846
O'Connor, J., concurring in judgment
"where 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." Ibid. Under Chapter 2, the Secretary of Education allocates funds to the States based on each State's share of the Nation's school-age population. 20 U. S. C. § 7311(b). The state educational agency (SEA) of each recipient State, in turn, must distribute the State's Chapter 2 funds to local educational agencies (LEA's) "according to the relative enrollments in public and private, nonprofit schools within the school districts of such agencies," adjusted to take into account those LEA's "which have the greatest numbers or percentages of children whose education imposes a higher than average cost per child." § 7312(a). The LEA must then expend those funds on "innovative assistance programs" designed to improve student achievement. § 7351(b). The statute generally requires that an LEA ensure the "equitable participation" of children enrolled in private nonprofit elementary and secondary schools, § 7372(a)(1), and specifically mandates that all LEA expenditures on behalf of children enrolled in private schools "be equal (consistent with the number of children to be served) to expenditures for programs . . . for children enrolled in the public schools of the [LEA]," § 7372(b). As these statutory provisions make clear, Chapter 2 uses wholly neutral and secular criteria to allocate aid to students enrolled in religious and secular schools alike. As a result, it creates no financial incentive to undertake religious indoctrination.
Agostini next requires us to ask whether Chapter 2 "result[s] in governmental indoctrination." 521 U. S., at 234. Because this is a more complex inquiry under our case law, it is useful first to review briefly the basis for our decision in Agostini that New York City's Title I program did not result in governmental indoctrination. Under that program, public-school teachers provided Title I instruction to eligible
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