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Free Market Spurs Diverse Offerings of Private Schools

From middle-class urbanites with stable incomes to migrant workers struggling to earn a living, an increasingly diverse cross section of Chinese families is turning to private schools, sometimes out of necessity, but in many cases by choice.

Roughly 23 million children—about 9 percent of China’s total student population—attend private schools, according to recent estimates from the Ministry of Education .

Much of that demand comes from poor families who face legal or financial barriers to enrolling their children in public schools. But the market also includes wealthier families who can afford to send their children to relatively posh private institutions, some of which have state-of-the-art campuses rivaling those of the most elite schools...