ALBANY – The refusal of a New York judge to hear the motion of a Queens mother asking the state to pay private school tuition for two of her children is a setback to the state’s school choice movement – but not a final defeat.

In refusing to allow the mother, Dianne Payne, to make her motion, state Supreme Court Justice Leland DeGrasse, the judge in the Campaign for Fiscal Equity case, has essentially blocked the woman’s attempt to join the landmark school-funding lawsuit.

Justice DeGrasse’s ruling allows Governor Pataki and his lawyer, Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, to avoid for now having to take a legal position against Ms. Payne. But Ms. Payne may yet file another lawsuit. And Mr. Pataki is pressing for expanding school choice on two other fronts: lifting the cap on the number of charter schools in the state, now set at 100, and giving education tax credits that could be used to help defray the cost of private school tuition.

“I was very surprised and disappointed that the judge did not explain why he was unwilling to listen to the plea of a woman whose constitutional rights are being violated,” the lawyer representing Ms. Payne, Eric Grannis, said. He said he would file a separate action unconnected to the lawsuit before another judge.

Ms. Payne last month filed a motion to intervene in the lawsuit, which alleges that New York is failing to provide students with a “sound basic” education, which the court says is a constitutional requirement. The lawsuit was started by a coalition of parent and advocacy groups and community school boards in 1993, and culminated last year when Justice DeGrasse ordered New York State to spend at least $23 billion more on New York City schools. The state has appealed the order.

A retired correction officer and a single mother of five children, Ms. Payne was trying to piggyback on the lawsuit by claiming that the state was violating the constitutional rights of her children by failing to educate them properly. She pays $12,000 a year to send her two oldest children to Christ the King, a private Catholic high school in Queens, and wants up to $26,000 in state aid to send her two youngest children to a private school, whose tuition she cannot afford.

Closely watched by both sides of the school choice debate, her legal tactic also represented the most serious attempt to make the case that the Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit could be resolved not only by infusing more money into city schools but by giving parents tax dollars to send their children to private schools. In essence, Ms. Payne was trying to make the case for school vouchers in the context of the lawsuit.

The motion is just one of several flash points in the heated battle over school choice in New York. Another is a proposal by Governor Pataki to give education tax credits up to $500 to low- and middle-income parents with children in struggling school districts. Parents would be able to use the dollar-for-dollar credits on private school tuition, leading some to call the governor’s plan another form of vouchers.

The day after Justice DeGrasse refused to hear Ms. Payne’s motion, the president of the New York City teachers union, which opposes Pataki’s tax credit plan, met with a representative from the conservative Orthodox group, Agudath Israel of America, a proponent of school choice.

According to a government source, the president of the United Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten, told the representative of Agudath Israel, David Zweibel, that she would be open-minded on the tax credit issue, while asking Mr. Zweibel to support the UFT’s position on the school funding case. The source said Agudath Israel called the meeting, which took place at UFT headquarters.

The UFT, which argues that education tax credits or school vouchers would take money out of the public school system, has been demanding that the state comply with the Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit.

A spokesman for the UFT said Ms. Weingarten and Mr. Zweibel had a “wide-ranging discussion,” saying, “There was no agreement, commitment, no quid pro quos.” Mr. Zweibel said the meeting “was a preliminary conversation about the general subject of tax credits,” but otherwise refused to comment.

Sources said the discussion between the two groups could be an attempt on the part of UFT to link the tax credits issue to Albany’s compliance with the lawsuit, which involves a far greater sum of money than the governor’s plan.

A rally in Albany in favor of the tax credits is scheduled for February 14.

Critics of Judge DeGrasse’s ruling in the CFE case have said that the amount of funding ordered is unrealistic given that New York already has a high state and local tax burden. Mr. Pataki and Mr. Spitzer also argue that the judge is usurping spending powers that under the state constitution belong to the legislature and the governor.