Reporting for ProPublica, Megan O’Matz looks at a special kind of school that exists to take advantage of taxpayer-funded voucher programs– and operates without oversight.
At some point, my reporting colleagues and I began referring to them as the “100% schools.”
We were following the money that flows from states’ public coffers into private schools through vouchers when we noticed a subset of educational facilities where tax dollars cover all or a big part of the tuition for every student.
In essence, these were schools that were funded like public schools but didn’t operate with the same oversight or transparency.
Our reporting found that these types of private schools exist throughout the country and that in Wisconsin — where I’m based — there were 39 that fell into that category during the most recent school year. Together, they were educating 7,923 children and taking in roughly $87 million from vouchers offered by the state.
Atlas Preparatory Academy in Milwaukee was a 100% school in my city that had low test scores and declining enrollment while also receiving more than $4.3 million in voucher money for 357 students in grades K-12. It was one of the first schools I dug into, and immediately some of the facts I unearthed in public documents made me curious.
There was, for instance, the money being made by its board chair, who also appeared to serve as a school administrator. His compensation was more than $150,000 in 2024.