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What about the school I worked at? Students were aged ~4-13. We were definitely for-profit, but we never managed to make a profit.

Gene_Parmesan 7y ago
A for-profit grade school? Interesting. I'm not sure I've ever encountered one of those. But yeah, an entity's ability to draw a net positive profit doesn't change their for-profit status, obviously. As for why Zachtronics is limiting this to non-profit schools, my guess would be for tax purposes. There's a good chance there's a benefit from providing something like this for non-profit institutions, but not for for-profit ones, although it's been 7 years since law school for me and my tax law is rusty. Although there's always the chance that he just didn't know for-profit grade schools exist, because I sure as heck didn't.
- jcl 7y ago
  The page makes provisions for for-profit schools: "Private and/or for-profit schools are not included. However, if you email us with the information listed above we can put together a quote that includes an educational discount (usually 25% - 75% off depending on the number of licenses)."
elil17 7y ago
Those are just really rare - only a few states (Wisconsin, California, Michigan, Massachusetts, and Arizona) even allow private companies to accept charter money, and for-profit charters make up the vast majority of for-profit schools in America (see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/For-profit_education https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/For-profit_education and https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_management_organization https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_management_organiz...). Whether these corporations should even be allowed to exist is controversial and it’s entirely possible Zach doesn’t support them. Sounds like the place you worked was an edge case.
- maxharris 7y ago
  > Charter schools We didn't take any charter money because it comes with strings. We were doing our own curriculum development. (Everyone there had a healthy distaste for the standard curriculum that gets taught in most places.) And before you start, we were secular. Most of us, including myself, were/are atheists! Maybe I did work at an edge case, but I still think that this is an edge case the world needs more of.
  - elil17 7y ago
    Nothing at all against your school! Sounds like you were doing great work

Gene_Parmesan 7y ago

A for-profit grade school? Interesting. I'm not sure I've ever encountered one of those. But yeah, an entity's ability to draw a net positive profit doesn't change their for-profit status, obviously. As for why Zachtronics is limiting this to non-profit schools, my guess would be for tax purposes. There's a good chance there's a benefit from providing something like this for non-profit institutions, but not for for-profit ones, although it's been 7 years since law school for me and my tax law is rusty. Although there's always the chance that he just didn't know for-profit grade schools exist, because I sure as heck didn't.

jcl 7y ago
The page makes provisions for for-profit schools: "Private and/or for-profit schools are not included. However, if you email us with the information listed above we can put together a quote that includes an educational discount (usually 25% - 75% off depending on the number of licenses)."

elil17 7y ago

Those are just really rare - only a few states (Wisconsin, California, Michigan, Massachusetts, and Arizona) even allow private companies to accept charter money, and for-profit charters make up the vast majority of for-profit schools in America (see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/For-profit_education https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/For-profit_education and https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_management_organization https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_management_organiz...). Whether these corporations should even be allowed to exist is controversial and it’s entirely possible Zach doesn’t support them. Sounds like the place you worked was an edge case.

maxharris 7y ago
> Charter schools We didn't take any charter money because it comes with strings. We were doing our own curriculum development. (Everyone there had a healthy distaste for the standard curriculum that gets taught in most places.) And before you start, we were secular. Most of us, including myself, were/are atheists! Maybe I did work at an edge case, but I still think that this is an edge case the world needs more of.
- elil17 7y ago
  Nothing at all against your school! Sounds like you were doing great work