Nearly 20 NYC yeshivas failed to provide education requirements, probe shows

Nearly twenty 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 damning and long-delayed city investigation shows.

The Department of Education’s report, released late Friday and eight years in the making, determined that four NYC yeshivas failed to provide a comparable to what’s offered in public school in secular studies like English, mathematics and science.

“For any school found to not be substantially equivalent, according to the strict State law and regulations, the DOE stands ready to support the school to becoming substantially equivalent,” said DOE spokesman Nathaniel Styer.

The other 14 schools under review are technically under state jurisdiction and while the city believe the other yeshivas are in violation of state requirements, due to an amendment by state Sen. Simcha Felder, which grants the state education commissioner final say, no final ruling is required.

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Initiated from a group called Young Advocates for a Fair Education, or YAFFED, the investigation was led by a yeshiva graduate who argued his education left him ill-prepared for the world outside of religious studies. 

“We hope that the completion of this investigation compels the city and Mayor Eric Adams to act on behalf of thousands of students who are being deprived of their right to a sound basic education,” YAFFED Executive Director Beatrice Weber told The Post.

The probe got started in 2015 and quickly ran into headwinds amid fierce opposition from the politically powerful ultra-Orthodox communities, which are much-sought after blocks of votes in citywide and Brooklyn contests.

A probe into the repeated delays of the initial yeshiva investigation revealed that then-Mayor Bill de Blasio was aware officials in his administration delayed the review as City Hall attempted to win a close vote to renew mayoral control of city schools in 2017.

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Whistleblowers at the Department of Education charged the investigation into the interference was mothballed to shield de Blasio’s quickly aborted 2020 Democratic presidential campaign from embarrassment.

Three years later, in 2022, a Manhattan Supreme Court judge ordered the city and state authorities to finish the probe and said the authorities had failed to fulfill their responsibilities to ensure children were properly educated.

That same year, an investigative series published by The New York Times revealed that yeshivas have received $1 billion in taxpayer support. Some of those schools, it revealed, posted some of the worst test scores in the state while relying on brutal discipline practices including teachers hitting students with rulers, belts and sticks.

The stories reignited the furor over how yeshivas are regulated.

“After years of cover-up and delay, we now know investigators could not help but conclude the obvious: that many Hasidic boys’ Yeshivas fail to provide their children with an education that satisfies minimum state requirements,” said Naftuli Moster, the founder and former executive director of advocacy group Young Advocate