Two Reporters Found the Private-School Door Open

ProPublica reporters and local journalists established private schools in Arkansas, West Virginia, and North Carolina despite having no experience teaching or operating schools. In Arkansas, reporters working with the Arkansas Times completed an online filing, paid $45, and bought an American flag. In West Virginia, ProPublica and Mountain State Spotlight submitted a name and location on notebook paper, exchanged emails with officials, and provided proof of a high school diploma. In North Carolina, reporters working with The Assembly filed an online notice from Ponysaurus Brewing Co. in Durham.

The mechanism was administrative recognition without a serious test of educational capacity. Officials did not ask the reporters about teaching credentials or school-management experience. The reported registration sequence included no examination of the proposed curriculum, no review of how learning would be measured, and no meaningful inquiry into the founders’ fitness to supervise children. In two states, the resulting schools could have enrolled students. Arkansas also explained how its school might receive public money through a voucher-style program.

The applications proved that a state can confirm compliance with its filing rules without confirming much else. A form can establish that an organization supplied a name, an address, a fee, or a flag. It cannot establish that the organization can teach algebra, recognize abuse, manage tuition, or keep children safe. The flag was among the most concrete requirements. It was not the most consequential one.

Legal permission also differs from accreditation. Accreditation usually involves an outside review against defined standards, although its rigor varies by accreditor. State recognition may mean only that an operator completed the steps needed to open. Families should not have to study administrative law to learn that an official-looking status carries no judgment about educational quality.

There is a legitimate case for restraint. Small religious schools, community programs, and microschools can offer families useful alternatives without carrying the staffing and compliance costs of a large institution. A licensing system designed for a district could crush a five-student school before it opens. Yet freedom from needless bureaucracy does not require freedom from background checks, truthful advertising, basic financial records, or a credible plan for instruction.

The public-money question sharpens the distinction. Once a state directs voucher funds toward private tuition, weak entry rules no longer govern only a private bargain between a school and a family. Taxpayers become customers without choosing the school, and the state may lend its recognition to operators it has barely examined. Public payment does not require identical schools. It does require an intelligible threshold.

State lawmakers and education agencies control the next decision. They can set minimum operator qualifications, maintain searchable registries, publish complaint and enforcement records, and trigger inspections when schools receive public money or report safety problems. They can also require every recognized school to disclose, in plain language, what the state checked and what it did not. Approval should describe a completed review, not decorate an open door.