Are Religious Charter Schools Legal? The Supreme Court Will Decide Soon

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

54% : "Drummond was supported in a friend-of-the-court brief filed by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, which said that "public charter schools are joint undertakings with the state, fully funded by the state, occupying a unique space within the public school system -- and accepting of both the rights and responsibilities that come with that.
53% : The Oklahoma high court further rejected a central argument advanced by St. Isidore supporters, that the recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions removing barriers to the inclusion of religious private schools in state aid programs gave St. Isidore and the families that would enroll a First Amendment free exercise of religion right for the charter school to be funded by the state.
52% : The Catholic sponsors and their supporters believe that the U.S. Supreme Court's recent decisions expanding permissible uses of state aid benefiting private religious schools make the time ripe for their concept of a virtual religious charter school that should not be excluded from the state's charter school program merely because of its religious character.
49% : The U.S. Supreme Court will take up a potentially momentous case about religious charter schools, involving issues that could radically alter the character of American education, both in terms of school choice and state funding of public education.
47% : ""This court has repeatedly struck down states' attempts to exclude religious schools, parents, and students from publicly available benefits based solely on their religion," the state charter board's appeal says, citing the Supreme Court's 2017 ruling in Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia v. Comer, its 2020 decision in Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, and its 2022 ruling in Carson v. Makin, which all overturned state exclusions of religious schools from generally available aid programs.
46% : On the other side of both appeals is Oklahoma's Republican attorney general, Gentner Drummond, who had issued an advisory opinion in 2023 that a religious charter school would violate the Oklahoma Constitution's clear directive" that public schools be operated "free from sectarian control," as well as a state statute requiring that charter schools be "nonsectarian."
44% : State funding of the school would violate the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment prohibition on government establishment of religion, the court said.
43% : "Enforcing the St. Isidore contract would create a slippery slope and what the [state constitutional] framers warned against -- the destruction of Oklahomans' freedom to practice religion without fear of governmental intervention.
42% : In his brief, Drummond offered several arguments why the U.S. Supreme Court should not take up the case, including that the state supreme court decision was correct and that taking up this case " would offer little guidance about whether charter schools in other states are public or private.

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