In an era of sweeping educational transformation driven by the proliferation of school voucher programs and universal savings accounts, the American educational landscape is undergoing an unprecedented paradigm shift. As states increasingly channel public funds into private alternatives, hundreds of new private and microschools have materialized across the country. Supporters herald this wave as a democratization of education, offering families unprecedented freedom to choose learning environments tailored to their children’s unique needs. However, a sweeping investigative reporting project conducted by journalists from ProPublica, in partnership with local newsrooms across three states, has exposed a startling reality: the regulatory guardrails governing this multi-million-dollar expansion are shockingly fragile.
To test the integrity of state oversight mechanisms, reporters with zero background in education—using their real names and professional journalistic email addresses—successfully established private schools and microschools in Arkansas, West Virginia, and North Carolina. Armed with little more than nominal registration fees, a notebook, and an internet connection, the reporting team navigated an alarmingly frictionless bureaucratic labyrinth. No state official evaluated their teaching credentials, questioned their pedagogical philosophies, or scrutinized their curriculums. In some instances, state agencies actively guided the reporters on how to structure their institutions to capture public voucher funds.
This investigative endeavor underscores a profound policy vulnerability: as states aggressively fund private education alternatives, the combination of lax oversight and abundant public dollars creates a ripe environment for exploitation, leaving students and taxpayers alike with minimal protections.
Detailed Chronology: Establishing Schools in Three States
To understand how easily the boundaries between legitimate educational institutions and arbitrary business entities can be blurred, the investigative team embarked on a multi-state experiment over the course of several months. The journey revealed starkly lax requirements, indifferent state bureaucracies, and a prevailing attitude of administrative laissez-faire.
Arkansas: A $45 Business Registration and an American Flag
In Arkansas, the path to founding a fully recognized private school required little more than standard commercial incorporation. Working alongside the Arkansas Times, reporters first consulted state law to ensure compliance. While Arkansas regulations impose virtually no requirements regarding teacher qualifications or student learning outcomes, they do mandate one specific item: the display of an American flag.
At a local Little Rock flag shop, reporters purchased a modest desk flag and a complementary Arkansas state flag for a total of $49.45. With the patriotic prerequisite satisfied, the administrative hurdles proved practically nonexistent. When reporters initially called the Arkansas Department of Education for guidance, a spokesperson candidly admitted, "We don’t have rules for opening a private school."
Consequently, no filings were made with the Department of Education. Instead, reporters visited the Arkansas Secretary of State’s website, registered a business entity named the ProPublica-Arkansas Times Curiosity Academy LLC, listed themselves as agents and officers, and paid a $45 filing fee. The state approved the business entity on the same day, issuing an official certificate.
Curious to test the system’s financial plumbing, the reporters applied to enroll their phantom school in the state’s Education Freedom Accounts program—a voucher-style initiative now in its fourth year. The application took roughly ten minutes. Though the state ultimately declined to process the application for the active semester because the school year was already underway, a state education official warmly encouraged the reporters to reapply for the following year as a microschool or to register as a contracted educational vendor, even offering technical tweaks to the school’s proposed tuition refund policy.
West Virginia: Notebook Paper and Bypassed Safety Inspections
In West Virginia, the endeavor began inside the newsroom of Mountain State Spotlight in Charleston. Reporters scrawled an official notice of intent for a middle-school-focused private institution on a ragged-edged piece of notebook paper. Accompanied by a multimedia crew, the journalists hand-delivered the document to the state Department of Education.
Shortly thereafter, a state education official acknowledged receipt of the notice but stated that the school would need a safety clearance certificate from the local fire marshal. Because the proposed school was slated to operate out of the active newsroom—a facility never inspected or zoned as an educational institution—obtaining a commercial fire clearance seemed to spell the end of the experiment.
However, state officials quickly offered a loophole: the "microschool" route. Under West Virginia law, microschools are defined as tuition-charging entities started by one or more instructors. Because state statutes provide zero oversight mechanisms for microschools, the Department of Education maintains no authority to approve or deny their operation based on safety inspections or the owner’s professional background. By simply submitting a college transcript and notifying the local Kanawha County school district, the ProPublica-Mountain State Spotlight Curiosity Academy was successfully established, entirely sidestepping building safety and health requirements.
North Carolina: Craft Beer and Brewing Tanks
In North Carolina, the experiment took on a distinctly commercial flavor. Partnering with The Assembly, reporters utilized the facilities of Ponysaurus Brewing Co. in Durham—a trendy craft brewery featuring massive stainless steel fermentation tanks and a bustling taproom. Because North Carolina private school regulations require valid fire and sanitation inspections for any physical facility housing students, the brewery served as a practical test case, possessing up-to-date municipal occupancy and food safety permits.
Following an online tutorial video provided by the state Division of Non-Public Education, the reporters filed a formal Notice of Intent to open a high school named the ProPublica-Assembly Academy. They inputted the brewery’s address, designated themselves as chief administrators, and uploaded Ponysaurus’s recent health inspection report—on which the establishment had scored a stellar 99.
While a minor administrative hiccup later arose when state officials clarified that inspection reports must explicitly bear the school’s name rather than a commercial enterprise’s, the overarching realization remained clear: state officials do not evaluate the pedagogical merit, financial stability, or instructional competence of private school operators. Their sole mandate is verifying administrative paperwork. Once again, an educational institution had been conjured from thin air inside a commercial enterprise.
Supporting Context & Metrics: The Voucher Boom
The journalistic stunt was born out of deeper investigative reporting tracking a seismic shift in American educational financing. Over recent years, a growing number of Republican-led state legislatures have enacted aggressive school choice policies, routing billions of dollars in taxpayer-funded vouchers, education savings accounts (ESAs), and tax credits toward private tuition.
This financial injection has triggered a massive expansion in the private education sector:
- Arkansas: Following the enactment of the Education Freedom Accounts program in 2023, the number of registered private schools surged from under 100 to more than 220. Simultaneously, approved microschools authorized to receive tax dollars climbed to 143.
- West Virginia: The Hope Scholarship program has fueled the creation of dozens of new private and microschools across the Mountain State, offering roughly $5,400 per student annually to offset private tuition costs.
- North Carolina: Since the 2021–22 school year, which marked the beginning of major expansions to the state’s private school voucher system, at least 169 new private schools have opened their doors.
This rapid, largely unregulated growth has allowed unconventional educational models to proliferate. Across the country, new private and microschools have popped up in unconventional spaces: converted barns, rural farmhouses, strip mall storefronts sandwiched between antique shops and axe-throwing venues, and religious spaces where theological AV setups double as classroom infrastructure.
While proponents argue that this market-driven approach fosters healthy educational competition and empowers parents, critics and watchdogs warn that the lack of baseline accountability opens the door wide to fly-by-night operators, substandard instruction, and the unchecked diversion of public funds into private pockets.
Official Statements and Regulatory Realities
Throughout the investigation, state regulators maintained a remarkably detached posture, emphasizing that their statutory hands are tied by legislative mandates designed to minimize bureaucratic red tape for school founders.
- Arkansas Department of Education: A spokesperson for the agency, Kaelin Clay, reiterated that the department’s statutory role is strictly limited to verifying whether schools meet minimal administrative requirements. Emphasizing the philosophy underpinning the state’s voucher system, Clay noted that microschool families "have the freedom to choose the educators and learning environments that best meet their children’s needs."
- West Virginia Department of Education: In an official statement addressing the microschool loophole, a department spokesperson conceded that the agency "does not approve or deny the operation of microschools for any reason, including the qualifications of the owner/operator."
- North Carolina Division of Non-Public Education: State officials clarified that while their division enforces mandatory building safety and health inspections, state statute explicitly bars them from denying a private school application so long as basic paperwork and facility clearances are properly submitted.
These statements lay bare a fundamental regulatory paradox: while public schools face rigorous accreditation standards, standardized testing mandates, credentialing requirements, and extensive financial audits, private operators utilizing public voucher funds are frequently held to little more than the standard applied to opening a corner grocery store or a limited liability company.
Future Outlook
The revelations from ProPublica’s reporting project shine a harsh light on an urgent policy dilemma confronting state legislatures nationwide. As the political momentum behind universal school choice continues to accelerate, lawmakers are faced with an uncomfortable reckoning regarding the stewardship of public funds.
Advocates of school choice maintain that stringent regulations defeat the purpose of deregulation, which aims to liberate educators from bureaucratic stagnation and allow innovative, community-based learning models to flourish. They argue that parents act as the ultimate consumer check; if a microschool fails to deliver results, families can simply take their tuition dollars elsewhere.
Conversely, education policy experts and fiscal watchdogs argue that the wholesale subsidization of private education without basic quality controls invites widespread abuse. Without mandatory teacher background checks, financial solvency requirements, standardized academic assessments, or curriculum transparency, vulnerable children are placed at risk of educational neglect, while taxpayers are left footing the bill for unaccountable enterprises.
Ultimately, the ProPublica experiment serves as a profound wake-up call. By proving how effortlessly a team of journalists could establish phantom schools and position themselves to receive state funding, the investigation demonstrates that the current system of private school expansion operates on a high-stakes honor system—one where curiosity, a $45 filing fee, and an American flag are all it takes to become an educational entrepreneur.