Cite as: 521 U. S. 203 (1997)
Souter, J., dissenting
U. S. 306, 314 (1952)). Witters and Zobrest did nothing to repudiate the principle, emphasizing rather the limited nature of the aid at issue in each case as well as the fact that religious institutions did not receive it directly from the State. In Witters, the Court noted that the State would issue the disputed vocational aid directly to one student who would then transmit it to the school of his choice, and that there was no record evidence that "any significant portion of the aid expended under the Washington program as a whole will end up flowing to religious education." 474 U. S., at 488. Zobrest also presented an instance of a single beneficiary, see 509 U. S., at 4, and emphasized that the student (who had previously received the interpretive services in a public school) determined where the aid would be used, that the aid at issue was limited, and that the religious school was "not relieved of an expense that it otherwise would have assumed in educating its students," id., at 12.
It is, accordingly, puzzling to find the Court insisting that the aid scheme administered under Title I and considered in Aguilar was comparable to the programs in Witters and Zobrest. Instead of aiding isolated individuals within a school system, New York City's Title I program before Aguilar served about 22,000 private school students, all but 52 of whom attended religious schools. See App. 313-314.2 Instead of serving individual blind or deaf students, as such, Title I as administered in New York City before Aguilar (and as now to be revived) funded instruction in core subjects (remedial reading, reading skills, remedial mathemat-2 The Court's refusal to recognize the extent of student participation as relevant to the constitutionality of an aid program, see ante, at 229-230, ignores the contrary conclusion in Witters v. Washington Dept. of Servs. for Blind, 474 U. S. 481 (1986), on this very point. See id., at 488 (noting, among relevant factors, that "[n]o evidence ha[d] been presented indicating that any other person ha[d] ever sought to finance religious education or activity pursuant to the State's program").
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