards "achieving substantial equivalency,” State Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia said. However, if the school appears to be making no effort to improve, they put themselves at risk of losing services, such as transportation and textbooks, and the limited state and federal aid they receive, Elia said.

"Then parents would be notified they need to transfer students within a reasonable time frame of six weeks to two months," she said. "If a student remains at the school after that, they'd be considered truant and that's another whole process that gets triggered."

Elia said looking into how to enforce the long-ignored requirement was a two-year process prompted by questions from local public school leaders, who are already charged under state law with reviewing private school curriculum.

"The intent of the reviews are to ensure that all students receive the education they are entitled to," she said. "The process is also an opportunity to build strong relationships between the public and private schools."

Public school districts will not be given any extra funding to complete the reviews, but they will be given training and materials for how to go about the process, Elia said.

According to the commissioner, of the roughly 700 public districts in the state, about 300 have private schools within their boundaries. The majority of those have "at most, maybe one or two," private schools in district, which wouldn't make reviewing them cumbersome, she said.

But districts with a large number of non-public schools will be allowed up to three years to complete evaluations, she said. East Ramapo is home to about 8,500 public-school students and 27,000 private-school students attending over 140 private schools.

East Ramapo Superintendent Deborah Wortham said in a statement: “As a superintendent who oversees the education of 35,000 students, both public and private, we will adhere to the timeline and follow the guidance provided today by Commissioner Elia.”

In recent years, some yeshivas, particularly tradition-bound Hasidic yeshivas, have faced criticism for inadequate schooling on secular subjects. Many high-school boys, in particular, are said to have almost exclusively religious studies.

Natfuli Moster of New City, founder and executive director of Young Advocates for Fair Education or YAFFED, an advocacy group that has pushed the state to enforce existing law on private-school instruction, said in a statement: "Although we are still reviewing NYSED’s guidelines, we have always believed that updated guidelines are an important step toward bringing about useful oversight of secular instruction at ultra-Orthodox yeshivas in New York.”

Meanwhile, yeshiva officials and officials within the Orthodox Jewish community have expressed concern that excessive state involvement with yeshiva instruction would intrude on their religious freedom. Some yeshiva advocates have also said their schools could not make instructional improvements without state aid, but Elia said there would be no state money to help schools comply with the law.

The issue emerged as the final sticking point during budget negotiations in Albany. Simcha Felder, a Democratic state senator from Brooklyn who caucused with the Republican majority, held up the $168 billion budget while seeking to protect yeshivas as the state Education Department reviewed curriculum rules.

OVERSIGHT: Educational equivalency at yeshivas is thorny challenge for SED

LAWSUIT: YAFFED sues for greater yeshiva oversight

Under a last-minute compromise, state law was tweaked to require the state to consider a yeshiva's full curriculums. This change also gave the commissioner final say over whether certain private schools, namely yeshivas, are offering substantially equivalent academic instruction.

In response, YAFFED sued the state. The group argued that the amended law is not only unconstitutional but also guarantees that one of the metropolitan area’s fastest growing student populations will continue to receive “a sub-standard secular education.”

According to Moster, the federal lawsuit remains active.

What'll be examined

“Substantial equivalency,” the state Education Department says, means that private-school instruction “is comparable in content and educational experience” to public-school instruction, but “may differ in method of delivery and format."

The state will provide training for school districts, as well as non-public school leaders, on how to perform objective assessments that are, Elia said, done in a respectful, mindful, consistent and objective way. Additionally, schools may reach out to their local BOCES to help conduct the reviews, SED said.

According to a newly-updated state toolkit, areas of private-school curriculum to be examined include:

Is there a framework for core academic subjects like English language arts, math, science and social studies.

Are core academic subjects taught in English?

Is there a process to evaluate if students are making academic progress from grade to grade?

Do schools provide citizenship classes, character education, health education and English instruction on “common branch subjects” to students with limited English proficiency?

Other reviews include: building safety, calendar, attendance, teacher competence, whether the school conducts state-mandated emergency drills, fire inspection reports and if enrolled students meet immunization requirements.