Several ultra-Orthodox religious schools fail to provide students with a basic education in subjects such as reading and math, city officials found in a highly anticipated report released Friday.
The years-long investigation into more than two dozen yeshivas concluded that four in Brooklyn do not offer state-mandated secular instruction: Yeshiva Bnei Shimon Yisroel of Sopron, Yeshiva Kerem Shlomo, Yeshiva Oholei Torah and Yeshiva Ohr Menachem.
The city recommended that the state find another 14 yeshivas to be noncompliant. But education officials declined to release the details of those investigations, saying that because the schools offered certain bilingual programs and extended hours, they were subjected to an ongoing review process that ends with the state education commissioner.
Another nine schools were found to follow state law, including some lower schools that were automatically found compliant because of their ties to a registered high school.
Young Advocates for Fair Education, a yeshiva-reform advocacy group that spurred the investigation in 2015, said Friday the years-long delay in getting the city to investigate the yeshivas amounted to educational neglect — and “represents a significant failure of government.”
“A student who was in elementary school at the outset of the investigation would now be in high school. Many of the students will soon be entering the workforce,” read the statement.
“Most have been deprived of a basic education — making it exceedingly difficult to be self-sufficient. Very few have the language or general knowledge of the modern world to be able to truly navigate life in today’s world.”
Representatives from the city education department reviewed curriculum in four subject areas — English, math, social studies and science — and visited schools and met with their administrators. Most schools cooperated with the probe, but a “small number” tried to block the review, according to education officials.
Of the yeshivas determined by the city to not offer basic instruction, all four only enroll boys led by teachers whose qualifications were called into question, the city found.
Two taught upper grades only in Yiddish, with the majority of the school day focused on the study of Torah and Talmud. At the other two yeshivas, both primary schools, officials said no instruction in English Language Arts was observed during school visits.
City education officials said they would work with the yeshivas to meet the mandated standards.
“For any school found to not be substantially equivalent, according to the strict State law and regulations, the DOE stands ready to support the school to becoming substantially equivalent,” said public schools spokesman Nathaniel Styer in a statement. “As always, our goal is to build trust, work with the community, and ensure schools are in compliance with state education law and regulations.”
Styer said the city will work with noncompliant yeshivas on remediation plans over one to two years in an effort to “educate children, not to punish the adults.”
But the yeshivas quickly rejected the investigations, which they said were based on a “skewed set of technical requirements” to evaluate the education offered in their schools.
“Parents choose yeshiva education for their children because of the religious, moral and educational philosophy and approach of those who lead yeshivas,” said Richard Bamberger, a spokesman for Parents for Educational And Religious Liberty in Schools.
“They will continue to do so, regardless of how many government lawyers try to insist that yeshiva education is best measured by checklists they devise rather than the lives yeshiva graduates lead,” he added.
It was not immediately clear how the findings would be enforced.
While a state trial court ruled in March that the department can regulate basic instruction in non-public schools, Albany-based judge Christina Ryba found a key enforcement measure that would have forced noncompliant yeshivas to close exceeded the state’s authority.
The state has indicated its intent to appeal.
The issue of educational standards at New York’s ultra-Orthodox schools has been a long running battle.
Young Advocates for Fair Education submitted the original complaint eight years ago, naming dozens of yeshivas that allegedly failed to provide a secular education as mandated by state law.
For years to follow, top brass slow-walked further action. Investigators would later find that former Mayor Bill de Blasio engaged in “political horse trading” to delay a report on the yeshivas named in the complaint, in exchange for mayoral control over the city schools.
Critics have also accused Mayor Eric Adams of cozying up to yeshiva advocacy groups while a probe was ongoing.
“You were there for me when I ran for mayor,” Adams said earlier this year, as reported by nonprofit newsroom THE CITY. “I’m going to be there for you as your mayor.”
The state finally clamped down in January with the first hard deadline for the city to complete detailed determinations and recommendations about the quality of secular instruction by the end of June, as first reported by the Daily News.
The determinations Friday marked the first time that the city found a yeshiva to be out of compliance with state law.
Previously when education officials did not intervene, Beatrice Weber, who said her son at Yeshiva Mesivta Arugath Habosem in Williamsburg was denied a basic education, took her claims to court, where Albany Supreme Court Judge Adam Silverman ordered the city and state to complete their investigations into that school.
The city found the yeshiva was in compliance with the law. But the state overrode that determination and ordered local officials to develop a remediation plan with the school.
Weber took over as executive director of Young Advocates for Fair Education in October. On Friday, she raised concerns about five yeshivas that were automatically found in compliance with the law because they were attached to accredited high schools.
“These schools were not given a thorough review,” she said, “and as long as schools are able to receive a rubber stamp of approval without real oversight, students will continue to be deprived of a basic education.”
The state education department is reviewing the materials sent by the city, and a spokesperson said they will provide an update when possible.
