Oklahoma board approves religious charter school

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It:

Religion in the public school.

Last Monday, the board overseeing online schools in Oklahoma voted to recognize and fund a Catholic school. The name of the school is St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: The organization announced plans back in June to open as a charter school, but plenty of obstacles have been thrown in its path since then, from lawsuits by external groups like Americans United for Separation of Church and State, to opposition from the school’s chairman of the board.

BROWN: Why the struggle over public funds for a religious institution?

Joining us now to talk about it is Ernie Walton. He is Assistant Professor and Director for the Center for Global Justice at Regent University Law School.

REICHARD: Ernie, good morning.

WALTON: Good morning, Mary. Thank you for having me. It's an honor to be here.

REICHARD: So glad you are. Well, let's start with St. Isidore. What's the backstory to Oklahoma Catholics creating this online school?

WALTON: It's a great question. You know, recently, particularly since COVID, there has been a movement in the United States as COVID sort of was an open window for parents to sort of figure out what actually was happening in the public schools. They realized one, our kids are not being educated as the way we thought they were. And two, the schools, the public schools are teaching our children things that are contradictory to our worldview. And so parents have been pushing, thankfully, particularly hard after COVID, for more school choice and states have been responding in different ways. Whether it's-it's loosening homeschool regulations, voucher programs, or providing more options, like what we call a charter school. A charter school is a private school that operates with a contract through the state to educate children. The thing about charter schools is every state in the nation prohibits religious charter-charter schools from operating. And so St. Isidore is attempting to do something that no other—no state purports to allow, and no state currently does. And that's to operate what we call a religious Charter School. And that's sort of the background on St. Isidore.

REICHARD: No surprise, but groups like Americans United for the separation of church and state oppose this venture. One of the reasons it comes down to the contract itself, there's a section of the contract that lets the school claim religious protections when in conflict with Oklahoma law. Is this a novel provision or somehow unconstitutional?

WALTON: It's a great question. The answer is absolutely no. St. Isidore is a private organization, simple state. Now that question is going to be litigated before the Supreme Court. What is a charter school? Is it a state school, a public school, or is it a private school? And I think the answer is pretty clear. St. Isidore is a nonprofit corporation, a private organization, who has the right to religious freedom, just like a church, just like any other ministry and nonprofit corporation. Just because we're talking about education, doesn't change the fact that St. Isidore is a private organization, contracting with the state to do something the state says, ‘Hey, you're probably better at this than we are. And we'll let you run how you want to do it.’ And when the state does that, I think the Supreme Court case law that's come out over the past six years is very clear. If the state chooses to offer a public benefit, to allow private organizations to do something, they simply can't say you’re a religious organization - you don't get to participate. No one is forcing the state to have charter schools. There's no mandatory Oklahoma, you must have charter schools, but if they want to, the Supreme Court, and I think the original meaning of the Constitution, are clear - if you want to do it for secular charter schools, you've got to do it for religious charter schools.

REICHARD: Board Chairman Bob Franklin is a man of faith, and he opposes public funding for religious schools. Do you not see that as a consistent or substantive argument from a legal analysis?

WALTON: I understand his point, but I don't think it's a-a sound legal argument. And the simple fact as I explained of the matter is the Supreme Court has continually upheld over and over again, the ability of the state to allow state funding to go to private organizations, whether it's to parents who then get to choose to send their children through a voucher program, to a private religious school, or to a charter school. No one is forced to attend a charter school. I think we have to remember that. This is a choice of parents. And if a secular parent does not want to send their son or daughter to St. Isidore to receive a Catholic education, they can enroll them in the local public school and receive the type of education they want. But for the parents who don't want to do that we're creating an option for them to receive the type of education, they think that is best for their child. And the Supreme Court has consistently held that when the state allows that choice, there's no problem, there's no constitutional issue. We just haven't applied it yet to the charter school context, and that's why we’re in this litigation and I'm sure this case, or one of the cases that we'll deal with, will make it all the way up to the Supreme Court in the coming years.

REICHARD: Final question here, Ernie, do you think the mainstream media is missing anything important about this story that you want to mention here?

WALTON: I think they're, they're probably missing one key thing. And if we just step back and say, ‘Do we care about the kids or not?’ right? All the evidence shows that kids are much better educated in charter schools all over the nation. And there's no reason to believe that, of course, religious charter schools would be any different, if not more successful. So if we really care about the children, if that's the question, because of course, that's how it's couched. We're going to discriminate against children, we're going to hurt certain children. But if you just step back and look at the data, and I wish the media would cover this, I wish they would cover Thomas Sowell’s book and the actual data that shows time and again, school choice, charter schools time and again, are outperforming traditional public schools on all traditional metrics. And if that's the case, then why are we not authorizing more charters? Why are we not giving more school choice? And for me, the answer is one thing: we don't care about the kids, all we care about is indoctrinating them in a certain ideology. And I just submit to you that is not only unconstitutional, but it is frankly harmful to the kids that we say we care about.

REICHARD: Ernie Walton is an assistant professor and director for the Center for Global Justice at Regent University Law School. Ernie, thanks so much for your time.

WALTON: Thank you, Mary. It's an honor. Thanks for all you're doing. God bless you, and all that WORLD is doing, thanks.

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