Cite as: 521 U. S. 203 (1997)
Opinion of the Court
dents. National Coalition for Public Ed. & Religious Liberty v. Harris, 489 F. Supp. 1248, 1262, 1267 (SDNY 1980); Felton v. Secretary, United States Dept. of Ed., 739 F. 2d, at 53, aff'd sub nom. Aguilar v. Felton, 473 U. S. 402 (1985). Thus, both our precedent and our experience require us to reject respondents' remarkable argument that we must presume Title I instructors to be "uncontrollable and sometimes very unprofessional." Tr. of Oral Arg. 39.
As discussed above, Zobrest also repudiates Ball's assumption that the presence of Title I teachers in parochial school classrooms will, without more, create the impression of a "symbolic union" between church and state. Justice Souter maintains that Zobrest is not dispositive on this point because Aguilar's implicit conclusion that New York City's Title I program created a "symbolic union" rested on more than the presence of Title I employees on parochial school grounds. Post, at 250. To him, Title I continues to foster a "symbolic union" between the Board and sectarian schools because it mandates "the involvement of public teachers in the instruction provided within sectarian schools," ibid., and "fus[es] public and private faculties," post, at 254. Justice Souter does not disavow the notion, uniformly adopted by lower courts, that Title I services may be provided to sectarian school students in off-campus locations, post, at 246-247, even though that notion necessarily presupposes that the danger of "symbolic union" evaporates once the services are provided off campus. Taking this view, the only difference between a constitutional program and an unconstitutional one is the location of the classroom, since the degree of cooperation between Title I instructors and parochial school faculty is the same no matter where the services are provided. We do not see any perceptible (let alone dispositive) difference in the degree of symbolic union between a student receiving remedial instruction in a classroom on his sectarian school's campus and one receiving instruction in a van parked just at the school's curbside. To draw this line based solely on
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