Overreact much? The PBS News Weekend show set off Klaxon alarms Sunday evening about the pseudo-constitutional concept of "separation of church and state," based on the establishment of an online Catholic charter school in Oklahoma, the first publicly funded religious charter school in the nation. Host John Yang introduced his segment under a graphic that read “Church and State."
YANG: For several years the Supreme Court has been lowering the barrier between church and state. In education, the court said last year that religious schools could not be excluded from programs that send taxpayer money to secular private schools. Now Oklahoma officials have approved the creation of what would be the nation's first religious public charter school. That has set off a court battle that will likely end up at the Supreme Court. Adam Kemp is one of our community's correspondents. He's based in Oklahoma City. Adam, first of all, what's the proposal that the Oklahoma officials have approved and who's asking for it?
PBS journalist Kemp forwarded fear-mongering about religious indoctrination and, of course, "LGBTQ+ issues."
Adam Kemp: Right, John, it's an online charter school called St. Isidore of Seville. Interestingly enough, named after the proposed patron saint of Internet users, it’ll be an online charter school run by the Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma. They plan on using it, and they spelled this out directly in their application, to spread their evangelical message of the church. [Editor's note: Did the Catholic institution actually describe its message as "evangelical"?] That raises a lot of concerns for folks on, you know, matters of LGBTQ+ issues, sexual gender orientation, and sexual morality, whether or not all students will be accepted at this school.
John Yang: Some of those concerns have led to a lawsuit, right?
Adam Kemp: That's right. There's been a coalition of groups that have kind of come forward, led by the ACLU and the Freedom From Religion Foundation, who are representing like nine different groups from Oklahoma -- nine residents, including teachers, some parents, different public education advocates -- who are all asking these questions right now of, who will be accepted, what kind of accommodations will be made for different students and basically, how much the Catholic Church will, you know, use this school to possibly indoctrinate children, which is, you know, quite the accusation going around right now, but something that these parents are very concerned about right now. It also comes at a time here in Oklahoma, where Oklahoma is facing a critical shortage of teachers. The state is one of the lowest in the nation in funding per pupil. And it has a lot of parents and advocates quite concerned that, you know, they're further expanding this pot of money that is already too small for the number of schools here.
Kemp at least introduced a taped comment by Oklahoma’s Republican Gov. Kevin Sitt in support of the measure.
Stitt: If the Catholics want to want to set up a charter school specifically in McAlester, Oklahoma, to educate their community and parents choose to go there, that's a great thing. And if the Jewish community wants to set up a Jewish charter school, that's an awesome thing. If the Muslims want to set up a charter school, and their parents want to go there, that's an awesome thing. Parents want to influence and they want to be involved in their kid's lives….
This biased segment was brought to you in part by BNSF Railway.
A transcript is available, click “Expand” to read:
PBS News Weekend
August 13, 2023
6:17:08 p.m. (ET)John Yang: For several years the Supreme Court has been lowering the barrier between church and state. In education, the court said last year that religious schools could not be excluded from programs that send taxpayer money to secular private schools.
Now Oklahoma officials have approved the creation of what would be the nation's first religious public charter school that has set off a court battle that will likely end up at the Supreme Court. Adam Kemp is one of our community's correspondents. He's based in Oklahoma City.
Adam, first of all, what's the proposal that the Oklahoma officials that were approved and who's asking for it?
Adam Kemp: Right, John, it's an online charter school called St. Isidore of Seville. Interestingly enough, named after the proposed patron saint of internet users, it will be an online charter school run by the Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma
They plan on using it and they spelled this out directly in their application to spread their evangelical message of the church. That raises a lot of concerns for folks on, you know, matters of LGBTQ plus issues, sexual gender orientation and sexual morality, whether or not all students will be accepted at this school.
John Yang: Some of those concerns have led to a lawsuit, right?
Adam Kemp: That's right. There's been a coalition of groups that have kind of come forward led by the ACLU and the Freedom From Religion Foundation, who are representing like nine different groups from Oklahoma, nine residents, including teachers, some parents, different public education advocates, who are all asking these questions right now of who will be accepted, what kind of accommodations will be made for different students and basically, how much the Catholic Church will, you know, use this school to possibly indoctrinate children, which is, you know, quite the accusation going around right now, but something that these parents are very concerned about right now.
It also comes at a time here in Oklahoma, where Oklahoma is facing a critical shortage of teachers. The state is one of the lowest in the nation in funding per pupil. And it has a lot of parents and advocates quite concerned that, you know, they're further expanding this pot of money that is already too small for the number of schools here.
John Yang: I think all the statewide elected officials in Oklahoma Republican, what are they saying about this?
Adam Kemp: Right, Attorney General Gentner Drummond has already come out and said he believes this is an unconstitutional ruling that doesn't believe it'll has any merit and also believes it could be a slippery slope for a number of different schools to try and create the our way into Oklahoma education.
But Governor Kevin Stitt has come out and said he fully supports this measure. Earlier this year, in fact, he had already made it possible through a bill for parents to go ahead and take their public funding out of a public school and use it to go to a private school through a tax credit. He didn't address this lawsuit specifically, but here he is speaking about the need for more charter schools in his opinion.
Gov. Kevin Stitt (R) Oklahoma: If the Catholics want to want to set up a charter school, specifically in McAlester, Oklahoma, to educate their community and parents choose to go there. That's a great thing. And if the Jewish community wants to set up a Jewish charter school, that's an awesome thing. If the Muslims want to set up a charter school, and their parents want to go there, that's an awesome thing.
Parents want to influence and they want to be involved in their kid's lives. We're made up of communities here in Oklahoma and taxpayers. And so to unlock more school options, I'm always going to be supportive of that.
Adam Kemp: Interesting to note as well that before the vote to approve this school, and here in Oklahoma, the virtual Charter School Board actually had a board member replaced right before the vote by someone who is considered to be an ally of Governor Kevin Stitt. They were actually asked to be recused themselves from the vote. They refuse to do so it ended up being the deciding yes vote to approve this school.
John Yang: Adam, does it seem that getting to the Supreme Court was in the minds of the people who proposed this?
Adam Kemp: Yeah, John, and actually seems like it was a goal of the people who proposed this. They have talked pretty openly about wanting to change precedent to allow public funds to go to religious institutions like this. They have kind of spoken about this being the test case to get to the Supreme Court to change that.
John Yang: This is the test case they do they believe that the conservative majority in the Supreme Court would be receptive to this argument?
Adam Kemp: Yeah, I think they've seen the number of positive rulings that religious institutions and like have received from the Supreme Court and the past couple of years, and I believe they're hoping to take that next step.
John Yang: Are any other religious groups or churches in Oklahoma talking about doing the same thing here.
Adam Kemp: There's already been some talk that a few different religions have already reached out to inquire about how to submit an application to do this exactly to launch their own charter school. So far, none of those have come through but the Catholic Church seems to be the one that's the main event right now.
