LAUREN FRAYER, HOST:
On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court hears oral arguments in a case involving a new religious charter school that wants to open in Oklahoma. As a charter school, it would have access to public money. But because it's a religious school, the state Supreme Court ruled that access would violate state and federal laws. StateImpact Oklahoma's Beth Wallis reports on what's at stake.
BETH WALLIS, BYLINE: The first thing to know about this case is that Oklahoma's attorney general feels really strongly that charter schools are public schools, not private schools.
BRAD CLARK: The state creates a charter school. The state can shut the charter school down.
WALLIS: That's Brad Clark with the attorney general's office.
CLARK: Charter schools are mandated by the state to include cursive handwriting. Private schools don't have that. So there are very clear laws and rules that subject charter schools to things that private schools are not subject to. So they're public schools.
WALLIS: That's an important distinction in the case coming before the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday. It centers on the St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School. A couple years ago, St. Isidore asked Oklahoma's State Charter School Board for permission to open. After some back and forth, the state board approved that application and opened the door for this religious school to start receiving public funds. That's when Oklahoma's attorney general stepped in, saying in a lawsuit against the State Charter School Board that since charter schools are public schools, they're subject to a state law prohibiting public funds from going to sectarian institutions.
KATE ANDERSON: There is lots of room for private entities to work with the government to provide services like education to all students, and they are not government entities.
WALLIS: Kate Anderson is with Alliance Defending Freedom, which represents the Statewide Charter School Board. She argues that charter schools actually aren't public schools.
ANDERSON: When you look at the way the schools are set up, how they are run independent from the state, operated by a private entity who sets up the school, runs the school, it really is a private organization.
WALLIS: And as such, she says, it has a right to the free exercise of religion. She cites a trilogy of recent Supreme Court cases that have expanded religious institutions' access to public funds, including a ruling that found the state of Maine could not prohibit school vouchers from being used for religious schools.
ANDERSON: The Supreme Court has every single time said that these monies can go to religious entities when they're taking part in a program that should be open to them but for them being religious. So they need to be treated fairly, the same as any other organization, and they cannot be excluded simply because of their religious character, which is exactly what happened here.
WALLIS: But some say those precedents don't apply here because they dealt with indirect public funding of religious institutions. Rachel Laser is the president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. She says a decision in St. Isidore's favor would be a philosophical sea change.
RACHEL LASER: I'll quote Thomas Jefferson, that it's sinful and tyrannical to require a man to fund a religion that's not his own. So that is fundamentally why it would violate America's DNA to fund this type of education directly and fully with tax dollars.
WALLIS: If the court rules that St. Isidore can establish a charter school, it could create a precedent for public funds to go directly to religious education. But critics say it could also throw entire charter school systems into disarray. If the court says charter schools are not public schools, charters could lose access to certain state-guaranteed benefits, like teacher pensions or money that comes through state funding formulas.
STARLEE COLEMAN: Then the financial and operational structure will have to be renegotiated in every state that has a charter law on the books.
WALLIS: That's Starlee Coleman, president and CEO of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools.
COLEMAN: In most states in the country, charter schools are funded just like district schools, through the per-pupil funding formula designed for public schools.
WALLIS: Private schools don't usually benefit from those funding formulas.
COLEMAN: So charter schools would have to find a new funding stream entirely.
WALLIS: The Supreme Court is expected to issue its ruling in the case by the summer. For NPR News, I'm Beth Wallis in Tulsa. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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