Can public money flow to Catholic charter school? The Supreme Court will decide

By SEAN MURPHY and MARK SHERMAN Associated Press WASHINGTON AP The Catholic Church in Oklahoma wants taxpayers to fund an online charter school that is faithful to the teachings of Jesus Christ The Supreme Court could well approve St Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School would be the nation s first religious charter school A ruling from the high court allowing constituents money to flow directly to a religious school almost certainly would lead to others Opponents warn it would blur the separation between church and state sap money from inhabitants schools and possibly upend the rules governing charter schools in almost every state The court hears arguments Wednesday in one of the term s most of closely watched cases FILE The Supreme Court is seen on Capitol Hill in Washington Dec AP Photo J Scott Applewhite File The scenario comes to the court amid efforts mainly in conservative-led states to insert religion into constituents schools Those include a challenged Louisiana requirement that the Ten Commandments be posted in classrooms and a mandate from Oklahoma s state schools superintendent that the Bible be placed in population school classrooms Conservative justices in newest years have delivered a series of decisions allowing society money to be spent at religious institutions leading liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor to lament that the court continues to dismantle the wall of separation between church and state that the Framers fought to build The justices are reviewing an Oklahoma Supreme Court decision last year in which a lopsided majority invalidated a state board s approval of an application filed jointly by two Catholic dioceses in Oklahoma A cross sits atop the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City on Thursday April in Oklahoma City Oklahoma AP Photo Nick Oxford The K- online school had planned to start classes for its first enrollees last fall with part of its mission to evangelize its students in the Catholic faith Oklahoma s high court determined the board s approval violated the First Amendment s Establishment Clause which prohibits the regime from making any law respecting an establishment of religion The state board and the school backed by an array of Republican-led states and religious and conservative groups argue that the court decision violates a different part of the First Amendment that protects religious freedom The Free Exercise Clause has been the basis of the latest Supreme Court decisions A State need not subsidize private learning Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in one of those decisions in But once a State decides to do so it cannot disqualify a few private schools solely because they are religious The affair has divided various of the state s Republican leaders with Gov Kevin Stitt and State Superintendent of Population Instruction Ryan Walters supporting the concept of using population funds for religious schools while Attorney General Gentner Drummond has opposed the idea and sued to overturn the virtual charter school board s approval of St Isidore A key issue in the circumstance is whether the school is inhabitants or private Charter schools are deemed residents in Oklahoma and the other states and the District of Columbia where they operate They are free and open to all Just under million American schoolchildren about are enrolled in charter schools Charter schools no doubt offer significant educational innovations but they bear all the classic indicia of populace schools lawyers for Drummond wrote in a Supreme Court filing Those include that they receive state funding must abide by antidiscrimination laws and must submit to oversight of curriculum and testing But the schools also are run by independent boards that are not part of local community school systems Charter schools are called society schools but they re totally different entities mentioned Nicole Garnett a University of Notre Dame law professor who is a leading proponent of publicly funded religious charter schools Other Notre Dame professors are part of the St Isidore legal association If the court finds the school is population or a state actor it could lead to a ruling against St Isidore If instead it determines that the school is private the court is more likely to see this circumstance as it did the earlier ones in which it located discrimination against religious institutions That the court even agreed to take on the issue now might suggest that a majority is inclined to side with St Isidore The Oklahoma court is the only one that has ruled on religious charter schools and only eight justices are hearing the situation Justice Amy Coney Barrett recused herself without explanation Barrett previously taught law at Notre Dame and is close friends with Garnett The current court is very familiar with private and especially religious guidance Six justices attended Catholic schools as children and almost all the children of the justices go or went to private schools including a few religious ones Walters the state schools superintendent sees the St Isidore event as the next frontier in school choice for parents He has been an unabashed critic of the separation of church and state and sought to infuse more religion into residents schools I see it very clearly that there s been a war on Christianity and our schools have been at the epicenter of that commented Walters a former high school history tutor elected in on a platform of fighting woke ideology in populace schools and banning certain books from school libraries We re going to give parents more rights in coaching than anywhere in the country and that means a free ability to choose the school of your choice whether it s a religious mentoring whether it s a charter school general school home school all of the above The idea of using population money to fund religious schools is antithetical to the Constitution stated Rachel Laser president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State This is religious citizens mentoring fully and directly funded by taxpayers It s as abject a violation of religious freedom as they come because it forces taxpayers to fund the heart of religion religious mentoring for religion that s not their own Laser commented A group of Oklahoma parents faith leaders and a constituents coaching nonprofit that also sued to block the school argue that religious charter schools in their state would lead to a drop in funding for rural populace schools St Isidore would lead to other religious charter schools commented Erika Wright a mother whose two school-age children attend a rural school district in Cleveland County And all of those schools would be pulling from the same limited pot of money that we have for our current brick-and-mortar schools across the state A decision is expected by early summer Murphy shared from Oklahoma City