Professor Michael Helfand, "Substantially Uncertain" -- City Journal

Professor Michael A. Helfand's opinion article, "Substantially Uncertain," is published in the City Journal. The article examines a recent New York appellate court ruling that  tries to resolve a near-decade-long battle between the New York State Education Department (NYSED) and various Orthodox Jewish schools over the government’s authority to regulate the content and quality of nonpublic school education.

Excerpt from "Substantially Uncertain"

Government may have the authority, indeed the obligation, to ensure that children receive a basic education that prepares them for economic self-sufficiency and the responsibilities of democratic citizenship. But parents retain a right, consistent with that obligation, to determine how they satisfy that obligation. Put differently, government may have an overriding interest to ensure that children receive an adequate education, but government has no overriding interest—sufficient to constrain parents’ statutory and Fourteenth Amendment right to control their child’s upbringing—to require that parents satisfy those objectives through only one source.

The complete article may be found at City Journal