Supreme Court to weigh nation's first religious charter school: What's at stake in blockbuster case?

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

75% : And keeping religious instruction out of public schools - a uniquely influential environment - helps promote tolerance for different political and religious views, Drummond argues.
58% : The state's governing body for charter schools voted 3-2 to approve the church's application.
58% : " What are the non-legal arguments both sides are making? The Oklahoma attorney general, says the nation's founders were justifiably concerned about the government giving an official stamp of approval to religion.
55% : The court's decision is expected to turn on whether charter schools - which are publicly funded but have private operators - are public schools under the law.
54% : Nationally, there are more than 8,000 charter schools serving nearly 3.8 million students, according to the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools.
54% : One of the justices who dissented in that 5-4 decision, now-retired Justice David Souter, called the scale of public assistance to religious schools approved by the court "unprecedented.
54% : That's why 46 states, including Oklahoma, and the federal government define charter schools as public schools, Drummond says.
53% : St. Isidore and the charter school board say opening up the program to religious schools will expand educational choices, especially for low-income families. Would other religious schools become charter schools?
51% : They are created and funded by the state, are heavily regulated by the state, have to follow anti-discrimination laws, are free and open to all students and their teachers can join state retirement and insurance plans.
51% : If the Supreme Court sides with St. Isidore, thousands of Catholic and other religious schools across the nation could transform into charter schools, according to Michael Petrilli, the president of the Fordham Institute, a right-leaning think tank.
49% : What is the argument against St. Isidore? Drummond, the Oklahoma attorney general, says charter schools are public in any ordinary sense of the word.
48% : In 2002, the Supreme Court said taxpayer dollars could be used to help parents pay for tuition at private religious schools.
47% : What is the argument for St. Isidore? The church and the Oklahoma governing body that backed their proposed virtual charter school argue that charter schools aren't "public," because that terms applies only to the fact that charter schools are free to students and funded through taxpayer dollars.
46% : They have more flexibility in how they operate than traditional schools.
45% : "Unable or unwilling to sponsor private charter schools, some states may decide to place charter schools under the type of uniform, top-down oversight that stifled public school innovation in the first place," the association wrote.
44% : What did the lower court decide? The Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled 6-2 last year that charter schools are public schools and state law requires public education to be secular.
42% : And once the state allowed private entities to operate charter schools, blocking the Catholic Church from doing so would unconstitutionally discriminate against religion.
41% : Under the Trump administration, the Justice Department changed its position that charter schools act like government entities.
38% : If Oklahoma's requirement that charter schools be both public and nonsectarian is unconstitutional, he argues, then so are everyone else's - a result that would create "chaos and confusion for millions of charter-school students.
37% : " Could a ruling for St. Isidore hurt the charter school movement? The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools sees the case as an "existential threat not just to the fabric of public charter schools, but to their continued existence."
30% : If charter schools are considered private, not public, that would jeopardize the funding of charter schools in states that ban public funding for private schools, they told the Supreme Court in a filing.

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