(New York Jewish Week via JTA) – The New York State Education Department released long-awaited guidelines Thursday on teaching secular subjects in parochial schools. They were met with immediate pushback from Orthodox Jewish leaders.

The new proposals offer several options for schools to prove their instruction is “substantially equivalent” to public schools, and will take into account different religious and cultural methods for teaching.

The proposal offers schools options if they do not want to be reviewed by their local public school authorities. One option is for schools to test...