A Florida teacher stripped of her license a decade ago for sexually abusing a 16-year-old boy opened a private school last year and began collecting public money, with state regulators taking no action to stop her. Her name and case details remain publicly available online, yet Florida’s education authorities did not block her from operating the school or accessing taxpayer funding.
More than 9,600 private schools exist today—a jump of at least 1,500 schools in five years —yet state regulators rarely scrutinize who runs them, what they teach, or how students perform.
Florida is not alone in overlooking problematic backgrounds. A woman fired from a Cincinnati charter school following felony charges related to misuse of public funds and banned from teaching or running schools in Ohio was able to start a private school in Florida and access public money without state interference.
In Arizona, state law explicitly prevents the Department of Education from overseeing private schools. In 2024, Arizona’s top education official publicly praised heavyweight boxer Mike Tyson—who served prison time for rape—for his involvement in launching a private school bearing his name, calling him “a champion of education.”
The explosive growth reflects a deliberate policy shift. About 30 states now offer some version of a taxpayer-funded voucher or education savings account program, with more than 1.5 million students participating, according to EdChoice, an advocacy group. That number is expected to rise further after President Donald Trump signed a federal tax-credit program into law, marking the first federal plan to fund K-12 private schools.
The consequences are visible across states. Florida has opened an average of 100 new private schools each of the last five school years. Arkansas, which began allowing students to access roughly $7,000 annually toward tuition three years ago, saw about 120 new private schools open. In one Arkansas school detailed in previous ProPublica reporting, students faced menial labor and violence; the owner was convicted of felony child abuse but the school remained eligible for state funding after a temporary suspension.
Some states cannot account for the schools they are funding. Arizona has no comprehensive count of how many private schools operate within its borders despite spending hundreds of millions in voucher dollars.
Source: https://www.propublica.org/article/private-schools-vouchers-growth-florida-arizona-west-virginia
