The New York State Education Department has postponed making a final call on new rules that would give public schools more oversight into the educational offerings of private and parochial schools after thousands of people across the state criticized the proposal.
The state received more than 140,000 letters, including some in support of tightening the rules. Among those heard by the state were parents, faculty, alumni, and administrators of the Ross School in East Hampton and the Hayground School in Bridgehampton.
“I honestly have some mixed thoughts, but I’m glad that they’re slowing down, listening to people, and are going to take a closer look before making a decision,” said Andi O’Hearn, the head of advancement and operations at the Ross School.
The buzzwords are “substantial equivalency,” which refers to the state’s mandate that students in nonpublic schools receive an education that “at least” reflects what students in public schools are receiving. Public schools are already responsible for ensuring that private schools within their district borders are teaching the basics, but the proposed rules would have expanded that oversight and would have set up schedules for reviews of the private schools.
New private schools would have to have been reviewed by the state within three years of opening before June 30, 2023, “or as soon as practicable thereafter and regularly thereafter.” The rules would have also required public school administrators to file information about the private schools yearly, and updates on private schools’ measures of substantial equivalence would have been required starting in September of 2024.
“There are a lot of facets to this decision,” Ms. O’Hearn said. “I can understand why there are people who are concerned. Are independent and religious schools giving an adequate education? But lumping everyone together isn’t the way to go. For Ross, we undergo a pretty substantial accreditation process that I think should assure everyone that we’re covering the material the state is mandating.”
The Ross School will undergo that evaluation process again this spring.
According to Marcelle Langendal, the faculty chairwoman of the Hayground School, the school sent a letter to the state detailing its own “progressive and innovative” mission. “Restricting and requiring certain things in the curriculum wouldn’t leave any room for our school to be autonomous and develop our creativity with the teachers and the kids,” she said.
At Hayground the teachers often make a deep dive into particular subjects, such as civil rights, documentary filmmaking, the U.S. Constitution, and invention. According to Ms. Langendal, through the lens of the topic in each class, students work on their reading, writing, research, history, science, and math skills.
“We don’t have to require that they have all kinds of state tests and minutiae,” she said. “You have to have the tools. We teach our kids to research, to think about it, to challenge it. . . . I think we all understand that some kind of oversight is necessary — guidelines, maybe — but we worry about it becoming too rigid and taking away our autonomy.”
Public schools already have some oversight over the local private schools. “They check in to make sure we are doing our work with the kids, that we’re doing an appropriate curriculum,” Ms. Langendal said. “Our kids seem to thrive in so many areas. Their confidence builds. Other schools are very pleased with the kids. A lot of them go to Bridgehampton and most of them are on the high honor roll.”
Newsday reported last week that alumni of some Orthodox Jewish schools in New York City had filed complaints with the state that their yeshivas had not provided a good enough education. Teachers would teach almost exclusively in Yiddish and lessons were mostly on Jewish studies, according to those complaints.
New York City recently reviewed 28 private yeshivas, “finding all but two failed to provide a fully adequate secular education,” Newsday reported.
“If a parent is choosing to put their child in an independent school, they should have affirmation that it is a good education,” Ms. O’Hearn said. “They want to make sure the basic educational standards are being followed. If a religious education is part of it, that’s fantastic, but it can’t take away from children learning the basics.”
According to an announcement from the Education Department, state officials will continue to review the proposal in light of the comments they received between July and September last year.
“Thoughtful feedback is a necessary step in the development of any meaningful public policy, and there is no more noble endeavor than providing all of New York’s children with the education they are entitled to under the law,” Betty A. Rosa, the chancellor of the state’s Board of Regents, said in a statement.
“Nonpublic schools play a critical role in our education system and the public feedback related to the proposed regulations demonstrates that we must take a thoughtful and measured approach to this work.”