Doesn’t it depend on what they do with the profit? Not endorsing the corruption - which is loosely what you describe - but the issue is not so much profit but whether it’s coming at the expense of students, and whether it’s being pocketed for less than noble insterests, no?

Profit, after investment, by definition is money going to private pockets and not - in this case - in the school. One can debate whether it's good or not, but what's sure is that it's money not going (directly) to the school.

Well, ‘profit’ is usually whatever is gained regardless of where it used, ‘profit after investment’ is different. Anyway, US charters have a diff operating system to low cost private providers in ‘developing’ contexts. There are exceptions, but most do not operate like that.

Do not operate like what?

Like the charter school system in the US? Which is what the article is based on?

The article is about different ways of making profit. That's the same everywhere. Simply it demands to be well organised, so the bigger school chains are those that can use those techniques.

In my experience, the way that for profit companies dominate the charter space in the US is NOT imitated in the low cost private school system in countries I’ve worked in. I’m not for private schools, but you cannot lump them together. @GPforEducation

I'm talking about the way to make profit here.

But any NGOs funded by GPE could be doing the same thing, right?

Any non-profit could in theory, indeed, hide profit through various arrangements.

This isn't theory, it's everyday reality. Take Jonathan Klein in Oakland: CEO, GOPS (501-C3), CEO GOPSOA (501-C4), Co-founder Revolution Foods (B corps), Co-founder OPEF (quasi-gov.) He covers the non-profit to for-profit to gov gamut. Where are the guardrails?