The City Board of Education decided this weekend to comply with the New York State Textbook Loan law and will buy $2,250,000 worth of textbooks to be “loaned” to pupils in Jewish and Christian religious day schools and to other non-public schools in New York City.
A State Supreme Court Justice has ruled the law unconstitutional as violating the principle of church-state separation. He enjoined New York State from providing such aid. However, State Attorney General Louis Lefkowitz filed an appeal from the ruling and Gov. Nelson Rockefeller notified State Education Commissioner James Allen, Jr., that he could proceed. Mr. Allen then notified school districts in the state they could go ahead.
Initially, New York School Board officials reacted with a “wait-and-see” attitude pending final clarification in the courts of the law’s validity. They then decided to go ahead. In ordering the textbooks, the city board required delivery before December 1 so that it could file reimbursement claims with the state before the Appellate Court rules on the law’s validity.
The disputed law requires school boards to furnish textbooks to non-public school pupils in their districts to the extent of $15 per pupil, with the state reimbursing the school boards for the costs involved. Under the New York City board eligibility standards, about 17,000 Jewish day school pupils in the city could receive textbook aid. Orthodox Jewish and Catholic school systems are challenging those standards as too restrictive. Jewish civil rights organizations remain strongly opposed to the textbook law.
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