Why the State Education Department Struggles to Regulate Schools That Fail to Educate
As New York City yeshivas find themselves back in court due to allegations of discrimination from the State Department of Education, we express our total lack of confidence in the agency’s capacity to effectively supervise these schools.
The SED is now ridiculed when it comes to monitoring the few institutions that have yet to demonstrate that they are equipping their students to meet state educational standards—standards that the SED and its overseers on the state Board of Regents are actively undermining.
One previous SED attempt to scrutinize the contentious yeshivas turned out to be a (failed) attempt to gain control over the curricula of all private schools in New York, which starkly illustrates the agency’s genuine priorities.
Furthermore, SED is currently proposing to allow all state public high school students to graduate, even if they lack preparation for real-world challenges—essentially the same issue facing those few yeshivas.
We’re not pleased that a small number of schools may continue to prioritize Jewish law, prayer, and tradition at the expense of advanced math and other crucial subjects necessary for success in a secular environment.
However, the Regents and SED are now intent on granting diplomas to many young individuals who are not sufficiently prepared to succeed in college or the workforce after high school.
With their political leaders in the Legislature (particularly Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie) beholden to the state’s influential teachers’ unions, the Regents, state Education Commissioner Betty Rosa, and the SED have entirely neglected their responsibility to ensure that public schools provide adequate education.
It’s quite unsettling that this seems to indicate religious discrimination, as they are holding the yeshivas to a stricter standard.
In conclusion: Regardless of race, creed, or income, all New York parents are left to navigate the education system alone when it comes to ensuring that their children receive a quality education; the government officials who vowed to uphold this responsibility are instead complicit in covering up failures.
