Submitted by George N. Spitz, Apr 2, 2007 06:56

Religious affiliated schools should not be discriminated against in awarding the 100 new charters approved in the New York State budget. They are facing considerable economic difficulty in meeting their expenses as would a nonprofit or for-profit secular charter school receiving virtually no government assistance. For example, St Francis DeSales School on the Upper East Side is being forced to close because the mainly minority parents are having difficulty paying the $3,000 tuition. Charter schools already in existence in New York State are being granted approximately $8,500 annually per pupil, all deducted from the budget of the local school district.

Opponents of any form of aid to religious schools may cite the "Blaine" Amendment "Blaine" named after James G. Blaine, former Speaker of the US House of Representatives and defeated candidate for President in 1884. "Blaine" was adopted during a wave of anti-Catholic bigotry in the United States at New York State's 1894 Constitutional Convention, after narrow failure of "Blaine" in the US Congress. Through the years "Blaine" similar to most forms of religious and racial bigotry has caused collateral damage, notably hindering efforts to reform New York State politics.

For example, in 1967, a New York State Constitutional Convention submitted to voters a significantly improved constitution. Opponents waged a successful campaign to retain the existing constitution. They cited in distorted fashion the document's inclusion of repeal of the Blaine Amendment. In actuality, the new constitution substituted the language of the Federal Constitution mandating separation of church and state for Blaine, simultaneously providing citizens with the right to sue if the amended language was violated. Opponents included many New York City liberals, such as then Mayor John Lindsay, City Councilman Edward Koch, at the time considered a diehard leftist, the Liberal Party, Citizens Union and the New York Times. In 1997, a similar argument was used by new generation of liberals including Mark Green, Ruth Messinger, Norman Siegel, the Lexington Democratic Club coalescing with The Conservative Party, Shelly Silver, Joe Bruno, the State AFL-CIO and ironically the Christian Coalition to defeat holding a Constitutional Convention

Also going down to defeat in 1967 with the proposal to repeal Blaine and substitute language of the U.S. Constitution were sections of considerable value to good government in general and New York City in particular. As examples, consider the following:

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· Article I included adding woman and the disabled to those guaranteed equal protection of the laws. (In 40 years since, the legislature has refused submit as separate amendments this article and one preventing hate crimes to the voters)

· Article III prohibited gerrymandering and specified that districts must be compact and contiguous and apportioned by nonpartisan commission... (Understandably, the dysfunctional Legislature has shown little interest in this article)

· Article IX required that in any law apportioning state aid to school districts, the basis of computing the number of pupils shall be the registration thereof. (City Councilman Robert Jackson who initiated a lawsuit to remedy the present unfair apportionment of school aid to the city was unaware that a previous generation of liberals opposed a constitution containing Article IX out of largely anti-Catholic

bigotry.)

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· In addition, New York City was to be relieved by the state under the new constitution of all expense for welfare and court costs. Koch and Lindsay assured voters that this proviso would be adopted as separate amendments within a few years. They were disappointed.

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· The Blaine Amendment should be repealed largely because of the hate filled manner in which it was adopted. But Supreme Court of the United States decisions dating back to 1925 when a Ku Klux Klan sponsor Oregon law outlawing nonpublic schools, which would have included charter as well as religious schools, was declared unconstitutional should subsume the Blaine Amendment, provided none of the government aid is used for teaching religion. Therefore, deducting from any state grant the cost of such religious instruction as a school offers its pupils will suffice to bring Catholic, Lutheran, Orthodox and Jewish schools operating under New York State's Charter School Law within the framework of the U.S. Constitution.

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