In 2020, as the Covid pandemic raged, a New Mexico school district thought it had found the perfect solution to help provide online schooling to its mostly Native American students when it hired a for-profit education company called Stride Inc. Five years later, the district ended its contract and accused Stride of prioritizing profits at the expense of students.

The growing clash, which has since spiraled into dueling lawsuits and drawn government scrutiny, underscores a broader national debate over the role of for-profit companies in public education.