Oklahoma School Board Approves 1st Taxpayer-Funded Religious School In U.S.

[fooferdoggie]

Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond had warned the board that such a decision clearly violated the Oklahoma Constitution.
“The approval of any publicly funded religious school is contrary to Oklahoma law and not in the best interest of taxpayers,” Drummond said in a statement shortly after the board’s vote. “It’s extremely disappointing that board members violated their oath in order to fund religious schools with our tax dollars. In doing so, these members have exposed themselves and the state to potential legal action that could be costly.”

The Archdiocese of Oklahoma said in the “vision and purpose of the organization” section of its application that: “The Catholic school participates in the evangelizing mission of the Church and is the privileged environment in which Christian education is carried out.”
Brett Farley, the executive director of the Catholic Conference of Oklahoma, said: “We are elated that the board agreed with our argument and application for the nation’s first religious charter school.”

Oklahoma Approves 1st Taxpayer-Funded Religious School In U.S.

The online public charter school would be open to students across the state in kindergarten through grade 12.

www.huffpost.com

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

Then revoke their tax-exempt status. Pick one. Once they spend 10 minutes going over the numbers they'll come back with "Never mind. We'll fund our own schools. Sorry to have bothered you."

 

[dada_dave]

I look forward to Oklahoma establishing the first Muslim charter school.

 

[Edd]

Just makes you want to give up on the US. There’s too much stupid to fix.

 

[fooferdoggie]

the catholic church is behind this. they know better but stye love to push the envelope. well they are going bankrupt left and right so maybe they wont last.

 

[AG_PhamD]

Sounds like as blatant of a violation of church and State as you could make.

I’m a little surprised all the evangelical Christians in Oklahoma would support taxpayers going to a Catholic school. Some of those hardcore evangelicals claim Catholics are not actually Christian.

If you want your kid to have a religious education, pay for it yourself and send them to parochial school. It’s typically a fraction of the cost of typical private schools and often offer a lot of financial assistance. Alternatively there is always home schooling.

 

[Yoused]

I’m a little surprised all the evangelical Christians in Oklahoma would support taxpayers going to a Catholic school.

Test case. Foot in the door attempt.

 

[Alli]

Blatant violation of both state and federal constitutions. This will be costly.

 

[fooferdoggie]

Test case. Foot in the door attempt.

this is the wrath of trump do anything and hope for the best.

 

[fooferdoggie]

Blatant violation of both state and federal constitutions. This will be costly.

dont worry people or I should say dark money groups will fund it.

 

[Yoused]

Every white person in Oklahoma should be booted out of the state and remain in exile until the NAs decide to invite one or two at a time to come back.

 

[AG_PhamD]

Test case. Foot in the door attempt.

That’s definitely the case. I wonder if they will try to say it’s okay since any religion can start their own charter school and disguising this as more of a school choice issue than anything.

At least Catholics, as I understand, typically don’t hold the fundamentalist ideas that lead them to reject many basic scientific understandings which consequently creates an alternative world history.

It’s also interesting think about how if adopted, how things could play out. Can a religious charter school taking tax money reject students based on their religion. I know several non-Catholics including a Jew who went to Catholic school because it was convenient and cheaper than private school. I went to Hebrew school through middle school and there were plenty of openly atheist and agnostic Jews. While some religious schools are open to this and work on the principal of attraction, there are those that will boot students whose ideology does not toe the line.

And what about, for example, if a female student gets pregnant? What if a teacher gets pregnant out of wedlock? What about LGBT identifying students and staff? Private religious schools have exemptions around a lot of this kind of stuff.

To be clear not all religious schools take on strict ideological rules, again operating with the goal of promotion. But we have all heard the cases of those that employ heavy handed enforcement of their beliefs.

How would these religious charter schools like it if they could teach their ideology, but were not allowed to discriminate staff or students in the same was public schools cannot?

Even the state’s AG said this attempt is clearly is a violation of the law.