A yeshiva group is trying another legal avenue to limit New York’s ability to regulate ultra-Orthodox Jewish schools and the quality of basic education they are delivering to their students.
Parents for Educational and Religious Liberty in Schools, or PEARLS, has asked to go before New York’s highest court or reargue their case against state education standards in private schools, according to court documents filed at the end of last week.
Reformers, who insist too many yeshiva graduates are leaving school without basic math and reading skills, said the question has already been answered by a lower court, which found that all schools, including yeshivas, must offer an education of at least the same quality of a public school.
“The Appellate Court got it right when they upheld the education regulations: a school that doesn’t provide substantially equivalent instruction is breaking the law,” Young Advocates for Fair Education, or YAFFED, said in a statement Monday.
“If we want to see improvement, there must be consequences for schools that don’t comply with the law,” it continued.
At issue is an enforcement tool, passed as part of the regulations in 2022, requiring families to pull out of schools that don’t meet educational standards.
A trial court decision struck down the measure, but was overturned earlier this summer.
Albany Supreme Court Justice Christina Ryba ruled in March of last year the New York State Education Department could force private schools to offer basic instruction, finding constitutional challenges related to religious and parental rights to be “without merit.”
But the trial court judge found a requirement that families completely unenroll from noncompliant schools or face legal repercussions — which would have effectively closed the school — exceeded the agency’s authority. A parent should be able to supplement their child’s education with homeschool or by other means, Ryba said.
The state appealed the decision, and in June, the majority of judges on a panel of Appellate Division’s Third Department, 4-1, reversed the lower court order, pointing to, among other things, limits on children’s time outside of school to supplement their education.
Parents for Educational and Religious Liberty in Schools chided the decision and asked for the Court of Appeals to intervene.
“Putting aside the irony of declaring a child truant because he is in a classroom with his teacher and classmate for too many hours,” wrote Avi Schick, an attorney for PEARLS, “that is simply not how a parental violation of the compulsory education law is established in New York.”
If the group’s request is denied, and the decision from New York’s second highest court stands, parents could be held liable for not sending their kids to an approved school. The latest development in the ongoing legal battle was first reported by Shtetl, a Haredi non-profit media outlet founded by the former executive director of YAFFED.
The New York State Education Department and Attorney General Letitia James’ office, which is representing the state, did not immediately return requests for comment.
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