N.Y. State Board of Regents to require private schools to follow minimum academic standards
NEW YORK -- A long-awaited ruling from the New York Board of Regents will force the state's private schools to comply with minimum academic standards.
But this could burden an already cash-strapped New York City, which will have to enforce the state's mandate for all private schools in the five boroughs, CBS2's Marcia Kramer reported Tuesday.
It was just on Monday that Mayor Eric Adams asked all city agencies, including the Department of Education, to come up with cuts to help close billions of dollars in budget shortfalls.
Now, sources tell Kramer, they'll have to take money away from public school programs to police the private schools.
READ MORE: Report claims New York City's Hasidic schools don't provide students a basic education
It was a quick and decisive vote on Tuesday. The Board of Regents approved new oversight rules that would make it easier to crack down on religious and other private schools to make sure they provide the same education as public schools, with one member saying, "The proposed addition of Part 130 of the regulations of the commissioner of education relating to substantially equivalent instruction for non-public schools."
But while the rules were supposed to be a watershed moment in forcing Hasidic yeshivas to devote classroom time to English, math and other non-religious studies, it came with a somewhat unexpected consequence. Local school districts would have to make sure all the private schools in their jurisdiction were compliant.
A Department of Education source told Kramer that will mean policing 911 private schools in New York City, including 102 yeshivas.
"We believe these regulations put an undue burden on our public school system," said DOE spokesman Nathaniel Styer.
The city originally thought it would only have to investigate 26 Hasidic yeshivas that were included in a complaint filed by the group Young Advocates for Fair Education, which has been waging a years-long battle to get Hasidic yeshivas to include non-religious studies in their curriculum.
The group's then-executive director, Naftali Moster, told Kramer in 2017 that he was a victim of poor secular education.
"In elementary school and some of middle school, we received approximately 90 minutes of secular education. In high school, we got no secular education at all," Moster said.
Moster now says he's thrilled with the ruling and that the Board of Regents, "took a giant step forward in ensuring that all children attending non-public schools receive the education to which they are entitled."
However, the Hasidic yeshivas are not thrilled. A spokesman told CBS2 they oppose the ruling.
"Parents in New York have been choosing a yeshiva education for more than 120 years, and they are proud of the successful results, and will continue to do the same with or without the support of state leaders in Albany," the spokesman said.
City education officials hope they will not have to launch separate probes into all 911 private schools, because there are other paths to show compliance. The schools can show progress on standardized tests, for example, which may be hard for the yeshivas.
A recent study by the New York Times found that Hasidic schools have some of the lowest test scores in the state.