As New York City has finally begun to exercise oversight over ultra-Orthodox yeshivas that have graduated students without a basic education, some of those Jewish schools have defied city health department scrutiny and helped to feed a measles outbreak. Forty children have contracted measles in recent months, all of the cases linked to a single Brooklyn yeshiva that ignored an order from city health officials to prevent children who hadn’t been vaccinated from attending classes.

Yet that hasn’t stopped yeshiva supporters in Albany from maneuvering to free the schools from government supervision, a reflection of the political pull ultra-Orthodox leaders have come to expect in New York.

Where to begin? How about 2015? That’s when a group of former yeshiva students known as Young Advocates for Fair Education filed a complaint accusing the New York City Department of Education of failing to hold dozens of yeshivas to state education standards, leaving them without a basic command of English, math or science.

There was little urgency in Mayor Bill de Blasio’s response. By last August, more than three years later, the city had inspected only half of the 30 yeshivas in the complaint that were still operating. Thanks to a push last year from the new schools chancellor, Richard Carranza, all are expected to be visited by the end of the month. City officials say that none of those visited have failed state education standards, but the city still needs to detail to the public what it finds.

The city’s Department of Investigation, a semi-independent watchdog agency, began looking into the city’s languid response to the complaint before Mayor de Blasio fired its commissioner, Mark Peters, over an unrelated abuse of power. The investigation that Mr. Peters began continues, and the public deserves to see the results.

Meanwhile, since last year nearly 300 people, most of them ultra-Orthodox children in New York City and Rockland County, have contracted measles in the worst outbreak in decades, according to health officials, who said some ultra-Orthodox parents oppose vaccination. Measles is a highly contagious infection that can cause a rash, fever and cold-like symptoms, and in some cases can be fatal. One child in the New York outbreak landed in the intensive care unit, but has since recovered.

For decades, the communities have largely been allowed to evade government oversight, thanks to politicians who have enjoyed their support as one of the state’s most powerful voting blocs. The price of that support has been largely paid by Orthodox children.

State health officials have since reached out to vaccinate thousands of children in those communities with their parents’ consent. But why not also consider fining schools that violated health officials’ orders related to the outbreak? That might finally get the schools’ attention.

State education officials stepped up their oversight of the yeshiva curriculums last year, by adopting stricter guidelines for nonpublic schools that are likely to require drastic changes by some ultra-Orthodox schools, even ones the city has already visited.

Unfortunately, there are signs that all of these important efforts could be at risk. A group of private schools that included prominent members like the Brearley School on the Upper East Side sued the state’s Education Department this week, saying those rules infringe on their independence and ability to set their own curriculums.

Even more concerning is a push from lobbyists representing ultra-Orthodox, Catholic and other private schools to include language in the state budget that could let them elude scrutiny from the State Education Department.

This would sell out yeshiva students — and those at other schools — who deserve the protections the state is supposed to provide. “Education is a great equalizer, and we must ensure there are real standards for all schools,” State Senator Andrea Stewart-Cousins, the majority leader, said in a statement opposing the budget changes.

Ms. Stewart-Cousins gets it. With any luck, Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the Assembly speaker, Carl Heastie, will follow her lead, and make their positions clear.

By endangering students’ health and futures, too many yeshivas have shown they need strict government supervision — whatever the political cost for elected officials.

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