Committee for Public Education & Religious Liberty v. Regan

1980-02-20

Headline: State-funded reimbursements for administering and grading state-prepared tests and for routine reporting at religious and secular private schools are upheld, allowing New York to reimburse schools for those secular testing and reporting costs.

Holding:

Real World Impact:

Allows states to reimburse private schools for administering and grading state-written tests with safeguards.
Permits reimbursement for routine attendance and data reporting when audited and separately accounted.
Keeps such programs subject to challenge if safeguards are absent.

Topics: school funding, religious schools, student testing, separation of church and state

Summary

Background

A New York law lets the State reimburse both church-sponsored and secular private schools for performing state-required testing and reporting tasks. The program covers three types of state-prepared tests (PEP tests, comprehensive end-of-course tests, and Regents scholarship/college qualifications tests), payment for grading some of those exams, and routine recordkeeping such as attendance and basic data reports. The revision followed an earlier law struck down because it reimbursed teacher-made tests and provided no audit procedures.

Reasoning

The Court focused on whether the payments have a secular purpose, a primary effect that neither advances nor inhibits religion, and whether they create excessive government entanglement. The majority relied on a prior decision that approved state-prepared tests when the State controls test content. It found the tests here are secular, that grading is largely objective or subject to review off school premises, and that recordkeeping is ministerial. Because the statute requires separate accounts, audits of vouchers, and periodic inspections, the Court held the safeguards reduce the risk that reimbursements will further religious teaching.

Real world impact

The decision allows New York to continue reimbursing private schools, including religious ones, for the actual costs of administering state tests and for routine reporting, so long as the statutory auditing and review procedures are followed. This is not a broad approval of all aid to religious schools; programs lacking similar safeguards could still be struck down.

Dissents or concurrances

Three Justices dissented, saying the cash payments are direct subsidies that likely aid religion in schools where secular and religious functions are intertwined, and they warned of ongoing entanglement from monitoring and reimbursement procedures.