How Government Funding for a Religious School Raises Controversy in the United States

In Republican-controlled Oklahoma, a legally iffy experiment is underway that would destroy the public nature of charter schools by authorizing a fully state-funded religious school, as The New York Times explains.

The school will be free to students in kindergarten through 12th grade, and is funded like any other public school in the State of Oklahoma.

Religious schools are private schools that do not receive government funding from either the state or federal government. Some states allow families to provide vouchers that they can use to pay part of their children’s tuition. Nationwide, 8% of public schools are charter schools.

Advocates of religious charter schools argue that church groups should have the same right to manage schools as other organizations, while opponents argue that religious charter schools erase the separation between church and state by using government funds to support religious instruction.

 

Religious Schools

In a move that some considered unconstitutional and is likely to face legal challenges and questions about the role of religion in American society and politics, the Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma recently cleared a major hurdle in its efforts to establish the first fully state-funded religious school in U.S. history.

On June 5, the Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board, which oversees all virtual charter schools in the state, voted 3-2 in favor of establishing the first Catholic charter school in the nation.

According to the BBC, St. Isidore of Seville Virtual Catholic Charter School would bring religious teachings into its curriculum.

The charter school, which is funded by taxpayers, would be run by the Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa.

The online school would open in late 2024 at the earliest, initially to 500 students from kindergarten through to high school.

The board rejected the school’s first application in April, citing legal concerns, and they asked for a new application addressing the areas of concern.

State funding for the Catholic charter school of Oklahoma is expected to be about $23.3 million over the first five years.

Brett Farley, executive director of the Catholic Conference of Oklahoma, in a statement, said: “We are elated that the board agreed with our argument and application for the nation’s first religious charter school.”

While the proposed school still has some hurdles to clear, it has the strong support of Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt, who applauded the approval as a win for religious liberty and education freedom in our great state, and I am encouraged by these efforts to give parents more options when it comes to their child’s education.”

It is noteworthy that Stitt signed into law a legislative package that included tax credits for families with children in private schools, as well as additional funding for rural schools and raises for teachers. The tax credits range from $5,000 to $7,500 per student, depending on household income.

“God gave kids to parents, not to the government. So let’s put them in charge of where they go,” Stitt told Fox News.

 

Discriminatory Policies

The U.S. Supreme Court has recently held that state subsidy programs for private schools cannot exclude religious schools categorically.

Republican Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt and other religious conservatives now hope to convince the Supreme Court to abolish any restrictions on the use of public dollars by sectarian schools.

Should the Oklahoma arrangement pass muster in the courts, conservatives would probably soon dispense with vouchers, scholarships, and other roundabout ways of subsidizing religious schools and just begin directly setting up religious charter schools that aren’t really public in any respect other than funding.

Such a development would also show that the wall of separation between church and state has crumbled into dust.

On the other hand, experts point to the possibility of discriminatory policies, as admission to public schools does not have to be linked to students’ faith. The online school responded by saying that it would not require the students to be Catholic, despite acknowledging that they would be immersed in Catholic religious beliefs.

Several faith leaders, elected officials, and public-school advocates have expressed significant concern, not only for this ruling’s impact across Oklahoma but for the broader implications of such a landmark decision.

Republican Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond said that public funding for the school is an issue, per a public statement his office released.

“The approval of any publicly funded religious school is contrary to Oklahoma law and not in the best interest of taxpayers,” Drummond said.

“It is extremely disappointing that board members violated their oath in order to fund religious schools with our tax dollars. In doing so, these members have exposed themselves and the state to potential legal action that could be costly,” he added.

Rachel Laser, head of the Americans United for Separation of Church and State, also denounced the Oklahoma State School Board’s approval, considering that it is hard to think of a clearer violation of the religious freedom of Oklahoma taxpayers and public-school families than the state establishing the nation’s first religious public charter school.

“In a country built on the principle of separation of church and state, public schools must never be allowed to become Sunday schools,” she added.

“All charter schools are public schools, and as such must be nonsectarian,” said Nina Rees, president and CEO of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, an advocacy group.

 

Unconstitutional Action

In the same context, The U.S. News website indicated that the Oklahoma state constitution prohibits teaching denominational faith in independent public schools, pointing out that the decision will raise a number of lawsuits to challenge the vote.

Under Oklahoma’s charter school law, “a charter school must be nonsectarian in its programs, policies, employment practices, and all other operations, and also cannot be affiliated with a nonpublic sectarian school or religious institution.”

According to the BBC, funding religious schools with tax dollars could test the first amendment’s establishment clause of the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits the government from making any law respecting an establishment of religion.

The clause also bans the government from enacting policies that favor one religion over any other.

According to The New York Times, American society is the most advanced society moving rapidly toward clearer religiosity, despite the secularism of the political system.

A recent poll conducted by the Pew Research Center revealed that the outbreak of the Covid-19 virus has fueled feelings of faith in the hearts of many American people, as half of them prayed supplication to God to limit the spread of the Coronavirus.

The U.S. Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, has expanded religious rights in recent years, as abortion topped those cases in which the court has taken positions along religious lines.

In a 2017 case, the court ruled that a church-run preschool in Missouri was entitled to a state grant that funded playgrounds.

In 2020, the court ruled that Montana could include religious schools in a program giving tax incentives for supporting private-school tuition scholarships.

Last year, the court said that a Maine voucher program that sent rural students to private high schools had to be open to religious schools.

Between the 1950s and mid-1980s, the court sided with religious interests roughly half the time, an academic study found.

Since John Roberts became chief justice in 2005, the share has jumped to more than 80%.

By some measures, Roberts and the five other current conservative justices appear to be the six most pro-religion justices in the court’s history.

As the court’s current term winds down in the coming weeks, the justices are expected to rule on two more religion cases.