New York City’s Jewish Day School Enrollment Passes 100,000 Mark, According to New State Data

The number of students attending Kindergarten-12th grade Jewish day schools and yeshivas in New York City exceeds 100,000 students for the first time, according to new data released by the New York State Department of Education.

The total number of K-12 students enrolled in Jewish day schools and yeshivas is 101,120. Another 137,283 students are enrolled in other parochial and independent schools. Together, the number of non-public school students comprises 18 percent of New York City’s total school enrollment.

And across New York State, there are more than 412,000 non-public school children – 13 percent of the state’s overall school population – yet they receive only 1 percent of local and state resources.

Maury Litwack, director of state political affairs for Teach NYS, a project of the Orthodox Union and New York’s leading voice for Jewish day schools, welcomed the new data about the Jewish day school population in New York City and the five boroughs. It shows, he said, the importance of continuing to push for a more equitable distribution of local and state funds for non-public schools.

“This demonstrates our community’s need to stay focused on one of the top priorities for our families: making non-public school education more affordable,” Litwack said. “We will continue to work with our partners in New York City and Albany to ensure that the city and state invest in our children in a fair and meaningful manner.”

Among its achievements on behalf of all non-public school children, Teach NYS successfully advocated for New York City to allocate $20 million to provide a safety officer at every non-public school in the city so that the schools can increase security. Teach NYS also helped increase by tens of millions of dollars the amount of funding non-public schools receive from state funding programs such as the Comprehensive Attendance Policy, Mandated Services Reimbursement and security funding.

The chart below compares the populations of New York City Jewish day schools and yeshivas, public schools, charter schools and all other parochial and independent schools.

*This figure includes all other parochial schools including Catholic, Muslim, Lutheran, Greek Orthodox and independent private schools. All data comes from the New York State Education Department, the NYC Department of Education or the NYC Charter School Center.