Alan Singer writes here about Promesa, a charter chain in Texas owned by Southwest Key, the same company that runs detention center for immigrant children.
As is often the case, the big profits are in real estate.
Here is an excerpt from a powerful article:
At one Texas Promesa charter school site, vermin roam the halls, offices, and classrooms and the roof leaks when it rains. The non-profit Southwest Key school pays its non-profit Southwest Key Foundation landlord almost a million dollars a year in state tax money for use of the building. Not only does Southwest Key collect rent from its four Southwest Key charters, but it forces them to purchase services including maintenance and school lunches from Southwest Key affiliate companies at above market rates. Southwest Key Maintenance charges almost $200,000 for janitorial work that an outside company offered to do for $93,000. The food served at Promesa’s schools is purchased from Southwest Key’s for-profit food company, Café del Sol. It is so bad that students have gone on a hunger strike. In addition, Southwest Key charged Promesa over $300,000 this year as a “management” fee and bills the schools for “accounting.”
Southwest Key uses its “non-profit” profits to pay hefty salaries to corporate and charity leaders and to stockpile tens of millions of dollars in reserves. Its former president and his wife were paid a combined $2 million a year. The foundation is now under federal investigation.
Texas Promesea schools are so badly run that when teachers quit they are not replaced. At one school someone hired to teach Spanish was assigned to teach history and someone hired for special-education is teaching photography. At Corpus Christi Promesa graduating senior have difficulty filing college applications and financial aid forms because the chief guidance counselor was laid-off. The Corpus Christi school is in a crumbling former shopping center rented by Promesa for $360,000 a year from a shell company operated by real estate developers tied to Southwest Key’s shelter operation.
The charter operation has tried to escape its reputation by rebranding and now calls itself Promesa Public Schools. It opened new campuses in fall 2018 in Corpus Christi and Brownsville.
As usual, the question is why parents choose to send their children to these terrible profit centers that call themselves “schools.” Betsy DeVos would say that as long as parents “choose” to send their children to vermin-infested profit centers, then all is well. As usual, the answer probably lies in marketing, branding, and promises that ignore reality. Sadly, many parents are gullible and believe the former.
Worst ideas all the way down
Charter worst idea
Is resting on another
And what is very clear
Is that one had a mother
Time to start calling them Cartel Schools …
Run by charterlord El Charterpo?
yes; and the entire Big Money hedge-funded structure is no different than a true cartel
Words–other than “squalid”–fail me.
Here’s a new charter school which will be marketed to the public as a nonprofit and counted as a nonprofit:
“Lahoski said the plan is to open enrollment to any student in the state. His organization has also entered into talks with ACCEL Schools, a for-profit education management organization.
The plan is to have that company serve as the operator for Marion Prep and will be responsible for hiring teachers and in charge of the school’s educational programming.”
So the for-profit operator is in charge of literally everything that makes this a “school”.
Come on. It is just nonsense to call these schools “nonprofits” based upon a thin layer of nonprofit language grafted onto a for-profit operation. The for-profit operator, which receives 100% of it’s revenue from the public, will not have to reveal anything to the public.
The sponsor gets a cut and then the operator gets a cut and THEN the public funding eventually gets to the students, and this whole management layer is on top of the public school management already in place in that district- a replication.
https://www.marionstar.com/story/news/2019/03/27/sponsor-expects-marion-prep-fully-operational-september/3286839002/
Southwest Key is making a mint from #45’s child detention facilities. They profiting from our failed policies. El Paso facilities are so overcrowded they are warehousing families under bridges. With little to no supervision or accountability, we have no way of knowing what is going on in these facilities.
I call this: ” CHILD TRAFFICKING.”
WAKE UP, America.
Posted at :https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Alan-Singer-Is-Promesa-th-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Charter-School-Failure_Charter-Schools_Corporate_Diane-Ravitch-190405-941.html#comment729958
with this comment which has like at the site: f you think that charter schools were created to give children a choice think again. For exampleL The board of Houston Independent School District is reviewing three charter networks founded by one woman, who is both the highest ranking employee and pays her “related companies” $17 million dollars.
look at Arizona: In fact, a crack investigative team at the Arizona Republic won the prestigious George Polk Award for their fearless expose of charter school corruption in the state but there is not a shred of ACCOUNTABILITY for the GRAND THEFT of taxpayer money into private pockets is ended. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/pr/2019/02/22/arizona-republic-wins-george-polk-award-education-reporting/2954763002/
I think many of these parents do not want to parent (because it makes them feel uncomfortable to say “no” and/or punish a child in some way or being a parent is inconvenient to their lifestyle) so they farm that job off to school that promise, between the lines, to do the tough job of parenting for them and that is part of the marketing ploy from corporate charters schools.
Most of these corporate charter schools offer no-nonsense harsh discipline just like Eva M. does in her New York City chain of charters that bullies and terrorizes children to force them to comply.
Promesa might be the worst charter chain scam in the nation. The distinction of worst charter chain in the nation, however, must belong to the chain that inflicts the most damage by its size. Every charter school is a bad charter school. The biggest chain is the biggest problem. I believe the award goes to KIPP.