All eyes are focused on the Trump administration’s plans to abolish the Department of Education, provide states with more control over schools, and expand parental choice. Meanwhile, the nation’s most successful school choice strategy will face one of its greatest challenges later this month, when the Supreme Court takes up the case of St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School v. Drummond.
On its face, the case presents a simple issue: Does a state violate the First Amendment’s Free Exercise clause by excluding a religious school from its charter school program? Religious entities can in fact house a charter school and offer wraparound services to charter students. But, because charter schools are public schools, they are not allowed to offer religious instruction during the school day.
This case is not ultimately about whether public schools can proselytize, however. The outcome will hinge on whether the court deems charter schools to be “state actors” for purposes of applying the federal Constitution. The Establishment Clause requires that district schools, as state actors, be secular. To rule in St. Isidore’s favor, the court would need to redefine charter schools as private schools. Doing so would permanently impact charter school laws in the 46 states that have enacted them.
Today, nearly 8,000 charter schools serve almost 4 million students around the country, with many more students on waitlists. Allowing a religious organization to run these educational institutions may seem innocuous to those who wish to offer a more varied menu of options to families. Yet designating charters as fully private would present an identity crisis for a school sector that has long conceived of itself as—and fought to protect its reputation for being—public.
Identifying charter schools as private could also jeopardize the myriad federal and state funding streams they currently qualify for—funding that the sector has fought hard to secure and continues to fight for on the premise that students attending public charter schools are entitled to the same funds they would receive in district schools.
Charter schools first emerged in 1991 in Minnesota, where educators desired autonomy to teach unencumbered by district rules and regulations that often hinder teachers from innovating in their classrooms. Charters soon caught the attention of both Republicans, who hailed their entrepreneurial spirit, and Democrats, who saw them as a way to expand choice within the public school framework.
The leaders of the charter school movement, for their part, sought to bring public education back to its original mission: to create schools rooted in the communities they serve rather than controlled by distant bureaucrats. Despite opposition from the education establishment, charter schools have grown more popular over the decades because they have delivered results, especially in underserved, low-income communities. During the pandemic, charters attracted nearly 450,000 new families, while district-run schools lost 1.4 million students. In the post-pandemic years, charter enrollment has continued to grow while enrollment at traditional public schools is still declining.
