This annual report, in its ninth edition, found that, despite repeated requests, several large, publicly funded Education Management Organizations (EMOs) failed to provide information about their schools or finances when queried by researchers. The data collected in the report suggest that the number of charter schools overall has increased and the number of EMO-run charter schools has stabilized or declined slightly. The number of students enrolled in charter schools has shown a slight decrease. The report is the most comprehensive resource on the for-profit education management industry.

The reader of Profiles of For Profit Education Management Organizations: 2006 has to correct for political bias as well as the usual errors of any research undertaken without the subjects' cooperation. It would do the school improvement industry well for its trade groups to support something like the work of the University of Arizona's Education Policy Research Unit (EPRU), although by a neutral group rather than one led by a longstanding opponent of private sector engagement in public education like Alex Molnar. Regardless, if you follow the school improvement industry, you need to have this on your shelf until something better comes along.

Here's an example of the kind of information available, drawn from the profile of virtual EMO and IPO wannabe K12.


 
Once the EMOs were the poster children for the campaign against privatization. Today, they are not much of a threat to the union interests that Molnar represents. What surprises your editor is that EPRU has not turned its attention attention to the nonprofit CMOs, most of whom are not eager to unionize their workforce, and Supplemental Educational Service (SES) providers, whose stumbles offer many oppotunities for criticism. Maybe next year.