TM Landry College Preparatory Academy once claimed a 100 percent graduation and college acceptance rate, sending students to Harvard, Stanford, and other elite universities while drawing praise from high-profile cultural and political figures.
However, a new book alleges the celebrated success story was built on fabricated transcripts, inflated grades, and abuse of the very students the school claimed to uplift.
According to Miracle Children, the Louisiana academy operated for years without accreditation or meaningful oversight, even as viral videos of students opening Ivy League acceptance emails drew more than 18 million views and national media attention.
Founded in 2005 in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, the school charged $600 per month in tuition and grew to 142 students by January 2017.
Its founder, Mike Landry, a University of Louisiana at Lafayette graduate with a business degree and military background, marketed the academy as an advocacy-driven path to elite higher education for black students in struggling communities.
The message resonated with families in a state facing deep education challenges, where only half of secondary students were taught by qualified teachers, and more than one in four adults was illiterate.
Landry presented himself as an alternative, cultivating a powerful narrative that students from overlooked towns could reach the nation’s most prestigious universities.
That narrative gained national traction after the school’s first Harvard acceptance in December 2015 went viral.
Media coverage intensified, culminating in a 2018 appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show featuring brothers Alex Little and Ayrton Little following their acceptances to Stanford and Harvard.
But accounts from families and students later painted a sharply different picture.
Nyjal Mitchell, who enrolled in 2016 at age 14, described both the appeal of the school and the influence of its founder.
“I had been put in a public school and was having a lot of experiences with bullying from my black peers, because I was a nerdy black kid in a poor, less-educated part of America.”
He added:
“The Landry aura of knowledge appealed to me.
“Mike was an intelligent-seeming black man who wanted other black people to be successful in places that they were not allowed into.
“He had a vision that I respected, and I still can say to this day that I respect the vision of wanting black people to succeed, or wanting black people to be in these Ivy Leagues, these places that they’re deserving to be in.”
Mitchell later alleged that Landry repeatedly beat and humiliated him, including placing him in a chokehold, dragging him across concrete by his hoodie, and forcing him to kneel before classmates.
Other students similarly accused Landry of physical and psychological abuse, falsifying application materials, and threatening students’ college prospects if they challenged his authority.
When Mitchell’s mother, Mary Mitchell, reported the allegations to police, Landry denied wrongdoing and accused the family of fabricating claims for extortion.
Authorities initially believed Landry and the Mitchell family were ostracized by the school community.
Mary Mitchell described the impact on her children:
“It destroyed them. As teenagers, you put your whole world into who you think your friends are, and then those people now hate you, saying that you’re a traitor, and you turned on this man that’s next to God in their world.”
Public scrutiny intensified only after a November 2018 report by The New York Times, which was followed by roughly ten complaints to local police within a month.
Enrollment dropped sharply, and the school ultimately closed in 2022.
Former students faced lasting academic and emotional consequences.
Some discovered they lacked basic academic preparation despite graduating and enrolling in universities.
Others dropped out after struggling with coursework or unmet financial aid expectations.
Mitchell ultimately rebuilt his academic path, graduating from the University of Louisiana in May 2025 with a psychology degree and pursuing a master’s at Southern University.
Reflecting on the experience, he said:
“I feel like I got off really lucky out of that situation.
“The trauma is one thing, but the reality of this situation is I was able to speak on something that needed to be stopped.
“And, you know, I left Landry and got to keep going to high school.
“It sucked to have to redo a grade, but at least I made it to college on my own.
“Others paid probably tens of thousands of dollars, and they didn’t even get a high school diploma.”
Despite the allegations, Mike Landry was never charged.
The FBI opened an investigation in 2019 but later shelved it, and no criminal case followed.
After the school’s closure, Landry and his wife reportedly left town and have not been publicly heard from since.
The academy’s ability to operate for nearly two decades without accreditation or oversight stemmed from a regulatory gap dating back to the 1970s, when some Louisiana schools sought exemptions tied to desegregation disputes.
That framework allowed TM Landry to function outside standard accountability structures.
Mary Mitchell argued that systemic oversight is necessary:
“Even homeschools need to be regulated by someone.
“And if they’re going to be in the presence of children, they need to pass background checks.
“There should be some oversight yearly, at least, where someone comes in and verifies that nothing is happening to these kids, right?”
The collapse of TM Landry raises broader questions about institutional accountability, from media outlets that amplified the school’s story, to elite universities that accepted students based on falsified records, to law enforcement agencies that failed to act sooner.
Mitchell summarized the central failure:
“It was completely possible for TM Landry to be an amazing place that did amazing things.
“But he was using the backs of black children and other children to prop himself up, to prop his organization up.”
What began as a viral symbol of educational triumph ended with unanswered questions, damaged futures, and no criminal accountability for the man at the center of it all.
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