The New York Times published a searing account of the charter schools operated by Southwest Key.
“At East Austin College Prep in Texas, raccoons and rats invade offices and classrooms. When it rains, the roof of the main building leaks. Room 106 was so rickety a chair leg fell through the floor. Yet for all this, the secondary school pays almost $900,000 in annual rent.
“It has little choice: Its landlord is also its founder, Southwest Key Programs, a charity that is the nation’s largest provider of shelters for migrant children. The nonprofit says it formed the charter school and three others to help disadvantaged students get to college, but Southwest Key has financially benefited from the schools. Not only does it collect rent, but it has forced them to hire its for-profit companies, which have charged high fees for everything from maintenance to school lunches.
“We don’t even have a cafeteria — we eat in our gym,” said Yamilet Perez, 18, the student council president at the Austin secondary school. “You’re sitting there eating your lunch, and you can still smell the sweat of the class before.”
”The operations of the charter schools, serving about 1,000 students, show how Southwest Key profits off public money, boosting compensation for charity leaders and stockpiling tens of millions of dollars.
”The charity has been awarded almost $1.8 billion to run migrant shelters over the last decade, but is now under federal investigation for possible financial improprieties, prompted by an article last December in The New York Times. Two top officials, including the founder, Juan Sanchez, have stepped down. And a complaint about mismanagement at the schools, which have received more than $65 million in government money over the last decade, is under review by the Texas Education Agency.
“A spokesman for Southwest Key, Neil Nowlin, disputed that the charity had unfairly taken money from the schools. In a statement, the new superintendent, Salvador Cavazos, said that “our teachers and administrators come to work every day dedicated to supporting students and families….”
”A dozen years ago, Southwest Key decided to open charter schools and for-profit companies, including a florist, that ended up funneling money into the charity. The charters, called Promesa Public Schools, pay almost $1.4 million in rent annually to Southwest Key….
”Money from the schools and for-profits helped raise salaries for charity officials, letting them collect pay far beyond the federal cap for migrant shelter grants — $187,000 in 2017. Mr. Sanchez was paid $1.5 million that year, the most recent tax return available. His wife, Jennifer Nelson, earned $500,000 as a vice president, and Melody Chung, the chief financial officer, was paid $1 million.
“Mr. Sanchez resigned on Monday. Neither he nor Ms. Chung, who left Southwest Key last month, would comment for this article.
“As of last month, the charters were almost $3 million in debt, largely because of a decision last year to add schools in Brownsville and Corpus Christi. The schools — and students — have felt the squeeze.
“Teachers have left and not been replaced, forcing others to take on new roles. A Spanish instructor is teaching world history; a special-education instructor is teaching photography. Sports teams do not have enough equipment or any practice fields. Officials also cited problems from leaks, including mold and structural and electrical issues, according to an October 2017 email….
”Southwest Key Maintenance would charge about $192,000 for janitorial work at the Austin secondary school. But an outside company, Vanguard Cleaning, would charge about $93,000, records show.
“I was shot down,” said Mr. De Los Santos, who soon quit. The schools were finally allowed to hire in-house maintenance workers in 2017.
“Southwest Key’s for-profit food company, Café del Sol, drew many complaints about high prices, poor quality and limited offerings. Students staged at least one hunger strike. Yet the vendor collected almost $3 million from the schools, records show.”
Texas public schools are underfunded but there’s lots of money for Southwest Keys.
As Betsy DeVos would say, as long as parents make these choices, who cares about the kids and the money and the mold?
Greedy profit based on exploiting and creating human misery. Ain’t America grand?
a nation actually built on just that philosophy and a current President pushing us aggressively back to those “good old” days of robber baron policy
Privatization is a process by which cronies are rewarded by corrupt politicians/bureaucrats.And it’s more rampant than ever under Trump.
This is why “nonprofit” doesn’t mean anything without more.
No one in the public should accept the blanket statement of “nonprofit” without looking at the actual contracts and transfers and layers.
It just doesn’t mean anything, other than an easily gamed designation that applies to federal taxes.
The worst part of this rhetorical game is how they’ve managed to conflate “nonprofit” with “public” and pretend they’re the same. They’re not.
Words mean something.
I wonder why students have not chosen to leave this school “with their feet.” This school is run by a pack of profiteering grifters that have bilking the public schools down to a self-serving science. Why aren’t the taxpayers demanding change? Austin has a lot of savvy people in it that need to stand up to all the waste, fraud, overcharging and nepotism. This company needs forensic accountant to audit them.
As for Southwest Key is concerned, it is sad that this rogue group of vandals are in charge of poor, children seeking asylum. We need to demand accountability of any and all private companies that subcontract public services. I live in a military community where there are many private contractors that work for the federal government. They are swimming in cash. It is ridiculous that the Trump budget asks for an increase for the military as it is not needed. We should heed Eisenhower’s warning, and apply what he is saying to the opaque charter school industry.
I asked myself the same question as I read about these horrible “schools.”
Why would any parent enroll their child in such abysmal facilities?
I am willing to bet that the Austin public schools are better on every dimension.
SAD. Why parents continue to put their children in school like this is BEYOND me. They gotta be DRUNK on something.
A “charity?!”
Be wary of any organization purporting to be “charitable” or help students w/the word “Key” in it these days (college cheating scandal, perpetrated by Key “charitable foundation”).
A brand, “heartland”, is attached to some organizations that are Koch-like conservative. But, I assume some with the brand name may be O.K.
retired- I’ve encountered enough “heartlands” that are conservative that I’ve drawn some generalizations like you have about “key”.
The law allows different firms to own the same brandname if the products are in different industries e.g. Ford automobiles and Ford Modeling Agency.
This outfit has jobs posted in multiple cities. Many require only a GED or high school diploma. Many job postings are for eight-hour shifts.
You can see the sites of facilities and the vacant jobs here. These job discriptions offer insight into what counts as important to the managers of SouthWest Keys and to the federal requirements for this work.
https://www.jobs.net/jobs/southwestkey/en-us/all-jobs/
Reblogged this on Politicians Are Poody Heads and commented:
Oh, great, the operator of migrant children’s jails- oh, pardon me, “shelters”- is now running charter schools.
It all sounds like a scam, being run by grifters.
Of course… a Trump appointee, DeVos, would promote a place like the one identified.
With good reporting, the political spending of those associated with Southwest Key will be made public.
Posted at https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Texas-Owner-of-Migrant-Sh-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Education-Funding_Educational-Crisis_Educational-Facilities_Mis-education-190318-367.html#comment728422
You will find links in my comment there to the examples.
Check former (ass’t) Sec’y of Education Ravitch’s blog https://dianeravitch.net/?s=charter+fraud
for info on the enormous charter fraud being perpetrated across the 15,880 separate school systems in the US. And go to this link for more on the Orwellian “choice’ offered by charter operators. https://dianeravitch.net/?s=choice
and here are some examples to the what is afoot when Charters are sold as educational choice.
This post will make your head spin. Arkansas public schools in communities of color are taken over by the state, and charter schools open. One high-powered chain. spreads it’s tentacles across the state, scooping up the best students. A rotating cast of characters plays musical chairs at the state board, the state education department, and superintendencies.
Mercedes Schneider is a master at tracking down financial records.In this post she shows the direct connections between the Sackler’s billions–derived from the sale of OxyContin–and the growth of the charter movement.
In this post on Valerie Strauss’s Answer Sheet, North Carolina educators Justin Parmenter and Rodney D. Pierce report that a “white flight academy” is turning itself into a charter school so it can collect public funding. More than two-thirds of the state’s charter schools are more than 80% black or white.
Carol Burris did a thorough analysis of the abuses committed by the charter industry in California. Please read this report and send a copy to Tony Thurmond, who just appointed a task force to study charter schools and stacked it with charter allies.
Valerie Jablow: Watch D.C. Give Away Public School Space to Charters: Read this account. Apparently the City Council is ready and willing to hand off public schools without going through legally required process.