An Oklahoma state education board could vote as early as Tuesday on whether to approve the nation’s first religious charter school, potentially setting up a high-profile national legal battle over whether taxpayer money can be used to directly fund religious schools.
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa are seeking approval for the St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, an online program intended to serve students in mainly rural areas across the state who otherwise have little choice beyond their local public schools.
The school’s organizers are seeking authorization as a charter school, a type of public school that is paid for with taxpayer dollars but is independently run and managed. Though a small number of charter schools may be affiliated with religious organizations, St. Isidore would be the first to be explicitly religious in its curriculum and operations.
The St. Isidore application has the support of Oklahoma’s governor, Kevin Stitt, a Republican, who has argued that excluding religious charter schools is a violation of the First Amendment’s prohibition on religious discrimination.
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With conservative justices now dominating the Supreme Court, St. Isidore’s organizers hope the charter school could be the next step in a broader movement to allow government money to be spent on religious schools. About 7 percent of public school students in the United States attend charter schools.
“We are trying to motivate the courts to take up this question and give us a final answer,” said Brett Farley, executive director of the Catholic Conference of Oklahoma, which represents the Catholic Church on policy issues and is behind the proposal.
Many Republican-led states are increasingly pushing for families to have the option to use taxpayer money for private education, including the use of universal school vouchers, which have been approved in five states in the past year. And in a series of recent rulings, the Supreme Court, which now has a 6-to-3 conservative majority, has signaled its support for the directing of taxpayer money to religious schools amid its broader embrace of the role of religion in public life.
In key cases in 2020 and 2022, the Supreme Court ruled that Montana and Maine, respectively, could not exclude religious schools from state programs that allowed parents to use government-financed scholarship or tuition programs to send their children to private schools. In both cases, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote that the rulings did not require states to support religious education, but if a state chooses to subsidize any private schools, it may not discriminate against religious ones.
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The proposal in Oklahoma could open a new line of litigation, moving the question from whether parents can choose to use state money to pay for private religious schools to whether the government can directly finance a religious charter school.
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Lori Allen Walke, the senior minister of Mayflower Congregational UCC Church, a Protestant community in Oklahoma City, described the idea of religious charter schools as a violation of religious freedom, which “protects our right to practice the religion of our choice and to not practice a religion of anyone else’s choice.”
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The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa are seeking approval for the St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, an online program intended to serve students in mainly rural areas across the state who otherwise have little choice beyond their local public schools.
The school’s organizers are seeking authorization as a charter school, a type of public school that is paid for with taxpayer dollars but is independently run and managed. Though a small number of charter schools may be affiliated with religious organizations, St. Isidore would be the first to be explicitly religious in its curriculum and operations.
The St. Isidore application has the support of Oklahoma’s governor, Kevin Stitt, a Republican, who has argued that excluding religious charter schools is a violation of the First Amendment’s prohibition on religious discrimination.
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Continue reading the main story
With conservative justices now dominating the Supreme Court, St. Isidore’s organizers hope the charter school could be the next step in a broader movement to allow government money to be spent on religious schools. About 7 percent of public school students in the United States attend charter schools.
“We are trying to motivate the courts to take up this question and give us a final answer,” said Brett Farley, executive director of the Catholic Conference of Oklahoma, which represents the Catholic Church on policy issues and is behind the proposal.
Many Republican-led states are increasingly pushing for families to have the option to use taxpayer money for private education, including the use of universal school vouchers, which have been approved in five states in the past year. And in a series of recent rulings, the Supreme Court, which now has a 6-to-3 conservative majority, has signaled its support for the directing of taxpayer money to religious schools amid its broader embrace of the role of religion in public life.
In key cases in 2020 and 2022, the Supreme Court ruled that Montana and Maine, respectively, could not exclude religious schools from state programs that allowed parents to use government-financed scholarship or tuition programs to send their children to private schools. In both cases, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote that the rulings did not require states to support religious education, but if a state chooses to subsidize any private schools, it may not discriminate against religious ones.
Image
The proposal in Oklahoma could open a new line of litigation, moving the question from whether parents can choose to use state money to pay for private religious schools to whether the government can directly finance a religious charter school.
Story continues below advertisement
Continue reading the main story
Lori Allen Walke, the senior minister of Mayflower Congregational UCC Church, a Protestant community in Oklahoma City, described the idea of religious charter schools as a violation of religious freedom, which “protects our right to practice the religion of our choice and to not practice a religion of anyone else’s choice.”
Oklahoma Set to Consider Nation’s First Religious Charter School
If approved, the online Catholic school would be funded by taxpayer dollars, potentially teeing up a high-profile legal battle.
