Private Companies in Education

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Saved by Emilee Christopher
on November 20, 2009 at 10:12:46 am

Introduction

Although the participation of private companies in education is expansive, this Wiki site has been designed to focus specifically on the presence of Education Management Organizations (EMOs) in American K-12 education. EMOs are for-profit management companies that manage schools receiving public funds (Molnar, Miron, & Urschel, 2009). For-profit EMOs differ from non-profit management organizations in that they operate in an effort to return a profit to their company and investors through providing services.

Table of Contents.

History | Policy Research | Contemporary Politics | Policy Analysis |Private Companies in Action: A Glimpse into Philadelphia

History

EMOs began to form during the early 1990's as wide spread interest in market-based reform proposals gained popularity. The basic premise is to bring an entrepreneurial and innovative spirit and competitive edge to education by forcing public schools to compete with privately managed schools to either improve student achievement or cease operating (Molnar, et. al., 2009). The emergence of EMOs was primarily in response to efforts to repair academically troubled schools in districts and occurred as the charter movement began.