An Explosion in Lobbying around For-Profit K-12 Programs
My friends at The Nation have published a really fascinating investigative piece by Lee Fang about the explosion in lobbying around K-12 for-profit, virtual education, particularly targeting charter schools. This is a sector of the education world that's very difficult to track, because every state has different, often vague laws about how for-profit companies can be involved in public education.
As of 2008, 13 states allowed charter schools to partner with for-profit companies for facilities, 17 states allowed partnerships for services, and three states actually allowed for-profit companies to directly open a charter school. But even in states where for-profits are not allowed to hold a charter themselves, they are sometimes allowed to spin-off an affiliated non-profit to hold the charter, which will then contract with the for-profit for services. (This is