Hochul, Looking to 2026, Pushed to Weaken Oversight of Religious Schools

As Gov. Kathy Hochul prepares for what is likely to be a tough re-election fight next year, she is promoting a state budget deal stuffed with politically popular initiatives aimed at making life in New York more affordable.

She has been less eager to talk about a consequential last-minute addition to the budget that is aimed at winning over a relatively small yet deeply influential group of voters — Hasidic Jews — but may be broadly unpopular with her Democratic base.

The governor is facing a wave of criticism over her efforts to weaken an obscure, century-old law that requires private schools to provide a basic education. Changing the law has been a top priority of the state’s Hasidic leaders, whose endorsements are highly coveted come election season.

The measure is expected to pass the Senate and Assembly in the coming days.

One faction of the Satmar Hasidic community celebrated the bill on social media on Wednesday, writing that the state budget “includes amended legislation securing freedom of education!”

Education experts, including the head of the state education department, have accused Ms. Hochul of seeking political support at the expense of children, as have some legislators and several members of the governor’s own staff.

While the law applies to all nonpublic schools, it will chiefly affect all-boys Hasidic schools, known as yeshivas, which provide mostly religious lessons in Yiddish and Hebrew. The push to adjust the rules for such schools, which collect hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars but sometimes do not provide a basic secular education, was led by Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie. His conference includes ultra-Orthodox and Hasidic legislators who are profoundly skeptical of any government involvement in their schools and have spent years backing the changes.