Government Funding for Christian Charter School Is A Bad Idea

Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments on April 30, 2025, about whether Oklahoma can operate the nation’s first faith-based charter school. If the Supreme Court decides their way, St. Isidore of Seville would be a virtual, K-12 school run by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa.

Charter schools have carved out a small but growing niche in American public education. Charles Russo is Joseph Panzer Chair in Education and Research Professor of Law at the University of Dayton. Russo calls charter schools “public schools of choice, funded by taxpayer dollars. Unlike regular public schools, they are free from most state regulations on curriculum and teacher qualifications. Until now, however, charters, like other public schools, have been secular.”

In other words, the St. Isidore case is important, even monumental. According to Russo:

The litigation over St. Isidore reveals a built-in tension in the First Amendment religion clauses, under which “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” While the free exercise clause guarantees people the right to believe as they wish, controversy remains over what constitutes an “establishment” of religion.

We should note that a lot of conservatives are with St. Isidore. Alliance Defending Freedom’s Jim Campbell was one of the attorneys arguing on behalf of the Oklahoma charter board and the school. Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, a Republican supporter of St. Isidore, said the case “stands to be one of the most significant religious and education freedom decisions in our lifetime.” The conservative legal group Liberty Counsel filed an amicus brief in the case, also in favor of St. Isidore.

But not everyone – even on the conservative and Christian side of the aisle — is so enthusiastic.

David Dockery is the president of the International Alliance for Christian Education. He told MinistryWatch, “IACE does not have an official position on the St Isidore case since we do not have full agreement on this matter among those who serve on the Board.”

Dockery noted that “ADF is fully supportive of the idea of a government funded charter religious school,” and he acknowledged the work of ADF on behalf of Christian groups. “IACE works closely with ADF, seeking their guidance on many religious liberty and church-state matters.”

But, he added,

Others on the Board are less supportive and are concerned about what this means for the Establishment Clause. They are concerned about the implications of the decision not only for public schools, but for Christian schools and homeschooling families as well.

The IACE Board members are in full agreement regarding our concerns about public schools. We are in full agreement that parents should be able to use vouchers or  tax credits to help defray the costs of private education.

We are not in agreement regarding support for a government funded charter religious school — whether Roman Catholic, Baptist, Lutheran, Orthodox, Jewish, Muslim, or Hindu. We are watching this case very closely.

Dan Burrell is a longtime Christian education leader. Today he serves as a pastor in Charlotte, N.C., and the chairman of the board of MinistryWatch. His experience includes a tenure as president of the Florida Association of Christian Colleges and Schools. He was also a faculty member at Liberty University’s graduate school of education. Burrell said he was “pretty strongly opposed” to government-funded religious schools.

“Government money always comes with strings attached to it,” he said. He agreed with Dockery that the best way to give parents choice is to provide tax credits or vouchers to parents. “Parental choice is essential and government aid/support/investment (whatever word they like to put into it) will eventually be a problem.”

Burrell also warned that it would be difficult to put the genie back in the bottle once the Establishment Clause of the Constitution is eroded or breached. “What do they think would happen if Gavin Newsome [gets elected] at some point in their future?” He is not concerned that progressives would try to reverse such a decision. Rather, he’s concerned they would exploit the erosion of the Establishment Clause to introduce all manner of ideologies and religions.

Burrell also noted that even among conservatives the ground has shifted. The fact that ADF, Liberty Counsel, and the conservative governor of Oklahoma support St. Isidore’s efforts indicates that the lure of government money has become too alluring. “The world of Christian education has shifted. As recently as 20 years ago, there would have been wide opposition, but today — at best it would be mixed as to whether or not to support it.”

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As much as I admire and respect my friends at Alliance Defending Freedom, I think they are on the wrong side of this issue. They argue that this case will not erode the Establishment Clause but will, rather, level the playing field so that religious groups are not excluded from receiving government funds merely because they are religious.

That argument sounds fair-minded, but the effect of it will be to even further weaponize religion as a political tool. It will make religious institutions dependent on the government for significant portions of their revenue. Further, as one of Oklahoma attorneys said in oral arguments, “A victory for St. Isidore would result in the astounding rule that states not only may but must fund and create public religious schools.”

How is that not the very establishment of religion that the Founding Fathers argued against? It might not be the establishment of a single religion, but it would be the establishment of a syncretistic religion gumbo that would be so well-funded that it could easily push biblical Christianity even further to the margins of society. The big losers will be Christian schools who refuse to take government funds for principled and biblical reasons. They will likely lose students to religious charter schools, which will be free to the public and will have a Christian veneer that, to the undiscerning, will be Christian enough.

So what will the Supreme Court decide? That’s anybody’s guess. During oral arguments, five of the eight justices seemed sympathetic to St. Isidore. (Amy Barrett recused herself from the oral arguments, without explanation.) Court watchers say we’ll get a decision in June.

If SCOTUS decides in favor of St. Isidore’s, the impact will be monumental, and a lot of conservatives will sing “Hallelujah.” I won’t be one of them. In a culture in which religion is already weaponized, a more appropriate benediction over such a decision is from Shakespeare, who in “Julius Caesar” offered his own meditation regarding church and state. It is from that play – written about a time when Rome’s culture battles boiled over — that we get not “Cry Hallelujah” but, instead, “cry havoc and let loose the dogs of war.”