New York State Education Dept. Bureau of Statistical Services Annual Financial and Statistical Reports of Private and Parochial…

Chronological by school year, then alphabetical by school name

The New York State Education Department exerts an unusual degree of authority over non-public schools, both at the K-12 and higher levels. Until 1948, all non-public high schools were required to register with the Board of Regents in order to award a diploma. New York State law requires that non-public schools must provide an equivalent number of days of instruction as are required of public schools, and that their curricula must be "substantially equivalent" to public school curricula. In 1894, the "Blaine Amendment" to the New York State Constitution expressly forbade the use of public funds to support non-public schools, except for reimbursement of state visitation and inspection costs. However, exceptions have been made over the years. In 1938, an amendment to the state constitution allowed for public support for transportation costs of students attending non-public schools. In 1967, the Constitutional Convention proposed the repeal of the Blaine amendment, but the resulting Constitution was rejected by voters, largely due to the proposed repeal. Nevertheless, in the 1970's, NYSED began providing reimbursement to private schools for the costs of administering Regents' exams. Currently, the Department provides reimbursements to non-public schools for various mandated services, and provides services to non-public school students for transportation, loans of textbooks and library materials, health services, and special education. This aid is allotted to the student, and not to the school, thus avoiding a violation of the Blaine amendment.

The Bureau of Statistical Services was created in 1904 along with the New York State Education Department. It was charged with collecting basic statistical data on New York schools, school districts, colleges, and professional education programs, and publishing the data annually. Non-public schools are also required to participate in this reporting. In 1965, the Bureau created the Basic Educational Data System, which centralized the collection, storage, and dissemination of statistical data in a single computer system

These volumes contain annual reports submitted by private and parochial schools, formerly called academies. They summarize information on buildings, staff, and pupils. Each report provides information concerning: town and county where located; property (values of buildings, sites, equipment); library (number of volumes); principal (name and educational background); length of session; receipts and payments; teachers (names, colleges attended, license types, number of days and hours per day spent teaching, and salaries--beginning in 1955, only the number of teachers was reported); pupils (number registered, aggregate and average daily attendance); graduates (number graduating and attending institutions of higher education); and miscellaneous (instruction given in certain topics as required by the Education Law, religious affiliation of school, use of Regents exams). The format of these reports changes slightly during the period, and the amount of statistical information collected gradually decreases. All of the reports in this series predating 1911 are copies of the originals, acquired after a 1911 fire in the State Capitol destroyed the originals.

13638Series 13638, Annual financial and statistical reports of school districts contains related data compiled by the State Education Department's Bureau of Statistical Services.

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