Education Inc.

For all the talk last year about the rise of the for-profit education industry, including in the pages of Education Week, stocks of publicly traded education companies were generally out of favor on Wall Street.

And initial public offerings of stock for some closely watched companies did not exactly "pop," or jump in value.

For example, Edison Schools Inc. , the New York City-based manager of public schools, went public on Nov. 11 at $18 a share. The offering price was below the target range of $21 to $23 a share, signaling soft demand in the market, analysts said at the time. After a brief rise from its offering price, Edison shares drifted downward, bottoming out at...