McGraw-Hill puts its Education division up for sale

First, McGraw-Hill released details of its plan to spin its education division off as a publicly-traded company, and now, the New York Post is reporting that the company has hired Evercore Partners and Goldman Sachs to run an auction of McGraw-Hill Education. The big question, which the article doesn't answer, is why McGraw-Hill is trying to sell off the division. It's possible that the company doesn't think that it would get enough for it in an IPO, but given private equity's poor track record with educational publishing and distribution companies (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and Nebraska Book Company being two examples,) it's unlikely that McGraw-Hill could raise much more through an outright sale.