New report identifies many more small firms managing public schools

Contact:
Alex Molnar - (480) 797-7261; alex.molnar@asu.edu
Gary Miron - (269) 599-7965; gary.miron@wmich.edu
Kevin Welner - (303) 492-8370; kevin.welner@colorado.edu

BOULDER, Colo., TEMPE, Ariz., and KALAMAZOO, Mich. (September 14, 2009) -- A report jointly released today by the Commercialism in Education and Education Policy Research Units at Arizona State University, the Education and Public Interest Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and the Western Michigan University College of Education finds little growth in the number of schools managed by for-profit companies. This finding is one of several contained in the 2008-2009 edition of Profiles of For-Profit Education Management Organizations.

Authored by Alex Molnar of Arizona State University and by Gary Miron and Jessica Urschel of Western Michigan University, the annual Profiles report tracks trends in the for-profit education management industry.

Education Management Organizations (EMOs) are private firms that manage charter schools or conventional public schools under contracts, either with charter holders or with public school districts. The EMO industry emerged in the 1990s as part of an effort to utilize market forces to reform public education.

The Profiles report is intended for a broad audience that includes policymakers, educators, school district officials, and school board members as well as investors, EMO employees or education industry participants. It provides a one-of-a-kind, comprehensive overview of the for-profit education management industry.

The 2008-2009 Profiles report lists 95 for-profit EMOs in 31 states enrolling a total of 339,222 students.

Findings include:
• Many large and medium-sized EMOs are expanding into new service areas, such as supplemental education services.
• Imagine Schools, Inc. has the largest number of schools (76) under management.
• EdisonLearning (formerly Edison Schools) experienced a decrease in the number of fully managed schools for the second year in a row, with 62 public schools under management in 2008-2009, down from 80 in 2007-2008. However, it still enrolls the largest number of students (37,574) of any for-profit EMO. K12 Inc., which operates 24 "virtual" schools whose students attend from home via an Internet-based curriculum and distance-learning, enrolls almost as many students, 37,543.
• Of the 733 schools profiled, 74% are operated by large EMOs.
• 57% of EMO-managed schools are primary schools.
• Large EMOs account for 78.5% of all students enrolled in EMO-managed schools.
• Schools managed by large EMOs tend to have larger school enrollments than medium-sized or small EMOs.
• For-profit virtual schools total 56, or 7.6% of all schools managed by EMOs.
• The five states with the most schools managed by for-profit EMOs are Michigan (191), Florida (136), Arizona (103), Ohio (95), and Pennsylvania (39).

Find Profiles of For-Profit Education Management Organizations on the web at:
http://epicpolicy.org/publication/profiles-profit-emos-2008-09

CONTACT:
AUTHOR: Professor Alex Molnar
(480) 797-7261
alex.molnar@asu.edu

AUTHOR: Professor Gary Miron
(269) 599-7965
gary.miron@wmich.edu

Kevin Welner, Professor and Director
Education and the Public Interest Center
University of Colorado at Boulder
(303) 492-8370
kevin.welner@colorado.edu