Parents' rights, religious freedom, and children's education in New York's yeshivas

There is a controversy brewing in New York City having to do with the question whether yeshiva schools serving so-called "ultra-Orthodox" children are providing an adequate "secular" education.  (See this New York Times editorial for some background.)  

I am, and have long been, a defender of the Pierce right, i.e., the right of parents to (substantially) direct and control the upbringing and education of their children.  The position proposed by Justice Douglas in the Yoder case has always struck me as frighteningly illiberal.  As I wrote here,

Recent calls for a thicker liberalism and for the harnessing of education to create truly liberal citizens make it all the more important that we take Pierce seriously. And if we do, it is suggested that state functionaries, guided and restrained by a proper humility about their authority and competence, should override parents' educational decisions only to prevent harm, carefully defined, to a child. The problem is, how do we define harm. This paper proposes that the content of religious instruction, traditions, or beliefs should not be viewed as harmful in the sense necessary to justify government second-guessing or supervention of parents' decisions about such instruction. In a free society, one that values religious freedom, the state should not entertain, let alone enforce, a belief that children would be better off without religious faith.

Still, questions remain regarding the political authority's legitimate "police power" to require the provision (and attempt to bring about the attainment) of some levels of proficiency, etc., in "secular" subjects.  Line-drawing and slippery-slope problems abound.  And, as Mayor de Blasio (with whom I often disagree) pointed out, whatever the shortcomings of the yeshiva schools, "I have to be straightforward and say there’s room for improvement in a lot of our traditional public schools, too.”  That's putting it mildly.

Stay tuned.