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The Oklahoma Supreme Court on Tuesday heard a case that could pry open the door to publicly funded religious charter schools across the country. The state’s virtual charter school board approved a proposal to establish the school in a narrow vote last summer. St. Isidore of Seville Catholic School, operated by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa, would be run similarly to private parochial schools . In those schools, Catholic beliefs and principals are incorporated into various subjects and the fabric of campus life. St. Isidore, which states on its website it is accredited by the Oklahoma State Department of Education , would be the first charter school of its kind in the nation. It’s slated to start classes in mid-August , according to court documents. The plan has faced skepticism from the get-go, including from the state’s Republican Attorney General Gentner Drummond, who led arguments at the high court on Tuesday against the board’s members. Critics say operating a religious charter school on public funding is an outright violation of the constitutional protection separating church and state. Charter schools are privately run but publicly funded, which gives them more leeway than traditional […]