Parents outraged that DOE might oversee NYC private schools
Outraged parents in Gotham’s swankiest prep schools are trying to beat back a proposal that would give city educrats oversight of curriculum at private institutions.
“It’s ludicrous [to think] that the DOE would have the bandwidth, expertise or funding to even do this,” said Julie Tucker, who lives in Harlem and has two daughters at Convent of the Sacred Heart on the Upper East Side and a son at the British International School in Kips Bay. “Get your house in order before you start to worry about anyone else’s house.”
New York’s “substantial equivalency” proposal, announced in July, would give the city Department of Education oversight of private and parochial school education to ensure that it is on par with that of public schools and includes instruction in core subjects such as math and US history.
While a decades-old statute mandates that fall New York schools provide substantial equivalence, the issue reemerged with a vengeance in 2015 after a probe into local yeshivas, which serve close to 60,000 students. Advocates had complained that yeshiva grads had little exposure to non-religious studies and were unprepared for the real world.
With the new proposal going far beyond yeshivas, private schools — and the families they serve — are worried what could happen to their carefully-curated educational experiences.
Colette Iagrossi, whose daughter is in fourth grade at Sacred Heart, said it’s “crazy” that the DOE could dictate what is taught at private schools.
“These [private] schools are more advanced than most of the city’s public schools,” said the Upper East Sider. “These kids, they have them up in kindergarten, public speaking. They become very confident with themselves. So you’re going to take this all away?”
Tucker added that she feels forced to send her brood to private school due to lackluster local public institutions. “As parents who pay $55,000 per kid, we trust [our schools’] administration,” she said.
Brooklyn College’s David Bloomfield, an expert in educational policy and law, said the state couldn’t just single out yeshivas in its private-school oversight.
“It would be impossible, legally, for the regulations to say, ‘Well, we are going to let the independent schools off the hook and only target religious schools,” said Bloomfield.
Parents and administrators at NYC’s most elite academies are fighting back. Over the summer, Chapin and Trinity implored parents to rally against the proposal.
In a letter to parents, Chapin officials wrote the proposed regulations called for “burdensome oversight” and were “profound threats to our ability to develop curriculum and determine who is best suited to teach this curriculum.”
The letter explained that Chapin would have to report all changes in staffing and curriculum to the local public school leadership. In addition, the regulations would be costly and pose a security risk, as test scores, report cards and lesson plans “would potentially be subject to public disclosure … jeopardizing confidential relationships between our school and families.”
The state Education Department has received more than 140,000 emails about the matter and is currently reviewing the public comments. An agency rep said it “will make any necessary changes to proposed regulations. If substantial changes are made, there will be another comment period.” It is expected to be voted on by the Board of Regents in 2020.
“It becomes an issue of, why are we paying for private school?” said Jill Schwartz, who has written a letter of protest and whose 5-year-old attends Calhoun. “One of the reasons we pay … is because we feel the NYC public-school rigor and requirements are not how we want our children to learn.”
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