Supreme Court ruling in Maine school case could lead to broad public funding of religious schools

WASHINGTON (JTA) — The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Maine parents seeking funding to send their children to religious schools, a development that a dissenting Jewish justice, Stephen Breyer, suggested could open the door to broad public funding of parochial schools.

Ruling Tuesday in Carson v. Makin, the 6-3 majority favored parents in Maine who objected to a state policy that funded private school education for students who lived in districts without public schools, but explicitly excluded religious schools on church-state grounds. The court’s two Jewish justices, Elena Kagan and Brey...