Constitutionality Of Tennessee School Choice Scholarship Hearing Scheduled

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By Kim Jarrett, The Center Square –

Denise Fair said Tennessee’s Education Freedom Scholarships have given her daughters a chance to attend a private school that meets their educational needs. 

Dustin Park, Blount County, a parent of a child with Down syndrome, and four other parents said in a lawsuit that the state’s school choice program discriminates against students with disabilities. 

Park and the other parents are part of the lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee, the Education Law Center, the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Public Funds Public Schools campaign and the Southern Education Foundation, challenging the constitutionality of the law passed by the General Assembly in a January 2025 special session and signed by Gov. Bill Lee. 

“Private schools can refuse to admit students like my son or fail to provide the accommodations he needs to succeed,” Park said in a statement when the lawsuit was filed in Nov. 2025.

A three-judge panel in Davidson County Chancery Court will hear the case at 2 p.m. on Monday, Aug. 31.

Fair, of Jefferson City and parents Mike and Monica Sweeney of Knoxville, are part of an intervening motion filed by EdChoice Legal Advocates supporting the Education Freedom Scholarships. 

Fair and her husband are both first responders who struggled to afford private school for their daughters, even with financial assistance. Both girls received the $7,530 scholarship. The Fairs are two of the 35,000 students who received the scholarships for the 2026-2027 school year. 

Fair is a former school board member who said she and her husband are concerned about was happening in the public school system.

“There are just a lot of things that we weren’t agreeing with about how studies were being done, (how) testing was being done, but more so ethically, the things that were going on in the system the drug problems that we don’t want our children to just think that is normalized,” Fair said in an interview with The Center Square. “And then just being kind of sandwiched into classes. Out of six children, all of our children are different. Some have more educational needs than others.”

The difference in her daughters after moving from public to private school is “night and day,” Fair said.  

“I feel that it is very important that my tax dollars should go toward funding what is best for my child,” Fair said. “And a lot of people want to argue that, you know, it’s not supposed to be for private education, but it’s supposed to be for education and what works for your student may not work for mine or vice versa. And I really think that parents have been given the responsibility with their own children to be able to choose what is best for them.”

The use of taxpayer money to fund private education is one of the issues Tennessee Senate Democrats raised this week. The General Assembly allocated $155 million for the scholarships. Public schools received $6.9 billion of the state’s $58 billion budget. 

Data from the Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement funding formula, known as TISA, show that 29 school systems receive less per child than the $7,530 Education Freedom Scholarship. 

The numbers were included in the agenda for Friday’s State Board of Education meeting. 

“All the evidence we have shows students in public schools are outperforming these voucher programs in academics. And yet the voucher programs continue to get a disproportionate share of tax funding,” said Sen. London Lamar of Memphis, chair of the Senate Democratic Caucus. “It’s irresponsible and shameful for the state to grow a voucher program that subsidizes private schools when the needs of so many students in our public schools are going unmet.”

Applications for the $7,530 Education Freedom Scholarships increased significantly for the 2026-2027 school year, the program’s second. More than 56,000 students applied for the 2026-27 school year, while more than 38,000 applied for the 2025-26 school year, according to the Tennessee Department of Education.

Lee wanted to expand the program to 40,000 students, but the General Assembly only agreed to 35,000. 

“Every parent should be empowered with the freedom to pick the right school for their child,” Lee said in a social media post before the 2026-2027 school year started. “This year, TN invested $155 million to expand Education Freedom Scholarships to 35,000, delivering opportunity to even more families across our state.”