Section 5702 - Legislative finding; declaration of policyIt is hereby determined and declared as a matter of legislative finding:
(1) That parents who send their children to nonpublic schools assist the State in reducing the rising costs of public education.(2) The welfare of the Commonwealth requires that this and future generations of school age children be assured ample opportunity to develop to the fullest their intellectual capacities. To further this objective the Commonwealth has had in force for many years a compulsory school attendance law.(3) In the exercise of their constitutional right to choose nonpublic education for their children, parents who support such education make a major contribution to the public welfare. However, the immense impact of inflation, plus sharply rising costs of education, now combine to place in jeopardy the ability of such parents fully to carry this burden.(4) Should parents of children now enrolled in nonpublic schools be forced by economic circumstances to transfer any substantial number of their children to public schools, an enormous added financial, educational and administrative burden would be placed upon the public schools and upon the taxpayers of the State. Without allowance for inflationary increase, the annual operating cost of educating in public schools, the five hundred thousand students now enrolled in Pennsylvania's nonpublic schools would be an additional four hundred million dollars ($400,000,000). Necessarily added capital costs to construct new facilities or acquire existing facilities would be in excess of one billion dollars ($1,000,000,000). Any substantial portion of these operating and capital costs would be an intolerable public burden and present standards of public education would be seriously jeopardized. Therefore, parents who maintain students in nonpublic schools provide a vital service to the Commonwealth. Wherefore, it is declared to be the public policy of the Commonwealth:
That, in order to reimburse parents partially for this service so vitally needed by the Commonwealth, and in order to foster educational opportunity for all children, a program of Parent Reimbursement for Nonpublic Education is hereby established.
1971, Aug. 27, P.L. 358, No. 92, § 2.