The Separation of Religion and Education: The Impact of Charter Schools on Inner-City Catholic Schools.

The purpose of this research is to examine the impact of Mississippi's public charter schools on the inner city Catholic school in Jackson, Mississippi. This paper serves as a legal and public policy observation of the impact of Mississippi's public charter schools on Catholic schools in Jackson, Mississippi. There are two Catholic schools in Jackson, Mississippi: St. Richard Catholic School (PK-6)3 and Sr. Thea Bowman Catholic School (PK-6).4 The focus of this study is the latter school, Sr. Thea Bowman (STB), which serves the predominately Black west Jackson community. The known variables to be addressed, include (i) the historically positive impact of Catholic schools on urban areas; (ii) the closure of Catholic schools due to declining enrollment; (iii) the conversion of Catholic schools to non-religious charter schools; (iv) charter schools, as non-religious schofols, are fully funded public schools; (v) private school voucher programs are the plausible solution to sustain Catholic schools in urban areas. The qualitative research emphasizes the social capital of urban Catholic schools and lends support to the proposition that charter schools, as non-religious schools, do not provide social capital to urban areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]