Religious Charter Schools Are Entirely Constitutional

One of the most consequential decisions that parents make involves how to educate their children. The decision involves questions not only about curricula and educational competitiveness but also about the family’s schedule when it comes to pickups and drop-offs, the child’s learning preferences, and myriad other factors. That’s why parents should have the freedom to make choices that are best for their families. 

This premise would seem uncontroversial, but many in the educational establishment dispute it. Unaccountable bureaucrats, self-dealing teachers’ unions, and the politicians they support have maintained for years that government-run, top-down approaches to public education would sufficiently address all parents’ concerns. For decades, millions of Americans let this iron triangle dictate the terms of our children’s education to us in geographically zoned public schools.

Fortunately, a resurgence of educational choice and parental empowerment has jump-started innovation and worked to put parents back in the driver’s seat when it comes to managing their kids’ schooling.  

That is my goal as Oklahoma’s state superintendent: to give parents and students the most expansive school-choice options in the United States. 

It’s why I supported the creation of a virtual Catholic charter school in Tulsa, despite opposition from defenders of the educational status quo. The purpose for St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School was simple enough: the Diocese of Oklahoma City wanted to be able to access public resources to offer students an online education that aligns with their values and views of education – a privilege already enjoyed by other virtual charter schools. I supported the application.

Others didn’t. Some claimed that approving such a charter school, and letting it operate with Oklahomans’ tax dollars like other such charter schools, would violate the First Amendment. Others argued that the arrangement violated the “separation of church and state,” a phrase that appears nowhere in the Constitution or Declaration of Independence. The application was approved by the board 3-2. But a lawsuit filed by the ACLU requesting an injunction is still pending.

Here are the facts. Nothing in any of our founding documents would preclude St. Isidore’s from constitutionally operating with public funds. The Supreme Court affirmed this view three years ago when it ruled against state-level provisions that prohibited religious organizations from participating in public school-choice programs. The Court’s majority opinion even pointed out that such statutes and state constitutional provisions were not true to the First Amendment but were instead “born of bigotry” against Catholic Americans and the Catholic Church itself. A few years earlier, the Court had ruled that religious institutions cannot be denied equal access to publicly funded programs simply because of their religious nature. A 7-2 majority asserted that the exclusion of a church “from a public benefit for which it is otherwise qualified, solely because it is a church, is odious to our Constitution all the same, and cannot stand.”

While the nation’s highest court may have declared such discriminatory laws constitutionally void, the impetus behind these measures is alive and well. One might ask whether there would be such vitriolic opposition to a similar application for a school operated by the adherents of any other religion. Based on a career’s worth of experience in education, from the classroom to state superintendent, I’d say no. 

After all, few things are more threatening to today’s educational industrial complex than an institution that might not only compete against it but that also might teach traditional values and morality to its students.

Oklahoma’s parents should have the freedom to put their kids in a Catholic virtual charter school if they believe that that’s the best decision they can make. I will keep fighting for them, and I will always stand up for comprehensive school choice.