A leading advocate for yeshivas has accused New York education officials of discriminating against Jewish students by restricting their ability to be instructed in Hebrew — while allowing others to be taught in languages other than English.
“It’s a double standard,” said Brooklyn Law School professor Aaron Twerski, whose grandchildren attend yeshivas as his children did.
Twerski cited the state’s approval of 200 “dual language schools” offered by the New York City Department of Education for public school students who want to learn a second language.
But, he claimed, the state is preventing students in yeshivas from receiving some instruction in Hebrew.
“Discrimination is taking place. I don’t know if it’s intentional or not but that’s the result of the policy,” he told The Post.
“It’s blatantly unconstitutional,” he added. “If the state doesn’t voluntarily change the policy, the court will change it. Not only does the state allow dual language instruction in the public schools, they encourage it.”
Advocates for yeshivas and other private schools filed a lawsuit last fall contesting new rules that require them to provide a “substantially equivalent” curriculum to the one taught in public schools.
Twerski and other advocates argue that under the new policy, students in yeshivas should be allowed to be taught in Hebrew, same as public school kids in bilingual programs.
They pointed to comments made by a top state Education Department official overseeing private schools as proof of a double standard.
“Even in our public school bilingual programs, we often teach Math or Science or Social Studies in a language other than English … So I assume, if we do that in our public schools, that would be comparable in our non-public schools,” SED official David Frank said in a Nov. 2 taped conversation with school officials about implementing the policy.
During the conversation — the audio of which was provided to The Post and first reported by Twerski in a recent column he wrote in The City Journal — Frank said he was “confused” about the English-language instruction requirement in the rules for private schools.
“So that provision of the instruction in the core subjects being taught in English really pains me,” he said. “I don’t think it is educational best practice… This is one difference between the substantial equivalence regulations and what happens in district [public] schools.”
Twersky said Frank’s comments disprove an affidavit submitted in the lawsuit by state Education Commissioner Betty Rosa claiming that the rules on language instruction apply equally to both public and private schools.
“They have misled the court,” he claimed, referring to education officials.
The controversy over whether students in yeshivas are provided adequate secular instruction in core subjects such as English, math and science has raged for a decade.
Nearly 20 private schools run by the Hasidic Jewish community failed to provide the education required under state law to students who attended the private religious institutions, a city DOE’s damning and long-delayed investigation released in June found.
The New York State Board of Regents approved the tougher new rules in September 2022 to make sure Hasidic Jewish schools are teaching basic subjects such as English and math and providing a secular curriculum and instruction that is “substantially equivalent” to their public school counterparts.
But advocates for the yeshivas claimed the state went too far.
“They’re saying instruction can only be given in English in private schools but not in public schools,” said Avi Schick said, a lawyer representing Jewish schools in the ongoing litigation.
“Even worse, state officials blatantly misled the court about what they were doing. What’s being promoted in the public schools is being prohibited in the private schools,” he added.
The state DOE had no immediate comment.
But Rosa defended the policy is a lengthy affidavit filed in Albany Supreme Court last December, saying advocates misinterpreted guidance on “diversity and culturally responsive education.”
“The requirement that English be the language of instruction is not new and does not single out yeshivas,” she said in the affidavit.
“The intent of this requirement is to ensure that every student learns the predominant language in the United States so that they become productive members of society,” Rosa said. “The regulation does not exclude content taught in a language other than English.”