Religious Charter Schools?

On April 30, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School v. Drummond, in which a virtual school in Oklahoma is attempting to become the nation’s first religious charter school. On this episode of The Report Card, Nat Malkus and four experts discuss and debate the case and the many questions it raises: Can religious charter schools be constitutional? What would religious charter schooling mean for American education? Are religious charter schools good for school choice? And what might Oklahoma’s religious charter school mean for the future of religious education? Derek Black is a professor of law and the Ernest F. Hollings Chair in Constitutional Law at the University of South Carolina School of Law. Joshua Dunn is the Executive Director of the Institute of American Civics at the Howard H. Baker School of Public Policy and Public Affairs at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Kathleen Porter-Magee is an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute and the managing partner of the Leadership Roundtable, a Catholic nonprofit. Andy Smarick is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, where he focuses on education, civil society, and the principles of American conservatism. Note: This episode is adapted from the most recent installment of the American Enterprise Institute’s Education Policy Debate Series, which was held at AEI on April 16. A video recording of the debate can be found here.