The Education Department said it was finalizing requests that the superintendents would send to the yeshivas mentioned in the letter. If, based on the responses, a superintendent determines that a yeshiva is not providing instruction substantially equivalent to that in public schools, the superintendent will work with the yeshiva to develop a remediation plan. In the worst case, if the department determines that a school’s instruction was not equivalent, ultimately, children who attend the school would be considered truant.
The New York Times reports:
…State law mandates that instruction given to minors at private schools must be “at least substantially equivalent” to the instruction offered in public schools in that district; local districts are charged with ensuring that is the case.
“The city takes its responsibility to address any complaint very seriously,” Harry Hartfield, a spokesman for the Education Department, said. “Everyone is held to the same standard, and there is zero tolerance for the kind of educational failure alleged.”…
The Education Department said it was finalizing requests that the superintendents would send to the yeshivas mentioned in the letter. If, based on the responses, a superintendent determines that a yeshiva is not providing instruction substantially equivalent to that in public schools, the superintendent will work with the yeshiva to develop a remediation plan. In the worst case, if the department determines that a school’s instruction was not equivalent, ultimately, children who attend the school would be considered truant. The letter and the Education Department’s response were first reported by The Jewish Week.
Mr. Siegel said that if the Education Department did not conduct a thorough investigation, he would try to bring a court case to compel it to do so.…
The problem with the city Education Department's claim is that both it and the state have known about these yeshiva deficiencies for years and have – illegally – failed to act, largely because of the hasidic bloc vote, a bloc vote the mayor is especially entangled with and beholden to. And one thing Bill de Blasio has shown in his brief time in office in his behavior over the haredi circumcision practice called metzitzah b'peh is that the hasidic bloc vote matters more to him than the lives of the haredi children he should be protecting. Look for more of the same here.