What’s Happening & Why It Matters
Dear Colleagues:
If you’re on this site, you’re among the many of us interested in charter schools both as a policy matter and as a dynamic way to provide high-quality public educational options to children, families, and communities.
One policy matter that has captured the attention of the nation’s charter schools community is the charter school cases originating from Oklahoma that are currently before the U.S. Supreme Court. These cases pose two questions related to chartering and the First Amendment for the Court’s consideration:
- Whether the academic and pedagogical choices of a privately owned and run school constitute state action simply because it contracts with the state to offer a free educational option for interested students.
- Whether a state violates the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment by excluding privately run religious schools from the state’s charter-school program solely because the schools are religious, or whether a state can justify such an exclusion by invoking anti-establishment interests that go further than the Establishment Clause requires.
These cases have promoted a renewed interest in what charter founders intended when state laws were conceived, drafted, enacted, and implemented in various jurisdictions.
The National Charter Schools Founders Library is the only place that houses such information. By collecting original source documents and oral histories of founders, we’ve preserved the original intent of bill sponsors, governors, school founders, thought leaders and others who have directly shaped state and federal charter laws, strategy and programs.
Founded in 2017, the Library is a service of the National Charter Schools Institute. Not only is it an extension of the Institute’s nonprofit and nonpartisan educational mission, it is our passion. We are proud to make this collection publicly accessible and free of charge to scholars, journalists, policymakers, the legal community, and any others interested in learning about the origins of charter school policies across our nation.
As part of this service, we have compiled a special collection to aid in the understanding of cases currently before the Supreme Court.
Thank you for your interest. If you find this resource valuable, please consider making a financial contribution to the Library. Any donation will help defray the costs of collecting, expanding, producing and curating these historical assets.
Sincerely,
Jim Goenner, President and CEO, National Charter Schools Institute
