Florida Let a Teacher Convicted of Sex Abuse Open a Private School With Public Money

The Door Was Wide Open, So She Walked Right Through It

According to a ProPublica investigation published July 17, Florida stripped this teacher of her license for sexual abuse of a minor, then watched her put her name and photo on a new private school's website years later. The details of her case were findable with a basic Google search. State officials apparently did not perform one.

Florida also knew about a woman who had been fired from a Cincinnati charter school following felony charges for misusing public funds, and had been formally banned from running or working in Ohio schools. Florida let her start a private school anyway. And collect public money.

These are not buried edge cases. These are the examples ProPublica chose to lead with, which tells you something about what they found when they looked further.

Arizona Cannot Even Tell You How Many Private Schools Exist

Here is a sentence that should stop you cold: Arizona, which spends hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars on voucher-style programs, cannot tell you how many private schools are operating in the state or where they are located. As ProPublica reports, a spokesperson for Arizona's Department of Education explained that "state law prohibits our department from a role overseeing private schools." That is the official position. We are handing out money, and we are not allowed to ask questions about where it goes.

In 2024, Arizona's top education official publicly praised Mike Tyson, a man who served prison time for rape, for his involvement in launching a private school bearing his name. The official called Tyson "a champion of education." No notes. No caveats. Just pure, uncut institutional chaos.

This is the oversight regime that conservatives have spent decades building toward. They have largely succeeded.

The Growth Numbers Are Staggering

ProPublica analyzed data from 13 states and found at least 1,500 more private schools are listed today than were five years ago, bringing the total in those states alone to more than 9,600. An average of 100 new private schools have launched in Florida every single year for the last five school years. In Arkansas, which only started its voucher program three years ago, roughly 120 new private schools opened. One of them was a place where students were subjected to forced labor and physical violence, and the owner was convicted of permitting child abuse, a felony. That school remains eligible to receive state money after what ProPublica describes as a temporary stop.

West Virginia, which has fewer school-age children than Chicago Public Schools enrolls, has gained about 40 new private schools. Iowa is spending public funds on 99% of all private school students in the state. That is not a rounding error. That is a complete transformation of how a state funds education, executed with breathtaking speed and essentially no guardrails.

EdChoice, a group that advocates for these programs, estimates more than 1.5 million students are now using voucher-style arrangements nationwide. And a new federal tax-credit program signed by President Trump creates, for the first time in American history, a federal mechanism to fund K-12 private schools.

Public Money, Private Rules, Zero Accountability

Here is the part that should make anyone who pays taxes genuinely furious. Even when 100% of students in a private school pay tuition with public money, that school still operates without the accountability requirements that apply to public schools. No open finances. No curriculum transparency. No public reporting on student achievement. Nothing.

Public schools operate under what Paul Hardesty, president of the West Virginia Board of Education, described to ProPublica as a codebook over 1,300 pages thick. "It's thicker than two Sears catalogs," he said. The rules governing private schools in West Virginia, by contrast, "will fit on an index card." Hardesty is a critic of his own state's approach, which at least suggests someone in a position of authority has noticed that this is insane.

And when things go wrong inside these schools, which they do, it falls to parents, journalists, and what ProPublica diplomatically calls "amateur sleuths" to find and expose the problems. State officials in many of these states are not just failing to act. They are legally prohibited from acting.

Who This Actually Hurts

ProPublica points out that while some families are genuinely using vouchers to access schools they could not otherwise afford, others are being left behind by the same system that was sold to them as liberation. Students with disabilities are particularly exposed. Private schools, unlike public schools, are not required to admit them. So these families receive a voucher for an educational freedom they cannot actually exercise, because the schools that are supposed to receive the money are allowed to say no.

This is the part that tends to get lost in the school-choice debate. The pitch is universal access and parental empowerment. The reality, as ProPublica's reporting makes clear, is a two-tier system where private schools get public money without public obligations, and the students who need the most support often have nowhere to go.