Cite as: 521 U. S. 203 (1997)
Syllabus
sess whether the government has impermissibly advanced religion by inculcating religious beliefs. First, the Court has abandoned Ball's presumption that public employees placed on parochial school grounds will inevitably inculcate religion or that their presence constitutes a symbolic union between government and religion. Zobrest v. Catalina Foothills School Dist., 509 U. S. 1, 12-13. No evidence has ever shown that any New York City instructor teaching on parochial school premises attempted to inculcate religion in students. Second, the Court has departed from Ball's rule that all government aid that directly aids the educational function of religious schools is invalid. Witters v. Washington Dept. of Servs. for Blind, 474 U. S. 481, 487; Zobrest, supra, at 10, 12. In all relevant respects, the provision of the instructional services here at issue is indistinguishable from the provision of a sign-language interpreter in Zobrest. Zobrest and Witters make clear that, under current law, the Shared Time program in Ball and New York City's Title I program will not, as a matter of law, be deemed to have the effect of advancing religion through indoctrination. Thus, both this Court's precedent and its experience require rejection of the premises upon which Ball relied. Pp. 222-230. (d) New York City's Title I program does not give aid recipients any incentive to modify their religious beliefs or practices in order to obtain program services. Although Ball and Aguilar completely ignored this consideration, other Establishment Clause cases before and since have examined the criteria by which an aid program identifies its beneficiaries to determine whether the criteria themselves have the effect of advancing religion by creating a financial incentive to undertake religious indoctrination. Cf., e. g., Witters, supra, at 488; Zobrest, supra, at 10. Such an incentive is not present where, as here, the aid is allocated on the basis of neutral, secular criteria that neither favor nor disfavor religion, and is made available to both religious and secular beneficiaries on a nondiscriminatory basis. Under such circumstances, the aid is less likely to have the effect of advancing religion. See Widmar v. Vincent, 454 U. S. 263, 274. New York City's Title I services are available to all children who meet the eligibility requirements, no matter what their religious beliefs or where they go to school. Pp. 230-232. (e) The Aguilar Court erred in concluding that New York City's Title I program resulted in an excessive entanglement between church and state. Regardless of whether entanglement is considered in the course of assessing if a program has an impermissible effect of advancing religion, Walz v. Tax Comm'n of City of New York, 397 U. S. 664, 674, or as a factor separate and apart from "effect," Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U. S., at 612-613, the considerations used to assess its exces-
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