1930+Cochran+v.+Louisana+School+Board+of+Education

Case: Cochran v. Louisiana State School Board of Education

Year: 1930

Issue: Can a state use tax revenue to provide textbooks to private schools.

Ruling: The court ruled that it was constitutitonal and did not violate the 14th amendment to supply private schools with textbooks using state money because the textbooks were for the benefit of the students not the school. One of the interesting explanations of the ruling was that the state statute couldn't allow state funds to purchase books used in religious instruction by a sectarian school thus not discriminating between public and private schools.

How this impacts education: My research taught me that this case impacted the issue of seperation between chuch and state becasue the child benefit theory held that, "a state statute providing free textbooks for the pupils of both public and private schools does not violate the 14th Amendment." So public or private state money can be used to purchase textbooks.

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