Firms Scrap for Share of School-Management Market

A recent report on the organizations that manage public schools depicts an industry in flux, as the number of for-profit companies and the student enrollment in their schools continue to grow, though not as quickly as for their nonprofit counterparts.

Since the late 1990s, the number of for-profit "education management organizations," or EMOs, has tripled, to nearly 100, and the number of states those entities work in has nearly doubled, to 33, the new research shows. Over the past few years, though, the growth of some of those companies, particularly large providers, has slowed somewhat, even as the number of students they serve has increased.

Meanwhile, the number of nonprofit EMOs has continued to grow, and their schools' enrollment over the past...