Sharon R. Higgins is a parent activist in Oakland,
California, who manages multiple websites as a concerned citizen.
One is “charter school
scandals.” Another is the Broad Report. Third is a
compilation of articles about the Gulen movement.
Sharon has long wondered why so many districts, states, and the federal government
have turned over a basic public responsibility to foreign
nationals, who hire other foreign nationals, and export hundreds of
millions of taxpayer dollars. Her concern is not nationalistic or
xenophobic. It is about the civic and communal nature of public
education.
She writes: “On Saturday I spoke at the “Expose the
Gulen Movement” protest rally held on a farm in the rural, rolling
hills around Saylorsburg, PA. We assembled less than two miles from
the compound where Fethullah Gulen lives. Gulen is considered to be
one of the two most powerful men in Turkey. This is the video of my
speech, starting at 00:45 min.
http://new.livestream.com/…/AbdEylemVakti/videos/28766474 Earlier
that day, Gulenist operatives had driven around to take down the
signs that organizers had posted to help guide protesters to the
rally. The day before, a man from “the camp” (Gulen’s compound)
also attempted to bribe the owners of the farm in an effort to
prevent us from using their place. I also spoke at yesterday’s
“Expose the Gulen Movement” conference in Piscataway, NJ, attended
by 100 people, mostly Turkish Americans. My segment starts at 40:00
min. and lasts 20 min.
I understand the conference was simultaneously broadcast in Turkey.
In both talks I explain how the privatization of public education
has allowed the Gulen movement to establish the largest charter
school network in the US. Their 146 charter schools will enroll
over 60,000 students this year. The schools’ taxpayer-supplied
revenue is up to approximately one-half billion dollars per year.
Preceding me in both videos is Mary Addi, a former Gulen charter
school teacher. She was interviewed in the 60 Minutes piece. The
moderator at the conference is Kaya Boztepe, ex-president of the
Federation of Turkish American Associations. The conference
panelists seated at the table are a retired Turkish admiral and two
Turkish journalists. The journalists, who have been critical of the
government and the Gulen Movement, spent nearly two years in jail
after being arrested under terrorism charges. They were finally
released but I understand their trials are still pending and it is
expected that they will be found guilty and end up with long
sentences. Turkey now leads the world with jailing journalists.
More about those panelists here:
http://perimeterprimate.blogspot.com/2013/08/expose-gulen-movement-protest-and.html
I want to emphasize that the panelists and conference attendees are
incredibly alarmed by Fethullah Gulen’s escalating power and the
manner in which he has acquired it. Gulen has been hiding out at
his compound in the US since 1998, but he periodically delivers
messages through his media organs in Turkey (Zaman newspapers), as
well as weekly sermons (and some even believe fatawa) to his
followers online.
In Pennsylvania I met a local resident who reported personally
seeing guards with “machine guns” at the entry of the compound in
the late 1990s. Locals have also seen helicopters flying over the
compound. I’ve read reports about those things, but never knew if
they were true or not. Over the past two days, I also met a lot of
Turkish Americans with personal stories of their own about the
Gulenists. This group’s stealth strategy is brilliant, and
dangerous. They intimidate and threaten their critics and many,
many people are afraid of speaking out against them. The big
question is why is our government letting this group run so many
charter schools?”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Reblogged this on Blog of an e-marketer by Main Uddin.
I’m also puzzled by this. I know that their was a great video from somewhere in Texas where an admin was asked about them and he was caught off-guard and looked flummoxed. I’ve also heard rumors about HB-! visa violations/ and possible fraud, and the importation of Turkish nationals who speak, to be charitable very poor English. SO I too wonder what the Feds are doing, BUT I also wonder about the parents of these 60,000 children. What’s up with them?
I can’t blame these people for taking advantage of so lucrative and legal an opportunity that this country has provided them.
Who is to blame is the usual gang of thieves and lowlifes; the politicians, for enabling this to happen.
Business as usual.
Seems to me that there is another religious organization that has hundreds if not thousands of schools and takes public monies in the form of tuition assistance, tax breaks, transportation and special ed services that is not by run a foreign national religious figure but the head of state of a foreign country.
Are those that complain about the Gulen movement also complaining about that religious institution?
I am…there should be NO public funds given to religious schools…period!
Good, and thanks. So do I!
It’s hard to believe this has been allowed to happen. I keep thinking about teachers buying supplies for students in this country using their own money because of dwindling budgets. Our money is going to this junk? US DOE must be so proud.
The top link doesn’t work. This one should.
http://new.livestream.com/accounts/4244422/AbdEylemVakti/videos/28766474
The potential for weird stuff is here too:
Waldorf-Inspired Public Schools Are on the Rise | Edutopia
“Despite growing interest and support for public schools based on Waldorf approaches, the movement has its detractors. A spiritual dimension to the Waldorf philosophy has sparked debate — and inspired at least one lawsuit — alleging the potential inclusion of religion in the schools.
The philosophy derives from Steiner’s idea called anthroposophy, which includes the concept of an unseen world complete with angels hovering above daily life (and the classroom), as well as a commitment to developing the inner self in order to serve the community. Waldorf-inspired public schools, however, don’t teach the students anthroposophy, nor do they incorporate spiritual practice into the curriculum.”
http://www.edutopia.org/waldorf-public-school-morse
(Of course The Gulen movement also denies teaching their belief at their charters.)
Weird not ‘wield’ -darn spell checker.
Separation of church and state issues in Charter schools are a sideshow spectacle that I would humbly assert keeps average Americans away from discussing the real issues. There is no evidence that the Gulen schools have religion in their classrooms or that they are proselytizing their brand of Islam. The real question, as stated in the blog post is “why is our government letting this group run so many charter schools?”
My short answer is that our leaders don’t have the strength to resist monetizing this public good. If competition makes everything better, why not education? If children at Gulen schools have high math and science scores, why not get these results for cheaper than our current system? Win-win, right? If you only care about such results, then maybe. However, even the shallowest investigation into Gulen schools finds that they bring in many teachers on H1-b visas, that the schools’ leadership is heavily represented by people of Turkish heritage and affiliated with Gulen even when this would be unexpected given the demographics of the community. When connected contractors are funneled taxpayer money through the schools it is reasonable to question whether or not the schools serve some other purpose for Gulen. Do the schools help their billion-dollar movement grow to achieve their goals? Do the American people want this organization to grow larger, wealthier and more powerful? The schools may just be an indirect route to a much larger outcome that we do not desire.
When you delve even deeper into the Gulen Worldwide Movement, their leader is continually mentioned as the prime person who wishes to have Turkey be an Islamic nation. He counters, it would seem, all Turks who are working toward a democratic, secular, state. The message as seen online is that he is training children worldwide to rise up for Islam, and when he turns Turkey Islamic, to be ruled by Sharia Law, he is poised to return and be the leader. It is all online for anyone to read. Seems like a Tom Clancy novel.
This man has made a huge fortune in the 11 years he has been allowed by our government to rape us of the funding for his geo-political/religious goals through his Gulen Charter Schools. $500,000 a year to date is reported…times 11 years in the US, reflects many billions of dollars that We the People have donated to his cause.
Yes, the math scores are promoted as the shining light of their academics, however, as mentioned here, Gulen imports his teachers using work visas that our government seems happy to offer, for teachers who are seemingly strict Islamics from Turkey and the Middle East. How and why the State Department and Homeland Security allows this is a mystery.
We should all demand answers from Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, and Obama…and even the new President of U. of California, former head of Homeland Security, Ms. Napolitano.
This is definitely a religious movement, and under our form of separation of church and state, should not be funded with Americans tax money.
In NYC, Bloomberg encouraged and endorsed a totally Islamic public school, and also a Chasidic School. Outrageous. If religions want to inculcate students with their own messages, which certainly tends to divide us, then NO public funds should be used for their purposes.
All parochial schools should be strictly self funding.
“If competition makes everything better. . . ”
That’s a size 128 font “if”.
I made a mistake…Gulen makes $500,000,000 a year…not a mere $500,000.
If it’s $500 million, that’s what the Gulen group takes in — not income from the charter schools, and not a salary anyone takes from charter schools — right?
Ed…that is what is seems…he has pocketed billions, and some of his countrymen report that he sends this money back to Turkey to foment insurrection and a return to Sharia Law…and that he plans to return to his native land and take over the government. Did you read the NY Times article? There is a huge amount of info online about him.
Mary Addi, a former Gulen charter school teachers, explains the mechanism by which these schools extort money from their imported Turkish/Turkic teachers and then launder it. Starting at 00:18:28 min. (w/apologies for fuzzy audio; needs volume turned up): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXWWoFweJbs#t=873
Recent figures I’ve seen show $539 million/year to the Gulen schools from charter school fees. Looking at Texas, I don’t see that the money isn’t being spent at the schools (“kickbacks” from Turkish nationals to the Cosmos Foundation or other Gulen entities would not be reflected there).
Looking at this stuff, I wonder why other religious groups with strong education bents don’t get into this business — like the Jesuits or Mormons, Episcopalians or Methodists, or Jews?
It may well be that the Gulen model is not sustainable without graft. From my years working with investigators at the Senate Labor Committee, I don’t see evidence of that here.
Now, the 990s show that there have been bonds sold to finance construction, and the guarantee of those bonds appears to be the income from charter fees. That’s not illegal. But it makes me wonder why we don’t hit up our friend Bill Gates, and set up a network of Ravitch Schools to show that great educational achievement can be done without selling out.
The difficulty I have with that idea is that it also would funnel funds out of public schools. If we regarded it as a leveraged buyout, if we took over a public school building and kept the faculty — at better salaries, perhaps — could we do a better job than the Gulen bunch, and avoid their problems?
Did anyone really believe that there wouldn’t be corruption associated with these schools? Really?
School reformers have some powerful and sophisticated backers. None of those people saw the obvious vulnerability to corruption in thousands of publicly-funded charter schools with complicated ownership and organizational schemes and no regulation or transparency?
There aren’t enough regulators in any state to oversee thousands of separate schools. Who are we kidding with this? This thing runs completely on trust.
They had better hope it never blows up big. It seems to me inevitable it will, with that much unregulated money floating around.
“…publicly-funded charter schools with complicated ownership and organizational schemes and no regulation or transparency”
Thank you for helping us focus on the big picture.
Texas is wholly baffled by the Gulen movement, including especially the teacher-bashing GOP education “reformers.” Hypothetically, they favor the public-school-blood-sucking charters. But things are sometimes different on the ground.
In Texas, the schools are known as Harmony schools. We had a flap several years ago when some charter school advocates discovered, to their dismay, that the schools don’t teach creationism instead of evolution (point in favor of Harmony).
At the time, TEA and local district officials I spoke with were completely unaware of the size of the group establishing and backing the schools.
Today their website lists 40 schools across Texas ( http://www.harmonytx.org/default.aspx ) in Dallas, Houston, El Paso, Brownsville, Midland & Odessa, Fort Worth, Austin, San Antonio, Lubbock and Laredo. Parents I know have been happy with the attention their kids get, and the care paid to science and math education. Complaints in Odessa some time ago centered around the Muslim teachers, but that flap died down.
But — is this trouble? — at least one school in Dallas County (about two miles from me) has been unable to get an occupancy permit to start school this year. Students are being bused to other locations, I understand — but code officials think it may be months before the building can be certified. Does this demonstrate a lack of financial planning and ability on the part of the foundation? Does this indicate animosity from Dallas code officials (public schools in Texas are essentially exempt from local code enforcement, and some districts, like Dallas, take unfair advantage of this; what I know of the difficulties at the new Harmony building are common, never-fixed features of schools in Dallas ISD — I don’t have the full story).
Here’s the notice on the school’s web page:
Some of those bus rides are about 30 miles.
Here’s information from the blog on city issues of the Dallas Morning News (this has not hit the education desk, I don’t think): http://cityhallblog.dallasnews.com/2013/09/southern-dallas-charter-school-that-failed-city-inspections-still-not-ready-to-open.html/
Interesting how this group from Turkey managed to figure out where below-radar-level is in all of these states.
Diane, with 40 — or more — schools in Texas, are you sure your total of 146 schools is correct? Has anyone checked the foundation’s 990 forms lately (I’ve not looked in a couple of years). Is there just one foundation, or several?
@Ellen. My take on Gulen is that it is not quite right to view them as “strict Islamics.” This perhaps explains the seemingly paradoxical stance of State Department types. One article I read said that they are viewed as “modern muslims” and that American leaders are hopeful that encouraging them will be an antidote to Islamic radicals. I’m all for religious pluralism, but allowing school charters to effectively fund the growth of such a movement (via visas to supporters and connected contracts to affiliated businesses) is troublesome.
It is hard to tell if public education of American children is really their single passion (as it should be). I have read that the cream of the math & science crop competes in highly publicized competitions while less stellar students get a rather hum-ho experience. I have also read that experiential learning is not particularly valued in the educational approach and that Turkish language and culture are emphasized. While I have nothing against such cultural experiences, other languages are arguably more useful for American students and I would hate to think that Turkish is offered to the exclusion of other languages. Anyone have any first-hand experience with these schools?
Emmy…since they are schooling children all over the world, and rapidly have opened 146 charter schools in the US funded by American taxpayers, and this man’s political ambitions for his country is focused on making it a Sharia nation (ostensibly under his rule), it seems quite clear as to his goal. No matter if they are “modern Muslims” or not…the charters are a foreign national’s religious charter schools and for-profit, being funded by American taxpayers money (which already is into billions of dollars) that he is using for his own devices, some saying that our tax dollars are being sent to Turkey to fund a militant Islamic takeover.
I do not know where the truth lies…but tend to believe that there is a huge government failure here if they are not deeply involved in investigating Gulen.
All of this information is online and I suggest everyone do the research. It is far more than an educational techniques issue. Many of Gulen’s own Turkish compatriots speak online about his goals and methods.
This alone should outrage all taxpayers.
And those of us who believe in strict separation of church and state, should be the loudest in shouting out against this.
For me, it has no merit to discuss what their academic techniques and successes are. It is only pertinent to me that a renowned Turkish Muslim can come into the United States and set up shop for his own benefit in a hidden and well guarded compound in the mountains…rather like David Koresh.
If this is a State Department acceptance to show how liberal the Obama administration is, then that too should be addressed. Suggest reading Journalist Steven Emerson on this issue. Emerson has written books on how Jihadists have been allowed into the US for decades, and since he personally infiltrated into their movement, it is an eye opener.
There are many wonderful loyal Americans who are Islamic, and I do not want to insinuate that all should be tarred with the same brush, but Gulen is a whole other story.
Between Obama, Duncan, State Department, plus the D o J, and the omissions and lack of transparency of our government, we are all in trouble in my estimation, for we are made to dance in the dark..
ım ın turkey he ıs and hıs cemaat ıs very dangerous lawness,educatıon,medıa are control his organızatıon and he supply ıslamıc terrorısts WATCH OUT AMERICAN PATRIOT!!!
Thank you Arzu…please tell us more from your perspective as a Turkish citizen.
I have a family member that recently enrolled their child in a new Gulen school. The absolute hilarious and puzzling nature of this enrollment makes me almost piss my pants.
She is a right-wing zealot, a tea bagger of the worst kind, and she has no idea what in the world she is doing.
She cries that competition and free markets will save the public school system, probably not even realizing that her tax money is being used to support an islamic outfit in Turkey of all places.
This is EXACTLY why we don’t need competition in public schools.
A family member recently questioned her about this move after doing some research. She knows I am against charter schools in general, and we’ve had plenty of heated discussion concerning public schools and policy surrounding them.
This is pitiful.
It won’t take too long before she pulls them out of the school.
I wonder if you are right.
Diane– I hope that you’ll be able to address this problem, however briefly, on your upcoming speaking tour. This is probably the best example of the dangers of the charter movement. It would be interesting to see how this information is received in Berkeley, CA. I’m looking forward to that evening. ….This info on the Gulen should be spread far and wide. We should not allow this to be brushed under the rug due to any fear of not being “Politically Correct” or being accused of “racism.” Criticizing the corporate charter takeover and the dangerous Gulen organization should be part of our mission as informed teachers and knowledgeable citizens.
Bea…you might also want to take a look at Pitbull, the famous misogynist and porn singer who is opening charters to teach hip hop music. Again with taxpayer funding. He was quoted as saying what a great money maker charters can be.
Communist Teacher is on the money as to why and Ellen Lubic is on the money in how to deal with it. Let the religious people pay for the religious education as my parents did with 11. In public schools the only religion to be taught in the classroom should be comparative religion where they learn about all belief systems. That would be a good required course to me. Go to the Military Religious Freedom site and see what is happening in our military with the fundamentalists all the way to the top. We do not need that in our schools or to pay for it with public money. We need true separation of church and state to succeed or we will become like Iran and other fundamentalist states.
Bea Liberman is also right on. This should be our mission for better communities. If we do not in general work together we fall together.
I don’t see much evidence that they are offering religious education, or religious activities in their schools. (You’d think we’d hear some hollering from Texas at least!:) I think the real issue is that by running so many charter schools, they are able to get H1-B visas for supporters to come to this country and also dole out lucrative contracts to sympathetic affiliated businesses which give money back to the movement through tithing. Also, as more schools are opened they have the opportunity to develop a devoted managerial class within their organization. Thus, the American charter scheme is facilitating a strengthening and spread of their organization which may or may not have overall goals in line with the Americans who are funding this. There should be no side benefits to running a public school whatsoever.
My point is simple: any charter organization that can be shown to engage in practices that primarily benefit the organization (rather the public at large) ought to be prevented from having a charter. The religion aspect is just a sideshow. Both religious and secular charter organizations can be guilty of using the charter scheme for their own ends.
Emmy…when you say you “don’t see much evidence that they are offering religious education, etc.” is that based on personal observation in their schools across the Nation?
Why would he import native Islamics to teach in these schools if not for madrassa-like education? This is beyond the usual types of frauds who open charters for cash. But he has accrued enormous amounts of cash from his secret operations.
Does he pay the IRS? Or, as I have read, does he set up a multitude of corporations, somewhat like our problem with credit default swaps that cannot be traced due to bundling, and these corporations are so convoluted that they are almost impossible to trace?
I personally hope that the IRS and Homeland Security and the NSA are watching his activities closely.
Yes, George…I also believe religious organizations that function politically should not be able to avoid paying taxes like the rest of us because they have a 501(x(3) exemption. Every church should pay their fair share. Pat Robertson does not pay taxes although his 700 Club has brought him huge personal wealth…and he certainly is openly political.
I have looked for several pieces of evidence to suggest they are teaching religion. 1 – official complaints to BOE in various states 2 – mainstream media coverage of this allegation and subsequent follow-up regarding the outcome of any investigations. 3 – Academic research concerning the issue 4 – unsubstantiated allegations in comment sections of newspapers to the effect of “my kid goes to XYZ school and they are teaching them about Islam in school.” I could have missed something, but I have not come up with any compelling evidence that the schools are offering religious instruction of a nature that would violate the separation of church and state.
My personal knowledge of these schools is very limited. There is one in my area. Religion doesn’t seem to be an issue and politicians continually fawn over it. However, I have heard that the science and math education (for which they are noted) is not particularly strong when compared to magnet schools and private schools, although it is probably better than the neighborhood schools. There may be a possibility that the leadership of these schools is effective in recruiting Muslim families to their movement. Of course, this would be done in private and there is no way for me to know about it without being a part of the school community. Public schools shouldn’t be run by special interests and their leaders and teachers should reflect the demographics of the community. Good schools grow out of strong communities. The problem I have with Gulen is not the leaders’ religious beliefs per se but who they are doing this for and whether or not their movement benefits from having the schools. Clearly the movement would experience a retrenchment on US soil if their schools were closed.
Emmy…met a woman today at a Dem Club fund raiser whose son teaches at a Gulen school in Seattle. She said the foreign languages they teach are Spanish, Mandarin, and….Turkish. She said the is a large Turkish population nearby. I am going to try to interview her son and get more info.
I do not accept the idea that any person from any country in the world can come to the US and start opening charter schools. If they were private schools using tuition funding to run them I would still be uncomfortable, but these charters are funded with our taxes…and it seems that Gulen makes huge profits, $500,000,000 a year using American taxes to pay himself whatever he wishes, with no oversight.
The online article about a reporter who tried to interview him at his compound and was turned away by armed guards, is to me, not reassuring. Kipp invites observers and their leadership talks to everyone. What is Gulen hiding?
Groups like the Gulen organization target low income areas. They promote Turkish culture and they are known to present a biased historical perspective of Turkey, denying that the Armenian genocide of 1915 occurred. Apparently, they attract clientele by providing free trips to Turkey. Free travel to Eurasia is how they lure families..
I’ve removed the links so it’ll post this time. Sorry. You’ll have to visit my blog to see links:
Texas is wholly baffled by the Gulen movement, including especially the teacher-bashing GOP education “reformers.” Hypothetically, they favor the public-school-blood-sucking charters. But things are sometimes different on the ground.
In Texas, the schools are known as Harmony schools. We had a flap several years ago when some charter school advocates discovered, to their dismay, that the schools don’t teach creationism instead of evolution (point in favor of Harmony).
At the time, TEA and local district officials I spoke with were completely unaware of the size of the group establishing and backing the schools.
Today their website lists 40 schools across Texas ( [link deleted] ) in Dallas, Houston, El Paso, Brownsville, Midland & Odessa, Fort Worth, Austin, San Antonio, Lubbock and Laredo. Parents I know have been happy with the attention their kids get, and the care paid to science and math education. Complaints in Odessa some time ago centered around the Muslim teachers, but that flap died down.
But — is this trouble? — at least one school in Dallas County (about two miles from me) has been unable to get an occupancy permit to start school this year. Students are being bused to other locations, I understand — but code officials think it may be months before the building can be certified. Does this demonstrate a lack of financial planning and ability on the part of the foundation? Does this indicate animosity from Dallas code officials (public schools in Texas are essentially exempt from local code enforcement, and some districts, like Dallas, take unfair advantage of this; what I know of the difficulties at the new Harmony building are common, never-fixed features of schools in Dallas ISD — I don’t have the full story).
Here’s the notice on the school’s web page:
Some of those bus rides are about 30 miles.
Here’s information from the blog on city issues of the Dallas Morning News (this has not hit the education desk, I don’t think): [link deleted]
Interesting how this group from Turkey managed to figure out where below-radar-level is in all of these states.
Diane, with 40 — or more — schools in Texas, are you sure your total of 146 schools is correct? Has anyone checked the foundation’s 990 forms lately (I’ve not looked in a couple of years). Is there just one foundation, or several?
Ed Darrell,
Have you seen this article in the NY Times about the Gulen schools in Texas?
The sure sign of a Gulen school is that every single member of its board is a Turkish man.
No women. No one who is not Turkish.
It is a puzzlement.
Hadn’t seen that one, Dr. Ravitch. Thank you.
Ed…does Gulen have to file 990s if they claim to be non profit? They would have to issue annual reports, but manipulation of numbers is easy to do. Suggest everyone also read up on the Harmony Schools.
Why don’t your links show up????
Yes, the 990 is the form a non-profit files. While manipulation of numbers is easy, it’s a federal crime to misreport on the 990s.
My links don’t show because they get my posts caught in the spam filters here, so I took ’em out.
I’ll repost at my blog, Millard Fillmore’s bathtub. Check there.
Ed Darrell,
Contact Sharon R. Higgins, who can give you more information about the Harmony Gulen schools.
sharonrhiggins@yahoo.com
My post, with links, and expanded a bit, is here: http://timpanogos.wordpress.com/2013/09/07/gulen-schools-a-quiet-turkish-invasion-of-u-s-education-is-this-a-problem/
Reblogged this on Newbie Academic in a 'Stan and commented:
Interesting post on the Gulen movement — something (and someone) that unless you’ve been doing work in or about Turkey, most people aren’t familiar with…
Even if they do not do religion here but send the profits to Turkey for religious purposes what is the difference. What business do we have sponsoring a school of one kind and one race or people? None. They should not do it for the orthodox Jews or any religion or people just for them. Public school system and their financing is for all equally, theoretically anyway.