§ 559. Legislative findings. The legislature hereby finds and declares that:

1. The vitality of our pluralistic society is, in part, dependent upon the capacity of individual parents to select a school, other than public, for the education of their children. A healthy competitive and diverse alternative to public education is not only desirable but indeed vital to a state and nation that have continually reaffirmed the value of individual differences.

2. The Supreme Court of the United States has recognized and reaffirmed this right of selection. This right, however, is diminished or even denied to children of lower-income families, whose parents, of all groups, have the least options in determining where their children are to be educated.

3. Quality education is made possible for all children in our state only because the burden of providing it has been carried by taxpayers who support both public and nonpublic education. Any precipitous decline in the number of nonpublic school pupils would cause a massive increase in public school enrollment and costs. Such an increase would seriously jeopardize quality education for all children and aggravate an already serious fiscal crisis in public education.

4. In recognition of the initiative of parents who support both public and nonpublic education, it is a legitimate purpose for the state to partially relieve the financial burden of parents who provide a nonpublic education for their children which satisfies the compulsory education laws of the state. Such assistance is clearly secular, neutral and nonideological in nature and is consistent with the historical and continuing role of the state in providing a quality education for all children and in nurturing a pluralistic society.

5. The Arthur O. Eve Elementary and Secondary Education Opportunity Program is hereby established, which consists of tuition reimbursement for parents of low income, in order to provide partial assistance in meeting the financial burden of supporting the compulsory education of their children who are full-time students in New York nonpublic elementary and secondary schools.