Yeshiva students must have a good education

Adults can’t be allowed religious freedoms that risk becoming prisons for children. Religious leaders can’t expect public monies to fund schools that refuse to teach all the skills students need to flourish. Publicly funded schools must serve the public interest.

But many ultra-Orthodox Jewish children in New York City and Rockland County attend schools that don't provide an appropriate education. Oversight is lax by education officials of an 1895 state law demanding that religious school educations be “substantially equivalent” to what public schools teach. Complicity by politicians dependent on Hasidic votes is endemic and unacceptable. The consequence is a toxic stew for more than 50,000 American-born young adults who cannot speak or write English properly, lack basic math skills, and know little of civics or science or history.

These schools focus almost exclusively on religious studies. Now the Board of Regents, in response to long-known concerns like 100% failure rates on standardized tests in some ultra-Orthodox schools, has approved regulations effective Dec. 1 mandating that instruction in core subjects in all nonpublic schools be in English and that teachers be competent. Compliance could be proved via accrediting agencies, or by demonstrating appropriate teaching to local public school officials.

That’s fine, if oversight happens, but it was the will to protect students that was missing, not regulations. Craven politicians from both parties have courted the ultra-Orthodox voting bloc while refusing to crack down on those yeshivas which are substandard. Both Gov. Kathy Hochul and New York City Mayor Eric Adams have been quiet about the schools while courting those votes. 

Many who stay in their communities once grown have few marketable skills, and their widespread dependence on public assistance is shocking. Many who leave their religious communities are helpless in the secular world. They are often unfit for gainful employment, unable to communicate with most Americans, and bewildered by secular life.

And the schools get millions of taxpayer dollars meant for transportation, social services and secular education programs.

A recent New York Times investigation found just nine schools in the state where fewer than 1% of students tested at grade level in 2019. All were Hasidic schools for boys. Most Hasidic schools for boys in New York City vastly underperform public schools where practically all the students are poor or immigrants who speak little English. This upbringing is all but impossible to escape, forcing people to stay within communities where the restrictive religious lifestyle may be far more constraining than they care for, or to flounder when they leave.

In many parochial schools, teaching religion is key and their faith-based approach is a constitutional right. But in any school, students must learn core subjects — math, English, science, and history — to successfully engage with secular society. That is the promise of public education, with public funds, in America. That is not what's happening in these ultra-Orthodox schools.