The latest round in the long dispute surrounding governmental aids to religious education is now taking place in Wisconsin. On January 26, 1962, after the struggle usually attendant to policy decisions involving the separation of church and state, Bill No. 588, A., providing for the transportation of private and parochial school students at public expense, was signed into law by the Wisconsin governor. Its course had been a rocky one. It was the result of what was termed in some quarters an ill-considered political compromise. The net product has been called "a mess" by officials charged with the responsibility of administering its provisions, and its constitutionality is open to serious question.
The Wisconsin situation is significant in at least two respects. First, the passage of the bill marked a deviation from the state's traditionally "high wall" policy regarding the separation of church and state. Second, its passage comes at a time sufficiently removed from the United States Supreme Court's decision in Everson v. Board of Education, to permit an evaluation of the impact of that ruling on state courts which have since been called upon to consider the validity of public aids to religious education.
