Incoming New York City Mayor Eric Adams told reporters at a news conference on Thursday that the yeshivas that he visited during his recent campaign were providing a “well-rounded quality education” to their students.
The statement came in response to a question about his stance on secular education in the yeshivas, an issue that has been at the heart of a conflict between the Jewish education system and those who are determined to remold its curriculum to resemble that of the public system.
“I visited several yeshivas during the campaign and what I do know is that those who are there, who are teaching the students, the literature that I looked at, is supportive of a well-rounded quality education that we want to encourage,” Adams said.
“With the small number of yeshivas that we were having problems in, should not be the message for the larger number of yeshivas that are doing the right thing.
“I am going to give support through my Chancellor and through my office to support to all of our educational facilities,” he said. “I’m not going to get caught up in the dialogue of charter schools, public schools, yeshivas – everyone is going to receive the support they need to develop the full person of our children. . .Then we really need to look at the methods that we’re using.
“Some of the books that I saw in the yeshivas – maybe they were not Shakespeare – but they still were scholarly works. Everyone is looking at culturally sensitive education. That includes yeshivas at the same time,” Adams pointed out.
Incoming New York City Comptroller Brad Lander said earlier this month in a virtual question and answer session with the New York Jewish Agenda, a leftist policy group he co-founded, that he intends to do whatever he can to pave a “pathway to compliance” for yeshivas to change their curricula to provide what he called “the education that our kids need and deserve.”
New York State law requires non-public schools to teach a curriculum that is “at least substantially equivalent” to a public school education. But Lander added to that, saying the law is “very clear” that all schools have an obligation to provide a “substantially comparable and competent secular education.”
Lander said that it is the job of the city comptroller to be “paying attention, and audit and make sure those obligations are being met.” Lander will be authorized to audit yeshivas in the city on the issue.