This year, New York’s budget has captured attention for its unprecedented delays and lack of transparency, but one significant aspect has flown under the radar.
Governor Hochul has emulated tactics reminiscent of the Trump administration, striking a controversial deal to ease regulations that enforce educational equivalency standards between New York State’s private and public schools.
As a result, nearly 200,000 students face the risk of not receiving the fundamental education guaranteed by the New York Constitution.
The implications of this deal are profound. By diverting public dollars toward private educational operators, the state is effectively endorsing a curriculum that may cater to particular ideologies rather than universal civic education.
This shift in policy could have long-lasting repercussions, threatening the foundation of democracy by undermining equitable civic participation education for all students.
Historically, under New York State’s compulsory education laws, students attending nonpublic schools were required to receive an education deemed “substantially equivalent” to that offered in public schools.
This mandated instruction in essential subjects like English, Math, and History to ensure that all students became well-informed citizens ready to engage in society.
However, maintaining this standard has posed significant challenges, particularly for ultra-conservative yeshivas, which are private Jewish religious schools that currently receive over $1 billion in government funding.
In 2015, a complaint lodged by YAFFED, an advocacy group committed to improving yeshiva education standards, alleged that 39 Brooklyn yeshivas failed to provide any secular instruction to their students, thus violating state educational requirements.
The challenges were further highlighted in 2019, when all of the more than 1,000 students sampled from a particular Hasidic yeshiva failed state exams in reading and mathematics.
Additionally, that year, nine schools were recorded where fewer than one percent of students reached grade-level proficiency, all of which were yeshivas.
Despite a few schools showing better performances through alternative metrics, many yeshivas focused narrowly on Jewish law and religious teachings, providing minimal secular education and English classes to their students.
The recent budget deal signals that New York State children may now navigate seven more years of education before any official determination is made regarding their English language acquisition.
The YAFFED complaint catalyzed scrutiny over yeshiva education practices, yet subsequent legislative actions have further eroded educational standards.
Just three years later, lawmakers introduced provisions that created exceptions for non-profit schools, particularly benefiting yeshivas.
This effectively transferred the responsibility for assessing “substantial equivalence” from local school districts to the Commissioner of Education, diluting accountability and allowing standards in yeshivas to decline further.
A New York Times investigation in 2022 revealed that many yeshivas were “failing by design,” with numerous institutions demonstrating alarming failure rates on state assessments.
In response, NYSED rolled out new guidelines for substantial equivalence determination, including penalties for non-compliance, such as losing state funding.
The state was poised to implement these crucial regulations in the current year and had plans to release a report by June identifying non-compliant schools.
NYSED was even ready to inform families at six yeshivas that refused to participate in the substantial equivalence review process that they would need to find alternative educational options.
However, Governor Hochul and the New York State Legislature countered this stride toward educational equity in their latest budget by introducing provisions that significantly dilute nonpublic schools’ obligations under the substantial equivalency law.
Specifically, the modifications allow various new “pathways” for demonstrating substantial equivalence.
One such “assessment pathway” permits schools to be considered substantially equivalent even if their exam scores lag significantly behind those of other New York institutions.
Moreover, the law now includes a “phase-in” period, granting these schools until the 2032-2033 academic year to prove their educational equivalence.
This monumental legislative shift means that students in New York may pass through another seven years of schooling before any state evaluations ascertain whether they are achieving proficiency in English.
The manner in which Governor Hochul and legislative leaders reached this agreement—without public scrutiny or input—has raised significant concerns.
The budget served as a vehicle to enact these changes behind closed doors, circumventing public debate on an issue of considerable importance.
When rumors surfaced about the impending legislative changes, an NYSED representative expressed concern, remarking that it was troubling for such a critical issue to be addressed through the budget instead of through a transparent public forum.
Even Catholic and independent schools that traditionally challenged NYSED regulations voiced their opposition to this secretive deal.
Conversely, certain members of the Haredi community praised the newly enacted changes.
This turn of events mirrors the objectives of the Trump administration and extremist conservative factions aiming to channel public funding into private educational institutions, thereby placing religious entities in charge of shaping the education of upcoming generations.
For instance, President Trump’s proposed “Big Beautiful Bill” aimed to utilize tax credits to support parents sending their children to private, religious schools, a concept originating from Project 2025.
Furthermore, the Trump administration previously backed an Oklahoma religious school’s bid to become a publicly funded charter institution, a move ultimately blocked by the Supreme Court’s deadlock, affirming a lower court ruling.
The ramifications of unchecked religious educational dominance are starkly illustrated by the challenges faced in the East Ramapo Central School District in the Hudson Valley.
In East Ramapo, the school board predominantly comprises members of the white community who send their children to private institutions, mainly yeshivas.
This has led to chronic underfunding and underperformance in the public schools attended primarily by students of color who deserve better educational opportunities.
The recent legislative modifications stand to have dire implications for the future of education in New York.
In an effort to garner political favor, Governor Hochul and legislative leaders have aligned themselves with forces undermining both educational equity and democratic principles—those who hold that religious beliefs should overshadow public education standards and that the definition of a proper education is inherently subjective.
image source from：nyclu
