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The nation’s first religious charter school was approved Monday in Oklahoma, giving Christian conservatives a victory but opening the door to a constitutional battle over whether taxpayers can directly fund religious schools. rice field.
The online school, the St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, will be run by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa and will incorporate religious teachings such as math and reading into its curriculum. . But as a charter school, a type of independently operated public school, it will be funded by taxpayers’ taxes.
After a nearly three-hour meeting, despite concerns by attorneys, the Oklahoma-wide Virtual Charter Schools Board voted 3-2, including a “yes” vote for new members appointed in March 2018. approved the school. Friday.
The relatively low-profile commission is made up of people appointed by Governor Kevin Stitt, a Republican who supports religious charter schools, and leaders of Republican-dominated state legislatures.
The approval is almost certain to be challenged in court, but widespread conservative pressure to allow taxpayer donations to religious schools approved in five states last year, including in the form of universal school vouchers took place inside. The movement is bolstered by recent decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court that increasingly suggest support for directing taxpayer funds to religious schools.
Oklahoma’s decision sets the stage for a high-profile legal battle that could have far-reaching implications for charter schools, which make up 8% of public schools in the United States.
Opponents opposed the proposal, arguing that it would be a brazen and untidy fusion of church and state and contrary to the public nature of charter schools.
The organizers of Saint Isidore University hope that any legal challenge will lead to a court giving a final answer on whether government funds can be spent directly on religious schools.
“For the sake of our country and to answer that question, we welcome the challenge,” said Brett Farley, executive director of the Oklahoma Catholic Conference, which represents the Catholic Church on policy issues and championed the proposal. Told.
In 2020 and 2022 Supreme Court rulings, courts will exclude religious schools from national programs that allow parents to take advantage of government-funded scholarships and tuition programs to send their children to private schools. decided that it could not. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote that states are not required to support religious education, but they cannot discriminate against religious education if they choose to subsidize private schools.
Advocates in Oklahoma applied a similar argument to Saint Isidore, arguing that excluding religious schools from founding funds violated the First Amendment’s prohibition against religious freedom.
“That is not all in May Oklahoma Charter Schools Are Religious, But They Will Be illegal to ban It is unacceptable to run a school like this,” the school organizers wrote in their application.
The religious charter school move was opposed by various groups, including pastors and religious leaders in Oklahoma, who feared it would blur the separation of church and state. Leaders of the charter school movement also objected.
“Charter schools have been and continue to be conceived as innovative public schools,” said Nina Reese, president and CEO of the National Alliance of Public Charter Schools, in April. She added that as public schools, charter schools cannot teach religious instruction.
A key legal question is whether charter schools are “state actors” representing the government, or “private actors” more like government contractors. The issue is at the heart of another North Carolina lawsuit, which the Supreme Court is considering whether to take up.
In Oklahoma, the state board that oversees virtual charter schools has come under intense political pressure, with top state Republican Party leaders divided over whether religious charter schools should be allowed. .
At the April board meeting, board members debated the issue extensively, fearing they could face personal legal challenges to their decisions.
The application for Saint Isidore, named after the patron saint of the internet, has been approved, bringing us one step closer to opening.
It is expected to open as early as the fall of 2024 and offer online classes to about 500 students in kindergarten through 12th grade.
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