,,Education Management Organizations: Growing a For-profit Education Industry with Choice, Competition, and Innovation

Education Management Organizations: Growing a For-profit Education Industry with Choice, Competition, and Innovation


 

Publication Date: May 2002

Publisher: Reason Foundation

Author(s): Scot Oschman; Guilbert C. Hentschke; Lisa Snell

Research Area: Education

Type: Report

Abstract:

Education management organizations (EMOs) are for-profit firms that provide "whole-school operation" services to public school agencies. Since arriving on the public school scene a little more than a decade ago, they have grown despite a wide range of objections within the education profession. EMOs have become part of a long-standing political contest between professional reformers (largely educationists) and radical reformers (largely business leaders and community activists) over what is wrong with public schooling and how to improve it. As a relatively new service option available to local education agencies, EMOs have been adopted so far in relatively few settings, rejected in a few others, and not yet even considered in many others.