New York
Hochul, top lawmakers sued after shifting yeshiva, nonpublic school standards
Gov. Kathy Hochul and the state Legislature approved changes to how education standards are measured at nonpublic schools in May.
By Dan Clark,
Staff Writer
Sep 18, 2025
ALBANY — New York’s top elected officials are being sued over a law tucked into this year’s state budget to soften what’s required of nonpublic schools, including yeshivas, to meet state education standards.
The lawsuit, filed against Gov. Kathy Hochul and Democrats in the Legislature, seeks to strike down that law and require the state to mandate the same level of secular instruction in nonpublic schools that’s provided in public classrooms.
It was filed in state Supreme Court late Wednesday in Brooklyn, where a coalition of ultra-Orthodox leaders have long resisted the state’s efforts to more closely regulate what’s required to be taught at yeshivas. There are dozens of those schools in the borough.
“A number of people came to me when all of this intrigue was going on in the backroom during the budget,” said Michael Rebell, the attorney who’s leading the case and is executive director of the Center for Educational Equity at Teachers College, Columbia University.
Rebell is uniquely situated to argue the case. He secured a landmark decision from the state’s highest court three decades ago that established a state constitutional right to a “sound basic education” for children in New York.
That decision ultimately forced the state to raise the amount of aid sent to New York’s schools each year and rethink how that funding is distributed.
He’s now using the precedent set in that case to argue that yeshivas in New York aren’t meeting the standard of providing a “sound basic education,” defined as instruction to prepare students for civic participation and to serve on a jury.
“The main theme has to be ‘sound basic education’ because we need to make clear that these kids have a constitutional right,” Rebell said.
The lawsuit is being brought on behalf of three children who attend yeshivas in Brooklyn and their parents, as well as two former students who never received a high school diploma and have since struggled to advance in life.
That’s the result that supporters of stronger secular education at yeshivas have sought to avoid, including the advocacy group YAFFED.
“We’re all born where we are born and the systems that we are born into and part of it is that there’s a larger system that’s supposed to be part of protecting children,” said Adina Mermelstein Konikoff, the group’s executive director.
The issue of alleged educational disparities in ultra-Orthodox communities is not new but was pulled into public view a decade ago, when YAFFED filed a complaint with the state Education Department over inadequate instruction at yeshivas.
That complaint was based on a state law that’s been in place for more than a century but has rarely been enforced.
The law requires nonpublic schools to provide an education in basic subjects like reading, mathematics and social studies that’s “substantially equivalent” to what students learn in public schools. YAFFED alleged that wasn’t happening.
The complaint led the state Education Department to promulgate new regulations for how nonpublic schools could show they’ve met that standard. Those were finalized in 2022.
They were given new weight when, days before, the New York Times published the results of an investigation that showed a majority of students at yeshivas in New York couldn’t pass state standardized tests in math and reading.
But months before they were set to take effect this year, Hochul and the state Legislature agreed to overrule the regulations in legislation that was ultimately included in the state budget, which passed in May.
“It was really quite a loss,” Mermelstein Konikoff said. “We definitely felt it.”
The new law allows nonpublic schools to meet the state’s “substantially equivalent” standard if enough of their students participate in exams that are either state-approved or nationally recognized. It won’t be fully phased in until 2032.
Hasidic leaders in Brooklyn counted that as a win, even if it didn’t reverse the state’s scrutiny entirely. They had opposed the impending regulations under the argument of religious liberty.
Lawmakers never explained who first proposed the change or why it was necessary. Hochul said at the time that it was brought to her by the Legislature.
“We’re just simply saying there’s other ways to do it so we can make sure we have the proper balance between children getting their education and their parents’ right to educate them according to their protections under the First Amendment,” Hochul said.
But because of its last-minute, hurried inclusion in the $254 billion state budget, outside observers chalked it up to politics. That includes Rebell.
Ultra-Orthodox communities in Brooklyn and Rockland County tend to vote as their own unified bloc, election results have shown in recent years. That’s given Democrats an incentive to court that electorate, which Rebell views as incredibly consequential.
“When they grow up, they vote,” Rebell said. “When you tell me that your kids know absolutely nothing about the policy issues that are being debated … that’s what really got me going.”
That’s part of why YAFFED is supporting legal action against Hochul and the Legislature, Mermelstein Konikoff said. They’re not a party in the lawsuit but it could deter politics from driving future policy.
“It can’t be about a political backroom deal. This can’t be something that’s politicized,” she said. “These are our children’s futures.”
Dan Clark is the author of the Capitol Confidential newsletter and covers New York government and policy for the Times Union. Clark has covered New York government, politics and policy for more than a decade. Before joining the Times Union in 2024, Clark was the managing editor of WMHT’s “New York NOW” and had stints at PolitiFact, the New York Law Journal and Capitol Tonight. You can reach him at
Dan.Clark@timesunion.com.
