BODY: At the Satmar Hasidic
village of Kiryas Joel, about 50 miles northwest of New York
City, some 5,500 schoolchildren attend private religious schools. But about 200
of the sect's disabled students are taught with public funds in a school that
the State Legislature carved out as a special district in 1989. Hasidic families
have thus been allowed to shelter their disabled children from the ridicule and
hostility parents fear they would encounter in neighboring public schools
because of their distinctive dress and membership in a reclusive community --
while still educating them with public funds.
How far
should New York State go to accommodate this group? The U.S. Supreme Court says
the state went too far by creating a special district to educate them. Now the
Legislature and Gov. Mario Cuomo have approved a law that tries to get around
the Court's objections. The new law faces another possible court challenge. But
even if it does not violate constitutional barriers against state aid to
religion, it represents bad policy.
In a 6-to-3 ruling
last month, the Supreme Court found Kiryas Joel's special
accommodation unconstitutional. The Court felt that the worthy goal of providing
a publicly funded education to disabled Hasidic students could not be
accomplished by creating a district defined by religious criteria.
Quickly responding to the Court's objections, the State
Legislature passed and Governor Cuomo signed a bill that is designed to apply
more broadly. The new law allows any municipality that meets certain criteria,
mostly involving size and wealth, to establish its own school district. The
Assembly and Mr. Cuomo's staff estimate that 10 to 25 municipalities might
qualify. But the New York State School Boards Association, which brought the
successful challenge against the 1989 law, argues that the new law still applies
only to the Kiryas Joel district. It threatens another
lawsuit.
Regardless of any legal judgment, the new law
does not make educational sense. New York ought to be consolidating some of its
700 school districts to promote efficiency rather than creating new, smaller
districts. The swift election-year move, which could allow more disgruntled
school consumers to create their own districts, suggests more concern for
politics than law.
Why not push to accommodate the
Hasidic children sensitively within the special education programs of the
neighboring public school district? When public money is used to educate
children, it should be used to integrate students of diverse backgrounds -- not
to conspire in religious and cultural isolation.
Document 88 of 147. 