A gaggle of public faculty college students’ dad and mom and taxpayers has filed a lawsuit difficult Tennessee’s new statewide faculty voucher program, saying that allocating practically $150 million in state funding to assist dad and mom ship their youngsters to non-public colleges is unconstitutional.
Of their lawsuit filed Thursday in Davidson County Chancery Court docket, the plaintiffs requested injunctions to dam the Republican-backed legislation whereas the case proceeds.
Comparable scholarship and voucher initiatives have proliferated in Republican-led states akin to Texas, which handed a $1 billion program. States have more and more provided vouchers to households past solely the neediest ones, contributing to funds issues as bills quickly pile up.
Though voucher applications have been round for years, they’ve exploded in recognition in Republican-led states. Some conservatives are essential of how public colleges train about race, sexuality and different topics, and assume they had been too sluggish to reopen in the course of the pandemic. Not like at personal colleges, most public faculty academics are unionized, and academics unions usually again Democrats.
Tennessee’s voucher initiative permits 20,000 schooling vouchers of about $7,300 every for the 2025-26 faculty yr. Half go to particular classes of scholars, such are those that are decrease revenue or disabled. Any pupil entitled to attend a public faculty can apply for one of many remaining 10,000. College students who had been already enrolled in personal colleges, together with spiritual ones, are eligible.
Republican Gov. Invoice Lee, who pushed for the initiative, has indicated that he desires to hunt funding for extra vouchers in the course of the coming legislative session. His workplace says greater than 40,000 households have utilized for this system.
The lawsuit argues that the Tennessee Structure consists of an obligation to supply a system of free public colleges and doesn’t permit for the state to to keep up and help Okay-12 colleges outdoors of the general public faculty system.
It says colleges that take part “might deny admission or in any other case discriminate based mostly on race, incapacity, faith, English proficiency, LGBTQ+ standing, educational potential, or different standards.” They aren’t required to supply companies that public colleges should provide, akin to particular schooling, and are usually not free to attend, the lawsuit states.
Moreover, the personal colleges accepting vouchers are usually not required to manage the complete Tennessee Complete Evaluation Program, which public colleges should, and might as a substitute go for a nationwide standardized take a look at, the lawsuit says.
The initiative additionally reduces funding for public colleges under an already insufficient degree, additional violating the state structure’s assure of public colleges that supply all college students the chance to obtain an sufficient schooling, the plaintiffs contend.
The legislation has a “maintain innocent” provision that provides extra money to high school districts which have college students disenroll to attend personal faculty on a voucher. However the lawsuit says it “doesn’t meaningfully compensate for the lack of funds from public colleges.”
“Tennessee’s Structure is obvious: the state should preserve and help a system of free public colleges,” stated Lucas Cameron-Vaughn, senior employees legal professional with the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee, one of many authorized teams representing the plaintiffs. “This voucher scheme does the other. It siphons desperately wanted assets away from public colleges that serve all college students and palms that cash to non-public colleges with no accountability, no transparency, and no obligation to serve each little one.”
The Legislature’s Republican supermajority handed the statewide voucher program earlier this yr at Lee’s request.
Lee’s workplace stated it’s assured the court docket will uphold the legislation and appears ahead to serving extra college students when purposes open for the 2026-27 faculty yr.
“Each little one deserves a possibility to succeed, and the Schooling Freedom Act empowers Tennessee dad and mom to decide on the varsity that most closely fits their little one’s wants whereas additional investing in public colleges,” Lee’s spokesperson, Elizabeth Lane Johnson, stated in an announcement.
Beforehand, the state had a two-county faculty voucher program for lower-income college students in Nashville and Shelby County, which incorporates Memphis. That initiative was handed in 2019 and delayed within the courts, however in the end allowed to proceed. It was expanded to Hamilton County, which incorporates Chattanooga, earlier than passage of the brand new statewide program.
