The New York Board of Regents passed new rules Tuesday to tighten regulation over private schools, requiring them to begin the process of meeting state standards by December 2023.
The regulations require private schools to offer an education “substantially equivalent” to that at public schools, and the board voted unanimously and without debate.
The state board action comes after years of complaints that thousands of children are graduating from ultra-Orthodox Jewish schools lacking basic academic skills, including the ability to read English.
The rules apply to all of New York’s 1,800 nonpublic schools but would have the greatest impact on the ultra-Orthodox schools, called yeshivas, some of which provide rigorous religious instruction but little or no teaching in secular subjects like English, math, science and history.
The schools could face the loss of public funding if they are found to be failing to provide children with a basic nonreligious education.
The government is way to involved in our lives
Schools are welcome to not receive funding from the government; the government will thereby not meddle with the curriculum. Unless I’m wrong?
These schools can either comply with the laws or they can find their own source of funding. It’s not okay for them to act like they’re above the law yet still somehow entitled to benefits.
These rules apply to every school funding or no funding.
You may have a point in a sense, but perhaps the community who by these policies don’t receive funding in education, should get tax exemptions for lack of returns in our contribution, and the government should just leave us alone… Joking they won’t. The point of these policies against Jewish religious and private schools are not to “lower government spending”, the public school system is magnitudes more draining in government funds. the point is to dissolve any education other than the government backed agenda of anti G-d, socialist, subservient indoctrination, just like the Maskilim and Soviets who killed hundreds of… Read more »
The if the gov can fund all of the shtusim that they implant on public schools then certainly they can find this.
Education is society’s investment in future taxpayers . Without basic skills , people end up costing more , in terms of welfare benefits .
No taxation without representation
Your representation is your vote during elections .
A part of our taxes go towards Public School.
It’s only right that we get to enjoy some of it.
Some of it? A tip in the bucket! The government spends about $25,000 per student in public schools. Who pays for it? All of us! yes, even those of receiving tax returns. Every homeowner in CH, Boro Park, Williamsburg etc. pays property tax. (Tenants pay rent to their landlords who pay the property tax, those who live in buildings pay rent to their landlords who pay huge portions of the rents received to property tax). Every time we shop in a store or on Amazon we pay close to 9% tax! Private schools receive under $1,000-2,500 per student! Every child… Read more »
Don’t forget – the value of the usd gets lower every year due to the gov overspending. So even if you didn’t pay taxes, you still are paying for the gov spending.
It’s your choice to send your child to a private school.
This country operates under the system of a separation of church and state, thank Gd, so the public should not be funding a private school as long as the law remains fair and equal.
Public school is one of the greatest assets of this country and we should all be happy to pay taxes towards it.
The “separation of church and state” is a wicked doctrine that does not appear even once in the constitution, and was introduced into US jurisprudence by Justice Hugo Black, who was a leader of the Ku Klux Klan. If the public decide to fund education, they should fund ALL education equally. Parents should be given vouchers to use at whichever school they see fit, and the government has no business interfering in the curriculum. So long as a school is turning out decent, productive citizens, it makes no difference what subjects it teaches or how it teaches them. It is… Read more »
You wouldn’t last five minutes in one of NYC ‘s public schools
Read the actual Constitution. Not a word in there about “separation of church and state.” Just about “establishment of religion,” which providing funds to a religious school is not. This used to be understood until militant atheists came and wrecked it.
This summer, Supreme Court Struck Down Maine’s Unconstitutional Tuition Program For Excluding Faith-Based Schools. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a Maine government program that only granted tuition aid to parents who sent their children to a pre-approved private school without any religious affiliation is unconstitutional.
And get a fine, or possibly go to prison
The right choice Is the goverment giving school vouchers that every parent can choose what school to send their kid
Like albama arizona florida
With out the goverment medeling in with they need to teach
the ignorance here is laughable. any funding our schools currently get is non education related. for example the lunch program is for every child in NY even when school is out of session. its solely so poor children get food to eat. so is all the rest of funding they receive, all for side purposes.
its like revoking a poor persons welfare because their not sending their kids to school. so you’re point is just ignorant superficial and laughable.
so well written and to the point, kudos!
This has absolutely nothing to do with funding. Even if a cheder were to refuse to take one penny from the government it would make no difference whatsoever. The regulations would apply and be enforced exactly the same. This is not dinei mamonos, it’s dinei nefashos; the government doesn’t want our money, it wants our children’s souls. It is no different from the Yevsektzia. And just as we defied the Yevsektzia we must also defy the NY government.
Try not to prove them right
A lack of education is nothing to laugh at, but this is just too good.
I think you mean to say “too involved”. (Not “to”) “Too” is an adverb. It can be used to replace words such as “excessively”, “additionally”, “as well” or “also”. “To”, on the other hand, is a versatile preposition that can be used in various situations and contexts. It’s used to indicate a direction, like “toward” and “until”.
the kind of useful stuff they teach in secular studies.
Did you understand the meaning? Was it at all unclear? With all of the text-to-speech, phone keyboards, etc., typos are here to stay.
That’s the kind of stuff they _used to_ teach in secular studies. Nowadays they consider any “variety” of English just as good as any other, as you’d easily see if you visit any inner-city public school.
The word “the” on the last line needs to have a capital “T”. Practice what you preach.
As a graduate of a yeshiva, I must point out that the “(Not “to”)” should not have had parentheses, nor should the word “Not” be capitalized. In addition, the period should have been after the “(Not “to”). The final sentence is missing a capital letter on the “t” – unless you meant to add it on to the previous sentence, in which case a dash would have sufficed. You’re welcome.
I know plenty of people that had secular studies but not great grammar…..
But your knowledge of grammar won’t fix a leaky toilet or grow the food you need to eat. It’s only useful for making you feel smart and superior when you’re really not.
You have positioned your closing quotation marks incorrectly according to the rules of English grammar. Closing quotation marks are meant to go AFTER the commas and periods like “this.”
I went to Oholei Torah and apparently my grammar is better than the “grammar police” here.
Yeshiva graduates are much more likely to be lawyers doctors and successful businessmen m, (+shluchim, rabbonim, school administrators etc.) – than graduates of the failing NYC public school system, which waists nearly 30k of tax dollars per student each year.
We were all warned but still voted for dems
It has nothing to do with voting for dems. The board of regents are not elected officials and the dems have always supported yeshivas.
move to better states now while you still can and while they are still affordable
There is no other state where yeshivas can get away with no English
Hopefully these schools will step it up now that they risk losing funding.
Or maybe you should start paying tuition..
Instead of learning to solve problems through dialog and innovation, people turn to the force of government without realizing that there isnt a single government program that isn’t corrupt, inept, and bound to fail. Its a structural problem with non-competitive markets. You don’t get your freedoms back without a revolution of some sort, so this is the beginning of the end of educational autonomy. Pretty soon, we will be like the UK and USSR, hiding curriculums, playing games with testing, spending additional resources just to deal with the ever-increasing bureaucracy. Good job folks. I guess that’s the price you pay… Read more »
Some other people made this point, but it deserves to be echoed: if you know anything about Jewish history, you know that nothing good comes from getting the government involved in our religious lives. There’s an argument to be made for more secular studies, there’s an argument to be made for less secular studies, but God help us all there’s no argument to be made for more government involvement in our schools. As for government funding, most of it comes now in the form of extremely specific programs like hot lunches and approved textbooks, New York state doesn’t pay for… Read more »
Thank you @Government! This is the most relevant comment that gets to the heart of the issue. Nothing good ever came from the government mixing in to our religious lives or education. So many of our history’s darkest times came from people wanting change and bringing in the government to enforce those. (Who brought in the Romans? who encouraged the communist government to meddle with Jewish education etc. etc.). This is why our Rebbeim and many Gedolei Yisrael put their life at risk to reject any government interference in our schools, even when there were valid concerns and valid areas… Read more »
If they won’t fund my school, do I have to pay real estate taxes that go towards education?
Yes and income taxes too . If you never called the fire department , you still have to pay .
Does the fire department announce in advance that they won’t come to your house should that be necessary?
Well, here we’re being told that our schools are illegitimate and won’t receive funding.
I cry for the Jewish children in public schools. They don’t know how to daven. They don’t know Torah. Who knows what they are taught and exposed to! Who cares that they know English and math? They don’t know Judaism!
There is no equivalency. Pure Torah education is necessary.
I cry for my grandchildren and others like them who are not in a Jewish school.
So let’s try again # 1 get rid of the democrats stop dancing around then like the askonim here in crown heights well look where it got us and let’s all come together and try something lot’s of us here didn’t do ever vote for a republican by the name of Lee zeldin for governor and put in republican da and let’s try and chance things
We will be here long after they and their policies against us are history. We’ve been around for over 2000 years while mighty empires failed and we don’t plan on quitting anytime soon.
They want our schools to be like theirs- turning a great deal of ignorant, purposeless, often drug addicted ‘students’ who often bring illegal guns to school, and are concerned only with their ‘rights’ instead of the will to serve. No thank you.
Guns are not the problem.
Gun safety should be taught in schools.
But the kind of kids who bring guns to public schools are the problem.
That’s racist!
When you lie with dogs you get fleas. It was a terrible idea collude with them when the Bill to remove the religious exemption was being decided!
That was not about curriculum, it was about basic safety. And that is a legitimate government function. Schools should not be forced to accept students who are spreading disease, just because their parents have some cockamamie religion that objects to vaccines. (We are NOT talking about the Wuhan shot here.)
There are not any conditions placed in halacha for a child to learn Torah! The” science “you stated to is factually incorrect. A healthy asymptomatic person can not pass an illness that they dont have! People are literally rewriting halacha ..Medical mandates are NOT a condition placed on a yid to daven in shul, learn in groups etc. You were careful to make the distinction between one vaccine and another, as to justify one being “acceptable” to decline and the other not. No it doesn’t work like that!
This law entails that a 3 year be injected with a annual flu shot to attend cheder!!! How many ADULTS even take this year and after ? How can you or any ” frum” yid stand behind such tuma like this? And then you complain about the circumstances today!!
If the gov can fund either directly or indirectly every other leftist cause that diminishes and demoralizes our generation then surely they should fund these religious schools.
Taxes go towards so many amazing things. I never understand why some people are so greedy with their money and panic when they have to pay taxes towards the fire department, libraries, infrastructure, or education for children. These are good things that this country provides for all citizens. Of course taxes can sometimes be a significant part of your paycheck, but just remember all the benefits we get from participating in what makes this country great. America has countless flaws, but educating children for free is not one of them. As for private schools – because they are private, and… Read more »
Have you read the Supreme Court decision of the Maine Vouchers?
and find where it says “separation of church and state.” Hint: nowhere. Funding religious schools isn’t a violation of that; establishing a state religion would be, which this is not. Stop getting your understanding of things from atheists like Madalyn Murray O’Hair.
Have you not received the weekly food boxes given and actually delivered over the summer?
Don’t mix up child food programs and government funding..
The vast majority of taxes go to things that give us no benefit at all. And it is wrong to tax someone more than the benefit they get from it. To do so is THEFT, which according to the Torah is a capital crime.
Don’t go to the education of our children…
Learning subjects that are not literally “Torah” isn’t contradictory to be frum or chassidish. Some of the greatest Jewish Rabbis and thinkers ever had incredible secular educations. The Rambam, Ibn Ezra, and many more were educated in Muslim and Christian institutions, let alone secular. There was a time when the biggest Rabbis were also doctors and secular scholars. What happened?
They learned those as adults, not as cheder children.
It’s ignorant to think it’s possible to learn those things as an adult without receiving an education as a child. How many doctors have come from oholei Torah in the last 20 years. 0? 1?
My husband who learned in OT for Yeshiva is a board-certified surgeon so…
Does one have to be a doctor to be successful? And if you’re going to argue that the world needs doctors – why, then, they can come from the 99.75% of humanity that don’t have the mitzvah of learning Torah, not from the 0.25% (the total worldwide Jewish population) that do.
You have obviously never learned ch 8 of Tanya
For all the people here going on and on about voting republican and not democrat: the only candidate for governor who opposed yeshivos was Curtis Sliwa, a republican.
The curriculum will be “taught” in whichever way the schools decide. The kids then fail the state testing. Then what? Everyone gets arrested? Lol honestly ppl will find ways worked this and so as they wish unless they start telling schools who to hire.
That is the goal here. To arrest people, or take their children away and force them to attend secular indoctrination schools, just like in the USSR.
He will stop all this if you would just vote Republican.
Looks like antiochus is back
When my father was in Lubavitcher yeshivah Ocean parkway he received a full secular education ALONG with a Judaic one! When I was in Lubavitcher yeshivah crown street and chovevei Torah mesivtah (also legally called Lubavitcher high school) we received barely and hour and a half of “English studies a day four days a week and barely that many times. If there was something happening that day the school would take of time from the little time of secular studies we had and when we did have “English” class it was a joke and we barely took any regents let… Read more »
The exclamation point is never needed if you write clearly enough. You can get your point across without shouting at us.
I’m 18 and all that garbage you wrote is LITERALLY GARBAGE! NEARLY EVERYONE MY AGE AGREES WITH ME! I suggest maybe wait one more year, learn chassidus, the Rebbe’s sichos, and farbreng a bit, and maybe with G-ds help you’ll find yourself
Will have a good nap during lessons and then go home.they can’t force anyone to pass tests.public school students do not pass test.
Well, if the Jewish and frum communities keep voting for a goyishe way of life , what do they expect? They always are supporting the pathetic Democratic Party, which clearly keep telling everyone they hate Jews and especially religious Jews. The Democratic Party since it’s conception have always been a terrorist group. And before you say I’m crazy, just check history. They killed a president for setting blacks free, and it wasn’t enough they started the KKK, they always voted against black and womens rights, etc etc. we had a great man as a president( Trump) he gave his life… Read more »
Don’t forget antifa and blm , some more terrorist groups the dem party started
What’s the suicide and drug rate in public schools? What abt mental health and depression? Ya ya but Jewish school need to be better at math…
I’m a BT who went to public school in the inner city. Let me tell you, half the kids spoke English, had 0 math skills and couldn’t name 5 presidents. Alternatively when I went to Yeshiva I met Bochurim who went to OT but had the skill of CRITICAL THINKING. When it comes to be a contributing member of society, the Bochurim who could organize mivtzoyim, coordinate shiurim and learn shas are WAY more equipped than the kid in the back of my math class who slept through class high. To this day when I hire Software Engineers I put… Read more »
Beautifully said. Tysm
Thank you for saying this…our education system is way way above substantially equivalent to the public schools in our neighborhood
we all see exactly what the local ps kids and graduates do all day.
Anyone who thinks that this is just a small thing, that all they want is to make sure we learn a bit of math and science, should just learn a bit of Chabad history. The USSR didn’t start by demanding we don’t learn any Jewish subjects. That was not the battle waged by the Rebbe Ra”shab and later the Frierdiker Rebbe, first they demanded to vet our teachers and then started demanding that our teachers get some form of certification… which eventually led to complete control over the schools to the point where any Jewish instruction was eventually banned. But… Read more »