“Harvest Prep has a problem, and we knew about it,” said a state department of education spokesman, although apparently only now is the department conducting rudimentary inspections of voucher-funded private schools, and beginning to uncover basic certification problems. Although a spokesman for the school insists that “all K-12 teachers have at least a bachelor's degree” and thus “easily meet or exceed the state of Ohio's training and certification requirements,” neither statement appears to be true, according to the Dispatch:

Harvest Prep says it requires its teachers to have bachelor's degrees, but the state says that's not good enough: Teachers have to have at least a "non-tax" teaching certificate. That allows people with college degrees to teach in private schools without undergoing the more rigorous requirements of a regular teaching degree.

At least one teacher, Will Dudley, doesn't have a college degree. The former Ohio State University basketball player, who teaches middle-school English and science and coaches the Harvest Prep basketball team, was featured in a March Dispatch story about players who haven't graduated.

Beyond basic certification and criminal background checks, a deeper inspection of Ohio’s voucher program could uncover more grievous problems, like those found after the first five years of Cleveland’s voucher experiment. In addition to siphoning money away from public schools and into (almost entirely) religious programs, these schools performed poorly, even while often excluding students on the basis of “special education status, disabilities, behavioral problems, academic performance, religious affiliation or other factors.” Some schools were even found, after years of operation, to be defrauding the state and keeping children in unsafe buildings.