New York Official Proposes Cutback in Aid to Religious Schools

Aid to public and parochial schools in New York City under Title I of the Federal Elementary and Secondary Education Law, a source of sharp dispute between friends and foes of such help to religious schools, emerged again yesterday as a source of such controversy.

Bernard E. Donovan, New York City Superintendent of Schools, proposed a cutback yesterday in aid under Title I to help disadvantaged children. He asked the City Board of Education, which determines the amount of money to be spent under Title I, to reduce by about 125 the number of reading and arithmetic teachers assigned this year to nonpublic schools. A school official estimated the loss to the non-public schools, which include Jewish day schools, at $500,000.

Dr. Donovan’s proposals would change the ratio of publicly paid teachers in the remedial programs from one to 100 pupils in religious schools to one to 230 such pupils.

Meanwhile a federal education official told the conference here of Torah Umesorah, the National Society for Hebrew Day Schools, that federal aid to education was leading to a “new vital relationship between the public school and the non-public school” and to an “emerging partnership between the Federal Government and the local school district.” J. Graham Sullivan, deputy U.S. Commissioner of Education, also told the Jewish day school leaders that there was no evidence “of a regressive attitude toward such Federal aid to both types of schools.

Dr. Joseph Kaminetsky, Torah Umesorah director, disclosed that two Jewish day schools, one in New York State and one in California, closed this year, and said such failures stemmed partly from “lack of communal responsibility.” Camuel C. Feuerstein, Torah Umesorah president, said in his annual report that there were now 330 day schools in 103 United States communities, plus 36 such schools in Canada.