With new regulations almost certainly aimed at hasidic schools, the New York State Education Department—which has for years been trying to interfere with hasidic education—is curbing foreign-language instruction at non-public schools. Aaron Twerski writes:
The state government permits New York public schools to teach classes in languages other than English and actively encourages dual-language learning. Some public schools even offer a 90-percent-to-10-percent model, in which a greater percentage of the instruction is in a foreign language. For parochial schools, however, an English-only rule now applies. The state’s new private-school regulations refuse to consider or credit yeshiva classes taught in any language other than English. The new regulations provide that a substantial-equivalency determination will turn, in part, on whether “English is the language of instruction for common branch subjects.” Non-public schools will not be permitted to maintain split-language programming, in which students receive non-English instruction in such subjects.
As an educator, I can tell you that this is bad policy. As a parent who chose yeshiva education for my children, I can tell you that it is a heavy-handed bureaucratic overreach. And as a law professor, I can tell you that it is unconstitutional.
Don’t take my word for it. Read what a unanimous Supreme Court ruled nearly a century ago in Pierce v. Society of Sisters: “A child is not the mere creature of the State; those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right, coupled with the high duty, to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations.”
Read more on City Journal: https://www.city-journal.org/article/new-yorks-double-standards-on-yeshivas