The Chicago Sun-Times reports on FBI investigation of Gulen-related schools, which awarded large contracts to firms without competitive bidding. The firms as well as the schools appear to be related to the Turkish Gulen movement.
“In June, the FBI raided 19 Concept Schools locations in Illinois, Indiana and Ohio, including the group’s Des Plaines headquarters. Search warrants showed they were seeking records concerning Concept’s use of the federal “E-rate” program and companies hired under that program, which helps pay for high-tech upgrades.
“The agents also were looking for records regarding top Concept officials, the Chicago Sun-Times reported last month.
“No one has been charged. The FBI has said only that the investigation is a “white-collar criminal matter.”
“The CPS-funded work done by the contractors named in the FBI search warrants has ranged from selling Concept computers and uniform polo shirts to organizing professional-development seminars.”
“The three Chicago Concept schools have paid more than $283,000 since the start of 2011 to Advanced Solutions in Education of Schaumburg, records show. The company and its founder and former chief executive, Ozgur Balsoy, were named in FBI search warrants served at Concept’s headquarters and at its schools in Rogers Park and Peoria.
ASE was a consultant for Concept on its applications for federal E-rate funding. The company also was hired to do other work for Concept, including organizing seminars for school administrators and teachers.
Balsoy previously was an administrator at a Concept school in Columbus, Ohio. He formed ASE in Ohio in 2009, expanding to Illinois in 2011. ASE listed him as “sole owner” until 2012. He’s now listed as vice president.
“ASE’s president, Erdal Aycicek, formerly served was treasurer of the Niagara Foundation, based in downtown Chicago. Like Concept and many of its contractors, the foundation was founded and continues to be led by Turkish immigrants, many of them with ties to the global Gulenist movement led by Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, who now lives in Pennsylvania.
“Two other ASE executives — Huseyin Alper Akyurek and Esat Albulut — also previously worked for Concept as administrators at schools in Ohio.
“ASE executives did not return calls seeking comment.
“Another company listed in the search warrants, Core Group Inc. of Mount Prospect, has been a major contractor for Concept’s schools in Chicago. The three schools have paid more than $550,000 to two Core subsidiaries for goods including computers and polo shirts with school logos on them.
“Core’s president, Ertugrul Gurbuz, who was named in the search warrants, also founded Quality Builders of Midwest Inc., a Concept construction contractor whose work included building a gym addition at CMSA at 7212 N. Clark St.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Easy to go after them “furreners”. When are they going to start investigating all of the American (sic) owners of charters that are ripping off the public?
They might need to hire more agents. Will Bill subsidize that? I could go under cover and pretend to be a teacher.
They announced one of them isn’t opening, after a real estate conflict of interest was revealed by the newspaper:
“But on Thursday, Moore was anything but happy when she learned the charter school operated by beleaguered Concept Schools won’t be allowed to open next month near Chatham.
The building that was to house Concept Schools’ Horizon Science Academy-Clay Evans will not be ready for the first day of school, CPS CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett said Thursday.
“Concept Schools, which our board had approved, has been unable to secure a safe and viable facility for the Clay Evans campus and so we will not be allowing the school to open for very obvious reasons — there’s no facility,” Byrd-Bennett said.
The decision — first reported by Early & Often — was made after Concept, whose Des Plaines headquarters were raided by the FBI in June, lost out on its first facility, a building owned by an arm of a church headed by the Rev. Charles Jenkins.”
Byrd-Bennett says it has nothing to do with the FBI probe, which is a weird thing to say. Shouldn’t the FBI probe have mattered in the decision to open the school? That wasn’t taken into consideration? What an odd thing to defend on. She’d be more credible if she said it DID matter. It SHOULD matter, I would think.
http://politics.suntimes.com/article/chicago/cps-scraps-south-side-campus-controversial-charter-school/thu-08212014-1004am
It doesn’t matter to Broadies like Byrd-Bennett. Capitalists are valued over all else, whether they are Americans or foreigners embezzling US tax dollars. Money talks, apparently even if it’s other people’s money.
I feel like it would be perfectly ordinary and expected to say “of course we’re holding off on the new school because even nominally responsible managers wouldn’t contract with a company until they had been cleared in any FBI probe”
It would make her MORE credible as a “portfolio manager”, not less, and it doesn’t matter if she considers herself a private sector CEO or a public school administrator. They claim they’re opening these schools using ordinary due diligence and a non-political vetting process. if her whole role is the be “the person who hires the contractors and transfers funds” one would hope she could at least actually BE a private sector manager.
We get the worst of the private sector and the worst of the public sector with this privatization scheme. Why would anyone approve a school that was under investigation? What’s the rush?
Time to put the Kids on a Gulen-free diet …
TAGO!
Hello. Turkish or American, it doesn’t matter. The whole charter school movement is a sham & a scam! It’s all about turning Public Schools into ATM’s for investors so they can get a Return On their Investment (ROI). Then they get unqualified people to run these institutions of learning. When will the public wake up to this farce?
Wow! 1 Million $ is gone. What about couple million $’s went to book publishing companies, office depot, office max, dell, hp? Services would be bought. Why don’t you calculate how much went to Italian, jew, Christian, atheist, Buddhist, german, american, hispanic, Chinese owned companies?
You guys are only showing the “exciting” part of the truth not the whole picture. Would you be happy if Concept would spend 2 million $’s for those services bought from somewhere else?