Posted on 05/25/2008 7:33:21 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
The bill, which required boards of education to provide transportation for students in parochial schools when transportation was provided for public school students, was later passed by the Legislature in amended form. It came before the court on a taxpayer’s action.
A move is under way in the Constitutional Convention to write authority for the bill into the Constitution. Chief Judge Crane, who wrote the dissenting opinion today in support of the law, is expected to back the move within the convention, of which he is president.
The Appeals Court directed the State Supreme Court to issue an injunction prohibiting the Board of Education of Union Free School District No. 2, town of Hempstead, Nassau County, from levying a tax whose proceeds were to be used to provide transportation for the students of public and parochial schools.
Two taxpayers, Glenn L. Judd and William O. Volentine, sought the injunction on the grounds that the 1936 law was invalid as violating the constitutional prohibition against giving State aid “directly or indirectly” to other than public schools.
Judge Rippey in the prevailing opinion, which was concurred in by Judges Lehman, Finch and Hubbs, said that the statue “in so far as it authorized transportation for pupils to and from any school or institution of learning wholly or in part under the control or direction of any religious denomination or in which any denominational tenet or doctrine is taught, is repugnant to our fundamental law, unconstitutional and void.”
In the dissenting opinion, Judge Crane contended that the law did not give aid to the school but to its pupils and so the constitutional prohibition did not apply. Judges O’Brien and Loughran concurred in the dissent.
Judge Rippey, giving a long review of State aid to schools in his opinion, asserted that “since our organization as a State we have clearly and unequivocally indicated that there must be a complete severance between denominational or sectarian schools on the one hand and public common schools on the other.”
“The argument is advanced that furnishing transportation to the pupils of private or parochial schools is not in aid or support of the schools, but rather in aid of their pupils,” he continued.
“Free transportation of pupils induces attendance at schools. The purpose of the transportation is none other than to promote the interests of the private school or religious or sectarian institution that controls and directs it.”
Judge Rippey explained that without pupils there could be no schools and asserted “it is illogical” to say that furnishing of transportation was not an aid to the institution while the employment of teachers, accommodations and other facilities were such an aid. He added:
“If the cardinal rule that written constitutions are to receive uniform and unvarying interpretation and practical construction is to be followed, in view of interpretation in analogous cases it is idle to assert that the furnishing of transportation to the private or parochial school out of public money is not in aid or support of the school.”
Asserting that the statute is “not designed to maintain the institutions themselves,” Judge Crane said in the dissent that the object of the 1936 legislation was apparently to insure the attendance of the children at their respective schools for the requisite period of instruction and, perhaps, to safeguard the health of the children.
“The law says to the children and parents: having chosen a proper school, you must attend regularly. The school district has been given the power to add to that; where necessary, we shall assist in getting there.
“The statute in question does not have the effect of giving public money, property or credit in aid or maintenance of religious schools. The aid is given to the pupils who are legally attending such schools, to assist them to spend the required time in attendance upon instruction.”
When the New York City Board of Education meets this afternoon it will face the problem of determining what immediate action to take about the more than 5,000 non-public school pupils now carried free of charge in school buses.
Superintendent of Schools Harold G. Campbell will ask the board to outline a definite policy for him to follow, and whether the service to the private and parochial schools must be discontinued immediately will be up to the board, he said, adding:
“My hands are tied in the matter. It’s a question of law, and we will obey the law.”
Discontinuing bus service would “work a hardship” on many of the children, according to Dr. Campbell.
“Some families may have moved to certain localities on the understanding that children would be carried to school,” he said.
Children are now transported on the same basis, regardless of whether the school attended is public or parochial. In the last budget $560,000 is provided for this purpose, $60,000 of this being earmarked for carrying children to non-public schools. About 15,000 public school children receive free bus service.
Paging the school choice ping list monitor.
Well, here’s evidence that the public education establishment and its supporters were a problem as far back as The Great Depression.
Orthodox Jews have moved into the Lawrence school district in Nassau County, New York, and have gotten their members elected to the school board.
They send their children to religious schools in Brooklyn and force the Lawrence school district to pay for the transportation.
The school taxes in that district are very high and the non-Orthodox are beside themselves as to what to do as the public schools are suffering.
Be careful what you wish for.
I'm surprised that people who do not send their kids to public schools are allowed to vote in School District elections.
There is a typo in the headline. RT+70 is incorrect.
Proof once again that the New York State Constitution is a Marxist-Leninist document!
Well I guess this is payback for the Court of Appeals failure to force homosexual marriage in to the state’s laws.
I Love New York? They’ve changed that advertising campaign recently.
There is no initiative or referendum in New York State and we only get the chance to vote on a Constitutional Convention every twenty years. The last time it was held on a off year and the labor unions jumped on the ballot item and beat it to death. Of course, at that time the gays didn’t have a reason to change the New York State Constitution...now they do, and the labor unions will most likely defer to them because of their influence in the media, finance, and government in this state. Now I bet they’d wish they’d have had the convention. I don’t think the catholic church will now press for a convention. Its a lot easier to simply pass the cost of the bus transportation onto the parents whose children attend parochial school. Besides they’ll probably do it for a lot less cost than the New York City Department of Education or the local school districts. If not, the parochial schools will close and they’ll dump their kids back into the public system where they’ll be a tremendous
When I was a boy, me (and Abe Lincoln!) walked half a mile to the bus stop, rain, snow or shine, and the school bus made one stop to pick up or drop off all the kids in the neighborhood.
Today, the bus stops at every house, and the parents are usually waiting right there, to make sure the kids don't get creamed crossing the street.
And yes, all the kids going to their own religious schools get their own public bus service. Of course, the parents all pay school taxes, whether they use public schools or not. So it's a small enough benefit.
Anyone can be on the board of a school district, and all the voters in the district get to vote on the budget which is presented yearly, and always goes up, never down.
The transportation to religious schools is not by public transportation but by private yellow bus companies, and they pay a good salary to the drivers.
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