Last week, a group of Nassau County Republican elected officials and candidates took aim at the New York State Department of Education for what they characterized as the institution’s thinly veiled and hostile attack on religious education, especially the yeshiva community of schools across New York State. Standing alongside Jewish community leaders on the steps of the Hebrew Academy of Long Beach (HALB), the officials decried the unwarranted attack on freedom of religion and educational liberty in the Empire State, which has been presented by the New York State Board of Education under the wholesome sounding pseudonym of “substantial equivalency.”
At the press conference were Assemblymen Ed Ra and Ari Brown, Republican Assembly candidate Jake Blumencranz, as well as Patricia Canzoneri- Fitpatrick, the Republican Senate Candidate in the 9 th District, James Coll, the GOP’s choice in the 6th Senate District and Jack Martins, the Republican candidate in the 7 th Senate District. The officials represent and are running to represent communities that are home to yeshivas, including the communities of West Hempstead, Great Neck and the Five Towns.
Also present at the press briefing were Rabbi Mordechai Kamenetzky of Yeshiva of South Shore, Richard Altabe, the
Lower School Principal and Executive President of Institutional Advancement at Hebrew Academy of Long Beach, and
Jonathan Katz, the Chairman of the Hebrew Academy of Long Beach Political Awareness Council.
“We stand here today in defense of religious and educational freedom, which has come under attack by the New York State Department of Education,” stated Ra. “The State Education Department has led a mean-spirited and ugly campaign to stamp out religious education, not to mention all private education. We won’t stand for it.”
Under the State Education Department’s “substantial equivalency” mandate, nonpublic schools must either select a “pathway” or allow a local public-school authority to review its curriculum for “substantial equivalency.” Private schools must make that decision by December 1, 2023. The “pathway” includes offering regent’s diplomas, offering tests provided by the State or submitting to other Education Department imposed criteria for State accreditation. In the alternative to the “pathway” choice, the public-school review option would subject religious and other private schools to reviews by local public-school districts, as well as votes by local public-school boards on whether the private schools meet the standards of the local public-school boards.
“The State Education Department is being heavy-handed, demonstrating a secular superiority over the education of local religious schools, especially our yeshiva community of schools,” said Brown. “This authoritarian maneuver is a slap in the face of democratic principles, religious freedom and educational liberty. It has to stop now.”
The officials, candidates and religious leaders noted that local yeshiva and other private school students have
attained the highest level of academic achievement, garnering many independent awards from the corporate, educational and scientific community. Additionally, the student body of the Long Island yeshivas have achieved tremendous success, boasting a very high rate of acceptance into the finest colleges and universities, completion of rigorous areas of college-level study, and succeeding in the most academically demanding career fields.
“This is nothing more than religious harassment,” said Canzoneri-Fitzpatrick. “As the parent of four children who attended religious schools, I am offended by this overreach by the State’s Department of Education, and I will fight against this unwarranted attack on private schools, especially our yeshivas, in the State Senate.”
“I am a retired police officer,” stated Coll. “Protection of people’s freedoms and liberties was at the core of my
career in public service. I will fight this assault on our way of life and freedom of choice when it comes to education.”
“Providing a high-quality secular education is critically important to what we do here at Hebrew Academy of Long Beach,” noted Richard Altabe of HALB. “As religious Jewish Americans, we sincerely appreciate the freedom to raise our families in the traditions of our faith, and our educational institutions provide the foundation for those values. We cannot relinquish control of our curricula or selection of our teaching staff to any government agency.”
“Religious and educational freedom is woven into the fabric of our nation,” announced Martins. “If we allow this attack on our families’ right to choose how they raise and educate their children, we will be taking a very dangerous
step down the road toward secular intolerance and authoritarianism. I am running for the State Senate to stop this hate-filled agenda.”
“My family provided a strong religious foundation for me, and I am very proud of my faith,” stated Blumencranz.
“Furthermore, I am a staunch defender of educational liberty. When I join the State Assembly, I will be a strong voice for the values and rights of religious educational institutions.”
Brown, an Orthodox Jew and the father of seven children who attended religious schools, said that one of the most important priorities for him was to be able to raise his family in accordance with their faith. He further stated that surrendering control of yeshivas’ curricula would be an abrogation of his responsibility as a parent and a Jew.
“Do not try to force us to give up our religious values and our right to provide our children with a religious education,” concluded Brown. “This is one more form of religious persecution of my people, and it should not be tolerated by any person of good conscience.”
Oh, cut the crap, would you? What kind of garbage is this? EVERY SINGLE SCHOOL represented at this event meets the State’s Substantial Equivalency standards, and always has. These schools are not under any threat from the current regulations, which are simply a fleshing out of a rule that has been on the books for 125 years. The very notion that this is “a mean-spirited and ugly campaign to stamp out religious education, not to mention all private education” is a bad joke concocted for political gain by bottom-feeding opportunists.
The tragedy is that good schools providing a quality education, like HALB, South Shore, and Darchei have knuckled under to Torah Umesorah’s bad-faith campaign to tie the fates of their excellent institutions the that of the lowest performing schools in the State to pretend that this nothing change in regulations actually constitutes a threat to religious education in NY State. It isn’t, and you all know it. You should be ashamed of yourselves for participating in this farce.