Who’s Afraid of Oklahoma’s Catholic Charter School?

A wrongheaded ruling is an invitation for review by the U.S. Supreme Court

By Jason L. Riley. Excerpts:

[Condoleezza] "Rice spoke pointedly about the importance of school choice for low-income families. “We already have a choice system in education,” she said. “If you are of means, you will move to a district where the schools are good and the houses are expensive, like Palo Alto, Calif.”

If you can afford it, she added, “you will send your kids to private school. So, who’s stuck in failing neighborhood schools? Poor kids. A lot of them minority kids.”

Education is a civil-rights issue for Ms. Rice, who expressed little patience for elites who criticize school choice for others while exercising it for their own kin. “How can you say you’re for civil rights—how can you say you’re for the poor—when you’re condemning those children to not being able to read?” she said. “If you want to say that school choice and vouchers and charter schools are destroying the public schools, fine. You write that editorial in the Washington Post. But then, don’t send your kids to Sidwell Friends,” the private school in Washington where tuition tops $55,000."

"Bill Clinton and Barack Obama supported charters, as do large majorities of low-income minorities"

"As Justice Dana Kuehn wrote in her powerful dissent, allowing St. Isidore to operate a charter school “would not be establishing, aiding, or favoring any particular religious organization.” But “excluding private entities from contracting for functions, based solely on religious affiliation, would violate the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment,” which protects religious people from unequal treatment.

Oklahoma’s constitution requires the state to “create a system of public schools, ‘free from sectarian control’ and available to all children,” Justice Kuehn wrote. “It does not bar the State from contracting for education services with sectarian organizations, so long as a state-funded, secular education remains available statewide.”

She reminded her colleagues that in the past the court had approved the use of public funds in “a school-voucher scholarship program,” a “purchase and lease-back arrangement involving a sectarian university,” and a “contract with the Baptist Church to operate an orphanage.”"

"In Espinoza v. Montana (2020), the court endorsed a state tax-credit program that paid for students to attend religious schools. In Carson v. Makin (2022), the court sided with families who had challenged a state tuition-assistance program that excluded private religious schools. In both cases, the majority concluded that barring religious schools from receiving public benefits because they’re religious schools violates the Free Exercise Clause."