Summit on Inner-City Children and Faith-Based Schools

Religious charter schools was on the agenda at the White House Summit on Inner-City Children and Faith-Based Schools, when
Dr. Lawrence D. Weinberg, Author, Religious Charter Schools: Legalities and Practicalities, spoke at the Summit.

DR. WEINBERG: Charter schools are public schools that face greater accountability and have greater autonomy than traditional public schools. The school receives a charter to operate from a state-approved entity. It then receives a combination of state, local, and federal funding. Forty states and the District of Columbia have charter school laws which educate over a million students.

The Establishment Clause requirement of separating the church and state applies to charter schools because they are public schools. However, the chartering process offers a faith-based school important opportunities because of the increased flexibility and control enjoyed by charter school operators.

The bottom line distinction -- and I'm going to summarize everything I'm going to say in one sentence. The bottom line distinction is that a faith-based charter school can accommodate its students' and parents' religious beliefs, but it cannot endorse religious beliefs. Because the Establishment Clause draws a line that's far from clear, any list of permissible or nonpermissible activities that faith-based schools might engage in is not going to be perfect. Accordingly, these issues need to be discussed in broad terms.

And it's important to bear in mind that these schools are always examined in their particularities and that everything class every prayer situation, that every class, every prayer situation, every school board is going to be examined in its particulars. And the best example I can give of this is that the Supreme Court has held that a creche in the public sphere in one situation is unconstitutional but in different situation it may be constitutional. So the context and nature of the situation is everything.

For the rest of Dr. Weinberg's speech