The New York City Board of Education appealed to the State Constitutional Convention, now meeting in Albany, to revise the state’s charter, to retain the state ban against state funds to religious-sponsored schools. The State Board of Regents, the highest education body in the state, supports repeal of section III of Article XI, popularly known as the Blaine Amendment. The issue has split the organized Jewish community in the state.
The Board of Education warned that repeal of the 73-year-old ban would permit “an erosion of the public school system.” The board said that its action, approved at an executive meeting with one dissenting vote, “reaffirms the principle of separation of church and state,” as embodied in the Blaine Amendment.
In Mamaroneck, N. Y., the Rye Neck Board of Education adopted a resolution urging the Constitutional Convention to retain the Blaine Amendment. The school board warned that diversion of public funds to parochial schools would weaken the public school system.
A proposal before the constitutional convention’s committee on the Bill of Rights and Suffrage endorses the substitution of the language of the First Amendment of the Federal Constitution for the Blaine Amendment. The Federal law of 1965 for aid to elementary and secondary education, which provides funds for certain subjects to pupils of religious-sponsored schools, was based on the judgment that it does not bar such use of federal funds.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
