In the summer of 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court set new limits on what public schools could require students to learn.  Mahmoud v. Taylor pitted a school district interested in promoting pluralism against religious parents who wished to withdraw their children from classroom instruction that promoted celebration and acceptance of LGBTQ+ people.  The Court found a violation of those parents’ constitutional right to freely exercise their religion, which both expanded the control parents can exert over their child’s public school education and increased the likelihood of similar claims going forward.  As federal courts hear this newly expanded set of First Amendment claims, they must decide:  what is a public school’s “compelling interest” in its curricular decisions?

This Note finds an answer in the states.  Nearly all fifty states guarantee their citizens an education—but they each do it in their own way.  This Note argues that when parents sue a school district under Mahmoud, the “compelling interest” at stake is the particular right to education held by a child in that state.  This Note presents two types of rights:  a “structural right,” meaning one designed around resource allocation, and a “right to results,” meaning a state obligation to provide an education that achieves state-defined ends.  The “compelling interest” analysis presented in this Note would provide ambitious states with more discretion to design their curricula to achieve specific ends.