Yeshiva Dean Warns ‘Pathways’ May Lead Nowhere

A dean at one of Brooklyn’s preeminent yeshivas is raising concern that New York’s latest regulations for nonpublic schools could affect more schools than initially thought.Rabbi Yisroel Reisman’s school, Yeshiva Torah Vodaath, is one of the five petitioner schools in a pending lawsuit against the state’s education commissioner, Betty Rosa, seeking to halt the new regulations.The regulations require nonpublic schools to submit to regular reviews by local public school districts. They will evaluate whether the schools are meeting standards of “substantial equivalence” to their public counterparts. Most private schools will be exempt from the review process through “pathways” to demonstrating standard equivalence. These pathways include school accreditation and administration of the Regents examination.Yeshiva advocates accuse the regulators of designing such pathways so that Jewish academies of learning, whose curricula focus mostly on biblical and Talmudic studies, will be the primary subject of reviews.The lawyer representing the yeshivas in the pending lawsuit told the Sun that the regulators employed a “divide-and-conquer” strategy in devising the regulations. “The state worked to isolate yeshivas from the larger non-public school community, by structuring the regulations so that all Catholic and independent schools will be exempt from local school board reviews,” the lawyer, Avi Schick, said. “The result of the state’s divide-and-conquer approach is that local school board reviews and determinations will be conducted exclusively, or almost exclusively, at yeshivas.”Yeshiva Torah Vodaath, where Rabbi Reisman teaches, would hypothetically be exempt from the review process because its high school administers the Regents examination. Yet Rabbi Reisman isn’t sure that his school won’t face the scrutiny of review from local school districts.Schools may think they’re “safe” from the review process because they adhere to one of the pathways, Rabbi Reisman says, but a single complaint to the state education department can trigger the review process — even for exempt schools.“All you need is one disgruntled parent to file a complaint and then the exemption and the alternative pathway fall away, and you’re subject to the same need to prove your equivalency,” Rabbi Ressman says, referring to section 130.11 of the regulations. He points to the example of Yeshiva Arugath HaBosem, which the state recently deemed was not “substantially equivalent.” New York City, however, deemed the school substantially equivalent after a two-year investigation.The investigation was initiated after the complaint of a parent, Beatrice Weber, who left the religious community. Ms. Weber recently became the executive director of a group dedicated to promoting state intervention to ensure more secular instruction in yeshivas, Young Advocates for Fair Education.Rabbi Reisman worries that in the future complaints will be filed by more than just parents, students, or alumni. There are no clear parameters on who can submit a complaint, and it is at the discretion of the education commissioner to select which complaints to follow up on. “Given that there are entire organizations devoted to complaining about yeshivas, every yeshiva — even those with registered high schools — are likely targets of a complaint and likely subjects of a local board review,” Rabbi Reisman stated in an affidavit filed last week as part of a motion for a preliminary injunction on the regulations. “Our system of education has been delicately crafted to balance life skills with a religious life,” Rabbi Reisman said in the affidavit. “New York State should not force this to be changed.”

Yeshiva Dean Warns ‘Pathways’ May Lead Nowhere

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