Should your taxpayer money fund a religious school? The Supreme Court hears a case that could

potentially green light the first faith-based charter school in the nation. We're going to take

a closer look at the stakes of this case. I'm Jenna, and this is Smarter News.

Well, one big takeaway after listening to the Supreme Court this week is when someone refers to their friend on the other side, they aren't really friends.

They're not friends.

I learned this listening to a very interesting argument in front of the Supreme Court on Wednesday

in case you don't have several hours, despair to listen to these arguments in front of the court.

I'm just going to break it down for you as simply as possible because this new case in front

of the court may set a new precedent for publicly funded schools nationwide.

And it may or may not open the door

for more charter schools with religious affiliations to bloom and bloom in part because of

your taxpayer money. So here's how we got here. Charter schools exist in 45 states plus DC. Nearly

four million children in America attend charter schools. That's about 7% of school-age kids.

More than 80% still attend public schools. So we're not talking about the majority of kids,

but we are talking about, you know, several million. And the charter school really allows families

to thread a needle when they don't want to attend the public school in their

area, but maybe they don't want to pay for private school. There are the charter school options.

What are charter schools? Well, these are schools that operate independently, but they receive

taxpayer money. So American kids can attend these schools free of charge. The National Charter

School Resource Center says that a charter school is accountable to public

school standards.

They still have to meet those state standards, but they operate autonomously.

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