Supreme Court fight over Catholic charter school could clear the way for taxpayer-funded religious schools

The Supreme Court will hear arguments Wednesday in a blockbuster dispute over the nation’s first religious charter school, a case that critics say has prompted a “crisis of identity” in the school choice movement and that could vastly expand taxpayer funding for religious education.

The Supreme Court will hear arguments Wednesday in a blockbuster dispute over the nation’s first religious charter school, a case that critics say has prompted a “crisis of identity” in the school choice movement and that could vastly expand taxpayer funding for religious education. The battle over St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School in Oklahoma has pit public school officials, traditional charter school advocates and the state’s Republican attorney general against powerful religious groups who say a series of recent opinions from the court’s 6-3 conservative majority has all-but already decided the case in their favor. Charter schools – privately run but publicly funded – serve 3.8 million students in the US, offering an alternative to traditional public schools that are intended to be more innovative and less bound by state regulations. The concept took off in the 1990s and, by the 2023 school year, there were some 8,000 charter schools operating nationwide. A ruling for St. Isidore could effectively redefine charter schools as private entities, even though most state laws – including Oklahoma’s – deem them to be public schools. That could open the door to other religious charter schools applying for funding, critics say, or it could prompt some states to restrict the schools or abandon them altogether. “Charter schools now face a critical moment,” the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, which has advocated for the schools, told the Supreme Court this month. “This case presents an existential threat not just to the fabric of public charter schools, but to their continued existence.” Rachel Laser, president of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said a decision for the school would represent a “dangerous sea change for our democracy.”