Oklahoma just gave its permission for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa to open an online charter school, supported by public funds. Governor Kevin Stitt and the state’s Superintendent of Schools Ryan Walters are hard-right Republicans. This decision is sure to go to the U.S. Supreme Court. No one knows how it will rule. Even charter lobbyists are concerned about this turn of events because they like to refer to charters as “public charter schools.” A religious charter, which teaches religion, is not a public school.
Sarah Mervosh wrote the story for the New York Times:
The nation’s first religious charter school was approved in Oklahoma on Monday, handing a victory to Christian conservatives, but opening the door to a constitutional battle over whether taxpayer dollars can directly fund religious schools.
The online school, St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, would be run by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa, with religious teachings embedded in the curriculum, including in math and reading. Yet as a charter school — a type of public school that is independently managed — it would be funded by taxpayer dollars.
After a nearly three-hour meeting, and despite concerns raised by its legal counsel, the Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board approved the school in a 3-to-2 vote, including a “yes” vote from a new member who was appointed on Friday.
The relatively obscure board is made up of appointees by Gov. Kevin Stitt, a Republican who supports religious charter schools, and leaders of the Republican-controlled State Legislature.
The approval — which is almost certain to be challenged in court — comes amid a broader conservative push to allow taxpayer dollars to go toward religious schools, including in the form of universal school vouchers, which have been approved in five states in the last year. The movement has been bolstered by recent rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court, which has increasingly signaled its support for directing taxpayer money to religious schools.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
!!!!!
Time to create the Victor Hugo School of Christian Socialism. That ought to change their tune.
Oklahoma needs a Satanic school and lots of madrassas and yeshivas.
That made my morning, thank you 😀
Religious freedom ends when the State forces anyone to support someone else’s religion.
yup
Classic Republican slippery slope. Test the waters with a virtual charter to normalize the blatant Constitutional violation before going brick-and-mortar.
Yes and, the second part of the plan was deliberate as well.
The plan was to go first with a Catholic school because the sect has been positioned by well-placed media to appear more mainstream than backwoods right wing evangelical protestants.
The plan’s assumption was that there would be less backlash against Catholic schools. As example, Georgetown, Notre Dame and other Catholic universities get a whitewash while Liberty University gets pilloried. Hillsdale gets the same negative treatment as Liberty but, that’s only because the public has the misperception that it is evangelical protestant.
Georgetown hired Koch’s Ilya Shapiro who was made infamous by his tweet about Ketanji Brown. The school held firm on its hiring even after the sh_t hit the fan.
Research found there are parishes that generate more income from vouchers than from the collection plate. SCOTUS’ right wing Catholic majority wants to increase the funding and influence of the church.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/christinekenneally/orphanage-death-catholic-abuse-nuns-st-josephs
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/apr/21/boston-globe-abuse-scandal-catholic
Business Plan 1
Come on down to our “Race to the Top of Mount Zion Enrollment Jubilee” in the old K-Mart parking lot this Saturday and sign yore kids up for Bob Shepherd’s Real Good Okie-dokie-in-Oklahominey School. You can use yore Oklahoma State Vouchers to pay for it, and so its absolutely FREE!!!! No longer due you havta send yore children to them gobbermint schools run by Socialists whar they will be taut to be transgendered! We offer compleet curriculems, wrote by Bob’s girlfriend Darlene herself, including
World HIS-story (from Creation to the United States of Dimocrat Babylon to the Rapshure)
Political Science (We thank you, Lord, for the Second Amendmint and protecting our Borders from invading hoardes of rapists and murderers)
English (the offishul language of Oklahominey, and the language the Bible was wrote in)
Science (the six days of creation; how to make yore own buckshot; and how Cain and Abel survived among the dinosaurs)
Economics (when rich people get tax brakes, that makes you richer)
And much, much more!!! Plus, you don’t havta worry yore hed about safety, cause all are teachers is locked and loaded!
Bob’s Real Good Oklahominey Skool, located across from Bob’s Gun and Pawn right next to Omer and Onan’s Adult Novelties and Feed Store.
It’s been real good runnin’ this here skool. Free innerprize! So much better then tryin to live on Darlene’s disability! Make America Grate Agin!
Well, as Texas Governor Ma Ferguson said, “If English was good enough for Jesus, it should be good enough for everyone.”
Exactly, Sister Ravitch! ExactlY!
Business Plan 2
Akashic Kakistonics, or Opening Heaven’s Gate to Every Child
Tired of those failing public schools? Want to send your child a true Akashic Academy where he/she/they can receive nourishment for the mind AND the soul?
Then enroll him/her/them in Enlightened Master Bob’s AYAHUASCA SCHOOL FOR LITTLE COSMIC VOYAGERS–the only one in the entire state of Oklahominey!
Here at Enlightened Master Bob’s, your child will learn how he or she can skip breakfast, lunch, and dinner and draw nourishment directly from Father Sun in our Solar Temple.
We offer complete holistic health training, using our proprietary textbooks on the Ethereal Body, including uncapping and aligning children’s Chakras so they can download DIRECTLY from the Mother Ship the Cosmic Light necessary for the coming Transformation from Earth-bound Homo sapiens to Interdimensional Lightbeings and Lighbearers.
In our history classes, students will learn all about Atlantis, Lemuria, Camelot and Glastonbury, the Black Rock Desert, the National Brokeback Cowboy Museum, and other Places of Power throughout the Ages.
Students will also learn how to protect themselves against the forces of the Evil Galactic Emperor Xenu and his band of sometimes invisible, shape-shifting reptilian aliens from Alpha Draconis.
But don’t delay! Soon, as our galaxy moves into proximity to the Pleiades, the vibrational frequency of our planet will rise to such a level that we shall undergo Ascension or be annihilated in The Bigger Bang, and everything—the FATE OF THE PLANET, nay of THE UNIVERSE– depends on how many young Lightworkers we can bring into Alignment and Cosmic Consciousness before then!
Of course, all this is absolutely FREE because you can use your State Scholarship Voucher to pay for it.
And best yet, all classes are taught by the Spiritual Wives of Enlightened Master Bob himself!!!!
For a limited time, Oklahomineans may address Enlightened Master Bob Elohim Himself via this vehicle, until his Ascension or Transfiguration or banishment from Word Press, whichever comes first. Remember, however, to show the respect due to HisGloriousPresence. Whatever your need–healing, more cows, more stamina to meet Mother’s demands–simply leave your request below and be prepared to send a 12-inch stack of $20 bills to EM Bob’s Omnitheism Church in Cancun. Thank you, and hareomnihahaha.
What’s the POB number?
How do I know that you are not just another pawn in the service of Evil Galactic Emperor Xenu? Do you know the secret omnitheist handshake? Do you have the decoder ring?
C’mon! You all that easily fooled by Bob’s unseemly parodies? It ain’t for nothing that his “name” is Shepherd. This man is truly doing the Lord’s work.
Parodies!!! I am trying to earn a living here, Steven!
The first Noel was to certain poor Shepherds, btw.
they say . . .
blasphemer
in chief, chief.
“they say? That would be angels, Mr. Nelson.
The first Noel, the angels did say,
was to certain poor Shepherds
in fields where they lay.
Tending sheep. . . hmmmm, vaguely salacious.
OK. How long does it take before someone starts in with the sheep jokes?
Are you making fun of me, Father Bob?
Not at all. Laughing with you, atheling! Joining in the cosmic laughter:
After Seeing Ms. Moxy’s Risque Cabaret (in Sapphic meter) | Bob Shepherd
Moxy’s dancing tickles my slumb’ring fancy.
This is whence it all came to be, I tell you,
Atum’s giggling building to cosmic laughter:
Ring in the welkin!
Birthing being, energy outward pulsing.
This is how the worlds came to be, for you for
me, for every shimmering, wondrous thing, is Atum still laughing.
But seriously, thanks, Steve!
There should be an award . . .
You are very kind, Steve. Here’s another stab at a poem in Sapphic meter, replacing the traditional quantitative meter with an English accentual equivalent.
Not a mere stab, my friend. To use a contemporary phrase, you slayed it!
In case you need reminding
In fields, of course
harvesting the sacred crop
Fox’ Laura Ingraham is very religious. She used her name to endorse the firm, Regal Assets. People invested – sad tale.
Next they will rewrite the history books and take out one of the primary reasons the country was explored, settled, colonized (in more ways than one), and established: Religious freedom separate from Government. (I suppose that didn’t work both ways).
Those Puritans and Pilgrims weren’t much into freedom of religious practice and belief, lol. They just wanted freedom for themselves to practice their own extremism and intolerance. So, in that respect, the folks in Flor-uh-duh and Oklahominey are just like their Puritan and Pilgrim forebears. There were exceptions–Roger Williams was a champion of religious freedom. But consider the fate of poor Ann Hutchinson and what they did to Roman Catholics and Quakers. No. Those grey old guys were not into religious freedom and tolerance. That’s part of the mythical story of America taught in some schools, particularly in the Midwest and South.
But certainly, many of the founders–Paine, Jefferson, Franklin, Madison, Washington, for example–were all about religious freedom, including freedom from it, and all about disestablishing religion and erecting a wall of separation.
https://www.atheistalliance.org/blog/secular-principles-of-the-american-founding-fathers/
Thanks for the link. It’s intriguing and deep… and will be read.
Centrist Democrats like to act like there’s a difference between charters and vouchers. There isn’t.
That’s the profit-seeing neoliberal Democrats at CAP and Bipartisan Policy Center. The Center was co-founded by Tom Daschle. There was an internet page that showed the Daschle Group received money as lobbyists for K-12 Inc. Daschle was at one time board director of CAP.
I don’t know how large the group of political liberal Catholics are who promote Catholic schools. But, there are some in media.
I have an update to this post.
Oklahoma’s Attorney General Gentner Drummond (R) @Okla_OAG Posted this on his official twitter account: 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.
There was a newly appointed Board Member that voted in favor. There is some controversy about whether he should have recused himself and whether or not his term had begun.
I can’t wait to hear how this turns out.
fascinating. This is clearly unconstitutional. Unfortunately, we have an Extreme Supreme Court now that doesn’t give two figs (he said euphemistically) for the Constitution.
It is unconstitutional based on the state constitution. We shall see how that plays out.
Good luck!!!!
And keep us posted! This is so important!!!
I will!
Sadly, the Oklahoma State Department of Education has become a dumpster fire. Diane and friends – feel free to google Ryan Walters, elected as state superintendent last fall.
The SCOTUS majority is eager to declare those Blaine amendments in state constitutions unconstitutional. Those are the amendments that ban spending public funds in religious schools. Most states have them.
We done known ’bout him for a while.
“. . . are hard-right Republicans.”
Correction: ” . . . are xtian fundie theofascist Republicans.”
Correction: “call themselves republicans, period.” You know, the ones who attend the gop convention every four years. Never quite got this “MAGA republicans” thing. Not only do they all look alike, they are alike. The only difference is the trying to out-extreme each other. Moderate or liberal iterations need not apply.
Exactly so
Always fascinating when the camera pans the crowd at one of these big Repugnican covens–old, overweight white people dressed and coiffed as though they just stepped out of an episode of Mayberry RFD, some of them in cowboy hats. Such diversity! Every shade of old and white.
But, but Bob. Don’t you recall the rally where Trump pointed out his Negro?
To think, I began my independent political life in 1977 as a liberal Rockefeller Republican. Who became an Anderson Republican who represented the local Anderson independent candidacy as a snot nosed college sophomore, to one who regretted his childish abhorrence of Jimmy Carter, who I now consider to be most misrepresented president in our nation’s history. Life really could be a just a little more logical.
But one dominant shade of stupid hate, Bob!
For the geography geeks out there who are concerned about size:
https://www.thetruesize.com
GregB The reality of such states and boundaries is not that they have or do not have natural differences, but that they have a history that people chose and now choose to live in, and in terms of. the longer the history, the stronger the border. And if the initial choosing is frayed, then the fray will always need to be healed, until it becomes so.
That choosing, rather than rendering defined borders as somehow “arbitrary” or even fictitious, makes them historically real. It’s not that they cannot be changed . . . of course they can . . . but that they are now rooted in and woven into people’s history and their surrounding events.
Putin is a good example of the principle. If he had taken over Ukraine before the people had some 20 years of history (and some growing up in it) as a struggle for freedom without their Russian overlords, he might not have had so much trouble doing so. While, regardless of their natural geography, now he needs to kill the very real idea of democracy that stands at his border, as real as any mountain, river, or ocean . . . more so, in fact. I would not call that arbitrary or fictitious. CBK
I don’t disagree. When I taught middle school geography, I always began the year with a discussion of how rivers, mountains, valleys, and seas in a sense created humanity’s first sense of boundaries. But the history of modern borders is much more complicated. In the United States, for example, Jefferson and Polk used political and military means to create many artificial and fictitious borders. As did the states in the land they added. It’s a mix of both, and that’s a lesson students should learn. This would make a good film to show in class to illustrate this:
Yep! I should redo my Master’s Thesis: Education Vouchers: The issue of family choice in American Education (1986) UNO. And, say what? I told you so!
By the way! Amy C. Barrett, a Catholic Girl School H.S. graduate from New Orleans where the Catholic Parochial system dominates in politics and everything else, was Trump’s and the Republican’s perfect Supreme Court nominee on this issue to overturn the the first amendment in education! See Education Vouchers: The issue of family choice in American Education @ The University of New Orleans (1986).
Thanks for the bio and history.
Media and influencers let the nation down when they omitted coverage of who brought school choice to Louisiana- the axis of the Catholic Church working with wealthy, pseudo libertarians. The public should be informed about the history of racial bigotry by the Republicans in the Catholic church (up to 60%). The public is already aware of the Church’s sex discrimination against women and people who are gay.
The reason New Orleans was the first city to lose all of its public schools is that Louisiana is unique in the south. It has more Catholics than other Southern states.
The Satanists usually step up for things like this. Waiting for them to apply for their charter school.
Off topic: is anyone else experiencing odd, intermittent changes in the avatars used on this site or is it just my computer?
It’s not just you.
Hmm. Thanks for letting me know.
The Oklahoma Charter School approving authority did not have the intestinal fortitude to deny the application. They knew that the applicant would take the denial all the way through the courts system. Now there is a strong possibility that the State of Oklahoma and, hopefully, the applicant will be taken to court. I hope all the parties involved pay and pay dearly for this BS.
What about the SEPARATION of Church and State?????
In Oklahoma and many other states the separation of church and state does not exist now or will not in the future. The laws just have not been passed yet but are coming. Vote DeSantis in as president and it will happen sooner than later.
Next every religion in this country will be applying for approval for a charter school to support their beliefs. Taxpayers will be paying for the religious indoctrination instead of educating the students to go out into the world and make a living and be productive citizens.
If other states follow Oklahoma’s lead the it will not be long until we are a theocracy nation but upon which religion will this nation base it laws in the future?
It’s ironic that people like DeSantis and Abbott of Texas say they want “education, not indoctrination” as they promote public funding for religious schools whose mission is indoctrination.
There really is no difference between charters and vouchers.
We’ve already got Carson v Makin, Espinoza v MT, Trinity Lutheran v Comer. The only distinction this case will have is clarifying that charter schools too – not just voucher schools– may teach religion at taxpayer expense. And, potentially, discriminate for religious reasons in hiring and admissions, and even make everyone sign religious “loyalty pledges.” But by the time the case reaches SCOTUS, most interested red states will already have legislated expansive voucher programs. Charters require schools to follow state ed regs, renew every 5 yrs et al pesky regs. They’ll lose any advantage.
Okla itself just passed a universal voucher program 2 weeks ago. $7500/ head [over 1/2 the ave state per-pupil funding] for any privschool you want regardless of discriminatory practices (or ed quality). And more than enough to provide a fat profit for a virtual charter operating in one of the least-policed states in that regard. Did RC church miss the memo? Or is this a sacrifice fly to benefit all those Catholic schools in states without expanded voucher programs?