Giving Yeshiva Students Their Fair Share: Mayor Giuliani's Textbook Example
Chaim Dovid Zwiebel

by Chaim Dovid Zwiebel

The New York City Board of Education's decision to give nonpublic school students approximately 20% of the special $70 million textbook assistance grant the Board received from Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani (see news item on page 2) -- which will infuse some $3.5 - 4 million worth of new textbooks into yeshivos across the city -- is cause not only for celebration, but also for contemplation.

The need for new textbook assistance became apparent late last year when the Board of Education issued a budget report indicating that the city spent only $40 per child on textbooks -- barely enough to cover the cost of one book. "Scandalous," thundered the New York Times editorial page, "no wonder textbooks are scarce and outdated."

As it happens, Mayor Giuliani had already advanced a plan to address the problem: a special allocation of $70 million from city budget surplus funds to be used for the purchase of new textbooks -- an amount that would more than double the Board of Education's existing textbook expenditure.

When news reports of the Mayor's special allocation first appeared, they spoke only of textbooks for use in public schools. Nonpublic schools, which educate approximately 20% of the city's schoolchildren, were nowhere mentioned. Following up on this point in a letter to Rudolph F. Crew, chancellor of the Board of Education, Agudath Israel of America president Rabbi Moshe Sherer cited a 1991 legal ruling by the New York State Education Department that monies budgeted by school districts for the purchase of textbooks must be distributed equitably to students in public and nonpublic schools alike.

"Am I right to assume, therefore," asked Rabbi Sherer, "that students in the nonpublic schools will receive their fair share of the $70 million allocation?"

Ru-dy, Ru-dy!

After considering the matter for several weeks, the Board of Education -- with the active involvement of the Mayor's office -- decided that Rabbi Sherer was indeed right so to assume. The decision did not come easily. "I think most of us thought it was for the public schools," grumbled Lewis H. Spence, the Board's deputy chancellor for operations, but "the law is the law is the law, and this is what the law requires."

Mr. Spence's logic seems impeccable, but experience has taught that the law is not always the law after all. Had the two Rudys -- Mayor Giuliani and Chancellor Crew -- and the majority of the Board of Education not agreed in principle that needy children in religious schools should share equitably in the special textbook allocation, it is safe to say that the Mayor and the Board would have sought a way to get around the law.

Fortunately, however, the incumbent Administration in City Hall and at the Board of Education does appreciate the importance of serving nonpublic school children equitably. They have demonstrated that appreciation in a variety of ways over the past several years -- for example, in the Board's decision to ask the Supreme Court to reconsider its ruling prohibiting federally funded remedial education teachers from entering religious school buildings; in the Mayor's decision to allow religious schools to apply for tax-exempt bond financing. The textbook decision may have been mandated by law, but it never would have happened in an Administration whose leaders embraced a different set of values.

A Beneficial Theory

Whether the Board arrived at its decision willingly or grudgingly, the bottom line remains that children in yeshivos and other nonpublic schools will receive the same textbook assistance as their counterparts in the public schools. This equitable allocation reflects what has long been known in legal and educational circles as the "child benefit theory" -- the notion that governmental assistance made available to needy students ought not depend on the type of school the student attends.

This theory has found explicit endorsement in numerous federal and state statutes that establish educational benefit programs. Laws in such diverse areas as special education and remedial education, library books and textbooks, drug-abuse prevention and yellow-bus transportation, all require equitable treatment of nonpublic school students. Indeed, much of the work of Agudath Israel's government affairs division is directed precisely toward that end -- an especially fruitful end in the current political climate of increased funding for education programs.

The child benefit theory does have its limitations -- most notably, legal limitations. The Supreme Court has ruled that certain forms of government aid to religious school students are an unconstitutional violation of the First Amendment's insistence on "separation of church and state".

But where the constitution is not offended by the equitable distribution of government benefits to public and nonpublic students alike -- such as in the context of textbook assistance, as the Supreme Court specifically decided in 1968 -- there is no reason needy children in communities like ours should be excluded from vital educational programs. As Rabbi Sherer wrote in his letter to Chancellor Crew, "the need for additional textbook assistance is felt just as acutely by students attending yeshivos and other nonpublic schools as it is by students attending public schools."

While We're Waiting

Advocates for nonpublic school constituencies -- Agudath Israel prominent among them -- have in recent years promoted public policies such as tuition tax credits and educational vouchers that would give needy parents the resources they need to help send their children to the schools they deem most appropriate. Clearly, this type of structural reform that promotes "school choice" holds the greatest promise of alleviating the overwhelming financial pressures on parents of yeshiva students and supporters of Torah education.

Progress on this front, however, proceeds ever so slowly. Teachers' unions and other powerful groups that have a vested interest in preserving the educational status quo have poured many millions of dollars into combatting school choice in the courts, in the legislatures and in the polling booths, sometimes with great success.

In the long run, I believe, theirs is a losing cause; the sorry state of American public education is making it harder and harder for defenders of the status quo to plead their cause. The day may yet come when vouchers and tax credits will routinely be available across the United States to help parents enroll their children in the schools of their choice. Realistically, though, that day appears to be on a somewhat distant horizon.

In the meantime, however, as Mayor Giuliani and the New York City Board of Education have so tangibly reminded us, there are avenues to explore even within the existing status quo that can be extremely helpful. Our children deserve their fair share.