Down here in Dumbass, Texas anyone can start up a private school without any oversight whatsoever. In 1989 Texas moved the accrediting process not only to private agencies but made it voluntary.
This story came to light the other day in the Houston Chronicle because a teacher at a New Heights Christian Academy is being investigated for sexual abuse involving a 15 year old girl. The teacher is the 26 year old son-in-law of the Principal and owner Richard Walters who employs most of the rest of his family as teachers. When asked about the lack of any credentials for his teaching staff, Walters replied.
"I’ve always believed that who I needed as a teacher was provided me. From a Christian standpoint, the Lord literally just brought them in the door."
In Texas, God does the accrediting in education.
I have some experience in Texas private schooling with having had a problem child we had to find alternatives to High School. A year of private Christian schools and two years of secular private schools. The later I worked as a substitute teacher for a time.
Both schools – as I assume is the case with most such schools – use the "Workbook" process. Students sit in classes doing workbooks, and at the end of the week they are tested on what was included in those workbooks. Teachers do not teach, their function is as disciplinarians to watch over the class and answer questions related to the workbooks. Though in the Christian school a few hours a day are taken away from the workbooks for teachers to push fundamentalist religion and conservative political ideologies. In both cases I found the boy mentioned below saying it well.
Recent graduate Matthew Broomfield, 19, said he liked that students could chew gum, talk and snack in class and that the high school offered far more days off than public school.
Here in Dumbutt, without any oversight there is no telling how many of these schools exist, but the strip malls are full of them. Adding vouchers to this only makes this craziness more available. These kids are not learning, they are filling out workbooks and then being tested immediately so they do not forget with teachers often giving the answers out just before the test. Passing the workbook process allows them to eventually get a GED diploma. Private schools answer to their own standards