I was curious to see how Lesley Stahl and 60 Minutes would deal with the Gulen Charter schools in their program last night.
The Gulen charters are the largest charter chain in the United States, with something like 135-140 charters. Few people realize that the Gulen charter chain is far larger than the KIPP chain.
They focus mainly on math and science. Some of the Gulen charters get high test scores.
That seems to seal the deal for 60 Minutes. Stahl was very impressed with the schools’ test scores and with the students’ interest in math and science.
The show points out that the Gulen schools are tied, in some non-specific way, to a Turkish imam named Fethullah Gulen, who lives in seclusion in the Poconos in Pennyslvania. It notes that the Gulenists run a vast media, financial, and political empire inside Turkey, and that critics of the Gulen movement in Turkey are reluctant to appear on camera. Stahl made no reference to the page one story in the New York Times about the critics of Gulen in Turkey who are fearful and intimidated (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/25/world/middleeast/turkey-feels-sway-of-fethullah-gulen-a-reclusive-cleric.html?pagewanted=all).
Stahl says that the Gulenists are moderate and devoted to education (they told her so), and it sounds as though we are lucky that the Gulenists have imported large numbers of Turkish teachers (some of whom can barely speak English) to teach math, science, and even English! She never gets a good answer to the question of why the Gulen movement has opened so many publicly-financed schools in the United States, and she does not reflect on whether this is a good idea.
Maybe one day we will also have a chain of Japanese charter schools, Korean charter schools, Singaporean charter schools, Finnish charter schools, etc., and we can raise our test scores by importing teachers from other nations to run charter schools; what’s odd about this is that Turkey is not, unlike Japan, Korea, Singapore, and Finland, a high-performing nation. Allowing foreign nationals to open and manage charter schools, run by boards composed of their fellow nationals, opens up a new world of possibilities, especially when they need not come from high-performing nations. We might have Iranian charters, Mexican charters, Malaysian charters, Argentinean charters, Haitian charters, Cuban charters, Portuguese charters, the possibilities are endless.
But back to 60 Minutes:
Stahl interviews the head of the Texas charter school association, who defends the Gulen schools strongly. The show quotes an ex-teacher at a Gulen school who claims that the schools get kickbacks from the Turkish teachers they import (she married one of them), but the Gulen spokesman says she is not creditable because she is a disgruntled employee. No other critic appears on camera, though there are many who wonder about the propriety of funneling taxpayer dollars to a foreign-run “public” school enterprise.
CBS News did not ask one very important question. What about the role of public schools in building our democracy? The reason that taxpayers pay for public schools is to develop citizens, people who are prepared to vote and to serve on juries and to sustain our democracy into the future. That does not mean that public schools should be jngoistic or that their teachers must be true-blue patriots, but that the schools must take seriously their responsibility to prepare young people to assume the full responsibilities of citizenship: to think critically and independently; to understand our form of government; to understand other forms of government; to have a deep knowledge of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights; to understand American culture and history; to know enough about world history to be able to form a thoughtful opinion of events and to look critically at how the mainstream media portrays ideas and events. In other words, we pay for public schools to develop our future citizens, and we want them to think for themselves. That is why we have historically taken a dim view of public money being used to subsidize any partisanship or special interests in education.
This is why schools have mock trials, conduct student elections, have a student council, and adopt a pedagogical style that involves questioning and challenge.
Are the Gulen schools preparing young people to assume their roles as citizens and to improve the practice of democracy in the United States?
Those questions were never asked.
Diane
I was troubled by this interview on #60minutes and am glad to see this addressed here in your blog. What is going on that we feel the need to rely on others who have so little clue about what’s best for our students and our education system?
As soon as CBS anounce the 60 minutes episode regarding with that gulen movement, they opened a twitter account anonymously, and tried to promote their voice. but when you look at the tweets, it is not reliable as you can see here
And Stahl never asked about one of the biggest controversies surrounding charter schools in general: Do they take all kinds of students, including those with learning disabilities, unsupportive and/or impoverished homes, or limited understanding of English? You have addressed this key issue before, Dr. Ravitch, and it seems clear to me that no journalist pretending to understand the controversies regarding the charter school movement should neglect those questions. I am a veteran public school teacher and a fan of Sixty Minutes. When this piece concluded, I turned to my wife and said, “Leslie didn’t do her work on this one. They weren’t ready for air time yet.”
I didn’t see this program, but Leslie Stahl’s lack of fact-checking and lazy credulity are primary reasons I don’t bother watching 60 minutes. I have no doubt the summary of her report you’ve printed here is accurate. She is every snake oil salesman’s dream journalist.
Although, I certainly agree that 60 Minutes could have explored more of the illegal activities, including EEOC violations, I also know that they spent a considerable amount of time fact checking. Further, I would certainly disagree with your assessment on Ms. Stahl’s status as a “snake oil salesman,” she is in fact very professional.
I didn’t call Lesley Stahl a snake oil salesman. I was referring to those selling the Gulen schools as cure-alls.
I was also very disappointed in David Dunn of Texas Charter Schools Association.
I agree with you on both counts.
I am trying to find contact info of Mary Addi. We would like to invite her as aspeaker in Houston.
thank you
I wanted to develop the somewhat obvious idea that the changes we see in education, that – top to bottom policies – are not just designed to starve public education and for the dismemberment of unions, living wage and professionalism but also in order to undermine democracy. This process is crucial to maintain the plutocratic nature of the United States and protect the elites – economic and political – from the people and their “unreasonable” demands for fair pay, housing, health and education for all. But I think Professor Chomsky would do a better job in this excellent video – The Purpose of Education:
http://blip.tv/learning-without-frontiers/noam-chomsky-the-purpose-of-education-5925460
http://www.burson-marsteller.com/default.aspx
Did anyone fact check that Julie Shussler works for Burson-Marsteller
which is a fancy PR damage control agency worldwide?
The 30,000 waiting list is a lie. Soner Tarim the Superintendent of
Harmony cannot keep his lies straight.
http://harmonyparenttruth.blogspot.com/2011/02/harmony-science-academy-inflated.html
julie.shussler@bm.com
not only is American tax money used for their legal defenses, their
lobbying, it pays for PR, marketing and Advertising.
Too bad more money doesn’t go to educate children.
When it comes to the English teachers from Turkey on H1-B visa claiming there is a shortage of those here in America is just ridiculous. The Harmony schools in Texas were aslo petitioning for Lawyers and Legal Clerks. Do we have a shortage of those and then we also have to ask why is our tax dollars going towards a school that needs its own lawfirm filled with cult members? This should also be addressed and the public has every right to know what is really going on.
Little by little they come to this country…it will be years in the making but what we see unfold in the Middle East and heading into Africa through the north will occur here one day. So much for mufti-culturism it will destroy America as it is destroying Europe. As with Roman Empire it will happen on our soil.
Doesn’t take a rocket scientists or a racist to understand what these people are about. Just like the Aga-Khan and their 45,000 world-wide madrassas schools.
Diane, I would never send my kids to those schools but feel I should point out that you are wrong about our public schools. They are NOT there to teach the kids to be independent thinkers. They are not there to do any of the things you mentioned. They do have a purpose but that purpose is not what the majority think it is. Research those that fathered our public school system. What you find should scare the pants off you. I have to run but email me if you would like more info.
This organization which operates 130 charter schools in the United States has been violating the civil rights of American teachers and administrators for the past eleven years by blatantly ignoring federal age, nationality, and gender equal opportunity laws. Further, their practices have supplanted American jobs by bringing in H1-B visa holders instead of hiring qualified and available American teachers and administrators, and all the while using American tax dollars to do so. The American tax payers are not only losing jobs, but are also required to pay for H1-B visa fees and in many instances graduate degrees for the foreign teachers and administrators.
With unemployment rates still at an all time high, let’s ask our government officials why they are still allowing the influx of H1-B visa employees to take American jobs when the United States has a wealth of qualified and credentialed American teachers and administrators
SIGN THE PETITION HERE:
http://www.change.org/petitions/stop-the-discriminatory-practices-at-us-publicly-funded-charter-schools
Some insights on Fethullah Gulen, 60 Minutes and Gulen Charter Schools
http://gulencharterschools.blogspot.com/2012/10/60-minutes-fethullah-gulen-and-gulen.html