These cases have not had far-reaching consequences because most states with voucher programs already allowed religious schools to participate. The rulings also did not speak to charter schools directly. But in one case Justice Stephen Breyer raised the issue in dissent. “What about charter schools?” he wrote, before pointing out that the court had no clear answer. Indeed some experts told Chalkbeat in 2022 that this would be the coming legal dispute. “Charter schools are the next frontier,” said Preston Green, a University of Connecticut professor.

re charter schools public or private? A case speeding towards the Supreme Court is likely to settle this age-old dispute once and for all by declaring charters as “non-state actors.” Peltier vs. Charter Day School Inc. is nominally about dress codes, chivalry and “fragile vessels.” But as special guests Bruce Baker and Preston Green explain, the real question here is whether students attending charter schools have the same civil rights and Constitutional protections as their public school peers.

“These decisions can have major implications for them, because you’re going to see religious churches and other entities saying that they want to run charter schools, and they want to run religious charter schools,” Preston Green said.

n a lecture on Oct. 19, a leading scholar of education and law warned that allowing parents to choose to send their students to charter schools that operate without sufficient oversight will actually threaten the student’s civil rights.

“I’ve heard people make arguments about the real need for school choice,” said Preston Green III, Ed.D. He acknowledged that charter schools—a key element of school choice—can provide needed opportunities for families, but said that local governments must regulate them.

According to Preston Green III, a professor at the University of Connecticut’s Neag School of Education, the fact that public funding for private schools has to include religious schools could be interpreted to allow for funding religious charter schools.

Might prohibiting religious charter schools amount to an illegal form of discrimination under the Constitution? The Supreme Court may eventually have to answer that question. “Charter schools are the next frontier,” Preston Green, an education law professor at the University of Connecticut, previously told Chalkbeat.

“The concern that I have is the temptation to just say that we’ve done enough, and we don’t have to worry about students in the traditional public schools, because if they don’t like it, they have another school they can go to,” Preston Green said.

Preston Green is a professor of educational leadership and law at the University of Connecticut and the John and Maria Neag Professor of Urban Education at the Neag School of Education. He’s a nationally recognized expert on school choice, charter schools, and the complex legal landscape of American public education. He stops by this week to talk about the Supreme Court, charter schools, the fight over school curricula, and more.

Preston Green, an educational policy professor at the University of Connecticut, says there is ongoing legal debate about whether charter schools are public or private institutions.

“Courts have had a very difficult time over the years making these distinctions whether charter schools are public or private because the laws may be different depending on the issue,” Green says.

Some legal scholars say that raises a new question. If a state can’t keep a private religious school out of its voucher program, can it stop a religious school from participating in its charter school program?

“Charter schools are the next frontier,” Preston Green, an education law professor at the University of Connecticut. Compared to school vouchers, “this could actually be more of a win for religious entities if they can get it.”