At Dissident Voice, Shawgi Tell dissects the Supreme Court ruling that shot down the Oklahoma Catholic charter school.
The main takeaway from the 4-4 split decision from the SCOTUS is that thousands of deregulated charter schools across the country, all operated by unelected private persons, will continue to siphon hundreds of millions of public dollars a year from methodically under-funded and demonized public schools. The May 22, 2025, U.S. Supreme Court decision in no way stops or restricts school privatization and the assault on traditional public schools by so-called “public” charter schools that fail and close every week. Indeed, no matter how the court vote worked out, privately-operated charter schools of all kinds would still continue to bleed public schools of money and property in the name of “choice” and “freedom.”
Another takeaway is that cases like this one are likely to come before the SCOTUS again. This is not the first and last such case to come before the Supreme Court. Neoliberals and others are determined to blur the critical distinction between public and private so as to maximize profits in a failing economy that has left owners of capital with no choice but to raid the public sector for their self-serving interests. This financial parasitism is always undertaken under the veneer of high ideals. In other words, charter schools have long been a political-economic project, not an educational one. Endless disinformation about “empowering parents” and “expanding choices” cannot hide this.
While opinions and views issued by the SCOTUS are often interesting and revealing, there is practically no chance that any court ruling anywhere will change the fundamentally privatized character of non-profit and for-profit charter schools. Neoliberal ideology permeates all spheres and sectors in society, generating anticonsciousness everywhere. Privatization and deregulation, hallmarks of the charter school sector, are key aspects of the neoliberal agenda launched 50 years ago at home and abroad. This is why all charter schools, unlike traditional public schools, operate largely independently of the government.
Charter schools are private by design, not by accident. They have been about privatization, not “innovation” or “choice,” from the very start. The oft-repeated assertion that charter schools did not start out as privatization schemes 30+ years ago but were hijacked along the way by privatizers and set on a terrible path is incorrect and inconsistent with the historical record.
Not only are charter schools created and started by unelected private citizens, they also cannot levy taxes, avoid many laws and regulations, treat teachers as “at-will” employees, are mostly deunionized, routinely cherry-pick students, have high teacher turnover rates, siphon tons of money from public schools, increase segregation, and more. What would be the point of making them “public” or “more public” if the 34-year-old raison d’etre for their existence and operation is to be set up independent of and different from traditional public schools (see here, here, here, and here)? It is wishful thinking to believe that 8,000+ autonomous, rules-free, “innovative” charter schools will stop being privatized arrangements and suddenly become state actors after existing and operating as private actors for more than three decades.