Cram school is out, forever. Why Chinese parents aren’t rejoicing.

Over the past decade, Wang Wenjing rose in the ranks of China’s private tutoring industry, advancing from teaching English to managing operations in one of the country’s biggest online cram schools.

But since the government announced sweeping restraints on private tutoring this summer – part of Beijing’s campaign to tighten the reins on large swaths of the private sector – Ms. Wang has watched the once booming business free fall.

Dozens of new rules published in July forbid for-profit tutoring of core school subjects and banned such teaching on weekends and holidays, while barring the tutoring companies from raising capital or receiving foreign investment. The measures have crushed the value of an industry once estimated to be worth more than $100 billion.

Ms. Wang, who is operations director at Homework Help in Beijing, expects many tutoring firms to go bankrupt. “Many of my friends and colleagues lost their