State Education Department Receives More Than 135,000 Comments Opposing Proposed Regulations Of Private Schools

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New York State Education Building (Courtesy: Wikimedia Commons)

New York – Over summer break, more than 135,000 parents, alumni, educators and supporters of private education in New York submitted comments to the State Education Department expressing opposition to the proposed “substantial equivalency” regulations and urging that they be withdrawn.

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Since 1894, parents in New York have been authorized by statute to enroll their children in private schools that provide instruction that is “substantially equivalent” to that of the local public schools. The State Education Department is seeking to reinterpret that standard by requiring all private schools in New York to adopt the same curriculum and teach the same courses as are taught in the public schools. The proposed regulations contain a list of a dozen subjects that must be taught in all private elementary schools, and even prescribe the length of time they must be taught in several grades.

An extraordinarily diverse coalition of schools and organizations have opposed the proposed regulations, including the Catholic School Superintendents overseeing all 535 Catholic schools in New York, the New York State Association of Independent Schools, the umbrella group speaking for more than 200 Independent schools in New York, the Council for American Private Education and the New York State School Boards Association. The latter is particularly significant, because the proposed regulations require the local school boards to implement and enforce them.

New York’s Jewish school community also vigorously opposed the regulations. Public comments in opposition to the regulations were submitted by Agudath Israel of America, the Orthodox Union, Torah Umesorah – the National Society for Hebrew Day Schools, the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, and the United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburg, among others.

According to Rabbi David Zwiebel, Executive Vice President of Agudath Israel of America and a member of the executive committee of PEARLS, “the proposed new regulations pose an ominous threat to our yeshiva community. In many schools, the adjustments required by the regulations would be so substantial that the schools would be unable to carry out the missions for which they were founded, and for which parents choose such schools for their children.” Rabbi Zwiebel noted that “The yeshiva plays the central role in helping children attain the true measure of real success -that they lead their lives as G-d fearing observant Jews, imbued with refined Jewish character traits and ethical norms; that they know the history of their people and identify with the historic mission of their people.”

“The proposed regulations are unnecessary, unwarranted and un-American” said Rabbi David Niederman, President of the UJO of Williamsburg and a member of the executive committee of PEARLS. “They replace the choices and priorities of parents with dictates from Albany. Parents who have chosen Yeshiva education for their children want them to have an education based on the Torah and Jewish texts that have been studied for millenia, is informed by Jewish morality and is focused on Jewish values.” Rabbi Niederman added that “parents who want their children to follow a curriculum devised by New York State are free to send them to public schools. Hard working Yeshiva parents dig deep into their own pockets to ensure their children receive an education that reflects their religion, values and goals, and will not deviate from that.”

The State Education Department is required by law to review and respond to each of the comments submitted.


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Maven
Maven
4 years ago

Moster should know better that we Torah observant Jews will not change and move away from our way of life a tiny bit.
We had the same problem when Bloomberg wanted to ban Metzitzah B’peh.
We are extremely stubborn when it comes to Torah Umitzvot.
We do not want to become lawyers,doctors, scientist,biologist etc etc. We are perfectly happy the way we are.

Maven
Maven
4 years ago

I mentioned the money part because Moster makes it an issue that we cant find proper jobs because we are “uneducated”

Conservative Carl
4 years ago

There are some yeshivas that do not offer an adequate education. Those yeshivas were already in violation of existing regulations; the new regulations were designed to target and punish the yeshivas that do offer a good education.

ah yid
ah yid
4 years ago

To conservative Carl. You write, There are some yeshivas that do not offer an adequate education. This is False. I have substituted in both chasidish and litvish yeshivas. The only difference between them is the Chasidishe yeshivos have secular studies for 1.5 – 2 hours and the litvisha yeshivos have 2.5 – 3 hours. This sounds like a lot but it’s not really. Both types of yeshivos learn math and language arts. In fact, they even use the same textbooks. The difference is the litvishe yeshvos use the extra 1.5 hours to learn science and history as a subject with textbooks. The chasidishe yeshivos learn history and science through school or class projects. Second, you don’t call limudai kodesh an adequate education? To learn chumash and gemara you need higher-level thinking skills. If you went to yeshiva you know that every young man in bais medrish are encouraged to write scholarly torah articles. Where do they learn the skills to do this? Its true language is an issue, but that is a community issue, not a school issue. SED oversight is not going to make the homes to speak English.

ah yid
ah yid
4 years ago

Secular studies include information that students cannot themselves derive from logical thinking.
That’s just my point even chasidishe yeshivos are giving a complete education in the time they have secular studies. The education they receive in limudai kodesh helps them in their secular studies. I went for a semester to a jewish based college. There were many chasidishe young men taking various classes. Despite the little time they spent learning math and language arts they were able to go to college. As I wrote language is a problem, but its a community problem, not a school problem.

Professor
Professor
4 years ago

Carl:

There will always be a rotten apple or two in every barrel (I was just shopping with my wife who was buying apples – she rejected some of them that were not good). The approach to the one or two schools that fare poorly with their curriculum is to address it directly. Legislating regulations that impose on all the other schools is ridiculous, mistargeted, and frankly destructive.

I have advanced college education, and have taught courses at the university level. I was fully prepared to enter academia with my limited high school background. I am grateful that I predate the efforts of fools and enraged imbeciles to modify the curriculum.

Anonymous
Anonymous
4 years ago

There are soft skills that yeshivas teach that P.S. are NOT able to teach…Im a public high school teacher so I know a bit about this…the article below touches upon this
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/leticiamiranda/amazon-orthodox-jews
Mr Moster, I’m sorry that success didn’t follow you as you’d hoped.