USA Today has a front-page story on the Gulen movement and its sponsorship of free trips to Turkey for members of Congress and their staff. The Gulenists run about 140 charter schools in the U.S.
“WASHINGTON — A Turkish religious movement has secretly funded as many as 200 trips to Turkey for members of Congress and staff since 2008, apparently repeatedly violating House rules and possibly federal law, a USA TODAY investigation has found.
“The group — a worldwide moderate Islamic movement led by a religious scholar named Fethullah Gülen — has been accused by the Turkish government of attempting a coup in that country. Turkish leaders have asked the United States to extradite Gülen from the remote compound in rural Pennsylvania where he has lived for 20 years.
“The movement has founded hundreds of charter schools across the United States and around the world, has its own media organizations, and was deeply entrenched with the Turkish regime until a falling out two years ago. That led President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to declare Gülen was running “a parallel state” inside the country with the intent of undermining the government. In advance of Turkish elections this weekend, police raided the offices of Gülen affiliated-media organizations.”
Now journalists should check out the number of free trips for state legislators in a position to approve Gulen charter schools. Check out the state legislators in Illinois and Texas for starters.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Check out this website while you’re at it:
http://charterschoolscandals.blogspot.com/p/list-of-us-gulen-schools.html
I have been writing about Gulen here and at other sites for some years. Glad this have finally come out in major media. The LA Times, who many of us write regularly, refused to publish anything on Gulen after their one article some years ago.
also
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/republic-of-turkey-retains-amsterdam–partners-llp-on-expanding-gulen-investigation-into-africa-and-us-charter-schools-300166043.html
I actually know a person who brougt a Gulan Charter School promoter to a conference and asked me if I could forge a relationship between Gulan Charter Schools and a certain professional organization. I felt like PUKING.
This is a tricky situation. In Turkey, Gülen is perceived as a legitimate opponent of the Erdogan regime, publishers of an independent newspaper whose staff have been persecuted by the regime (and also a respectable English language newspaper). The Erdogan government’s high dudgeon about Gülen “terrorism” is suspect; several human rights organizations have determined that this is about crushing dissent. I’m not defending Gülen, free trips to legislators, or its charter schools–just observing that foreign affairs can be more complicated than they may seem, and that Recep Tayyip Erdogan is anything but a moral authority. See http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-l-phillips/turkeys-fight-against-ter_b_6445664.html
Right, but aside from whatever the internal politics are in that country, they must be hugely politically connected in the US because there’s report after report on them and nothing ever happens:
“In Texas, where 33 Gülen charter schools receive close to $100 million a year in taxpayer funds, the New York Times reported in 2011 that two schools had given $50 million to Gülen-connected contractors, including the month-old Atlas Texas Construction and Training, even though other contractors had offered lower bids. It was the same thing in Georgia, where Fulton County audited three Gülen schools after allegations that they’d skipped the bidding process altogether and paid nearly half a million dollars to organizations associated with the Gülen movement.”
You would think someone, somewhere would investigate. The former Chicago CEO was investigated and prosecuted for self-dealing in a contract.
http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/08/120-american-charter-schools-and-one-secretive-turkish-cleric/375923/
This is old news. Why are these schools still operating in the US, and why is Gulan hiding in the Poconos? Pay to play tit for tat? Do we think this will make a difference now?
Fetullah Gulen is a billionaire conservative Muslim Imam who rules much of what is happening in Turkey, and whose money made from American taxpayers who support his 148 Gulen charter schools in the US, to fuel many of the uprisings in the Middle East as well as in Turkey. He believes in the Ottoman Empire concept and in Sharia Law.
So why have the last three administrations let him not only stay in the US, but also bring in on American funded Green Cards, over 2500 Middle Eastern men on the claim that there are no good teachers in the US for his schools?
The big unanswered questions are these. How “religious” are these tax-supported Gulen charters? Aren’t their teachers mostly Turkish Muslims? Why should US taxpayers have to support these schools? — Edd Doerr (arlinc.org)
I wish someone would write a book about this. How did it happen that they ended up with all these charter schools? Which US politician thought it was a necessary to bring in teachers from Turkey- the first politician who made the contact and started this? I read some of the Illinois investigation and it’s incredibly convoluted. They have their own school furniture company that is some kind of subsidiary, like a sub-contractor. One end of the business contracts with another end, the money goes round and round, and no one cares. It’s just wild.
With all these powerful people involved it could be really interesting.
I started writing about Gulen on this site some years back and had some Turkish citizens contact me. Then wrote some articles for City Watch Today, and various Turkish men commented, both in the US and in Turkey. The Turkish News Agency picked up on one article and promoted it in their media as “American thinking on the Gulen Movement.” Expected a knock at my door……by whom?
The story is wrong as the U.S. Is the only country where Gulen has charters – and the paid for by U.S. Taxpayer funds, In the rest of the world, these schools are privately funded.
Leonie
Sent from my iPad
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Yes..Leonie…he has about 2000 schools world wide, but they are madrssas. Read Sharon Higgins reports. She has been interviewed by 60 Minutes and has a dossier in depth on Gulen.
typo…madrassas are his religious schools…
I wonder if we’ll ever get “political corruption reform”. I’d go door to door for that.
When you allow public funds to be spent on private political or religious based schools, you will get all sorts of schools espousing all sorts of narrow viewpoints. Keep public money in the public, and accountable, schools.
The Chicago Sun Times covered the FBI raid on the headquarters of the Concept subset.
In LA last year, two of the7 Magnolia Gulen Charters were finally set to close for cash problems, and LAUSD no longer supported them. Gulen then hired a leading charter advocate who had headed CCSA and who had been on the LAUSD BoE, to run them. Their parents prevailed in court and the judge set aside the order to shut them down. Gulen has much clout with legislators and judges. Again I ask, how come?
Sharon Higgins has documented their charters extensively.
Diane, I have written to you before. I comment under the name Professor David, if that is not OK for you, I understand, but I prefer to be anonymous. I am a very progressive (left) Democrat, who will be delighted if Hillary Clinton becomes the next President. That said, in Indiana, I even give money to a very right-wing Republican blog, and I hope to meet him before we move East over the winter (I have lived in Indiana nearly 50 years). He is Gary Welsh, and he think the charter school is just hucksterism run wild (he also thinks Obama was not born in the US, etc.). Anyway, the Gulen Charter dealing in Indiana have gotten attention from him several times in the past, here are a few links:(a) http://advanceindiana.blogspot.com/2013/05/gulen-movement-influence-invading.html (b) http://advanceindiana.blogspot.com/2013/12/fbi-raids-louisiana-charter-school-with.html (c) http://advanceindiana.blogspot.com/2014/10/gulen-charter-schools-in-ohio-under.html
See March 27, 2012 column The Answer Sheet in Washington Post regarding creationism and Gulen.
There’s a Gulan Charter School in Buffalo.
Who’s minding the “store”?
At least, finally, the truth is starting to come out. It looks like the newspapers are actually starting to do some investigative journaling instead of repeating the rheformer doctrine word for word.
“The Shadow Knows”
The Shadow knows ’bout Gulen schools
Gulen books and Gulen rules
The Shadow knows ’bout Gulen money
Gulen milk and Gulen honey
We don’t know, but The Shadow knows
‘Bout exiled Turks in the Poconos
Reportedly, the Speaker of the Ohio House, Cliff Rosenberg, went on one of the Turkish junkets.
Reporter Sibel Edwards published the following information on Aug. 24, 2011, about a U.S. congresswoman from Ohio, Jean Schmidt. She “was ordered, by the House Ethics Committee to repay a Turkish American group $500,000 that they improperly paid for her legal fees…her lawyer was Bruce Fein, who got very wealthy thanks to a foreign lobby.” The article cites connections with the Turkish Coalition of America.
Bruce Fein worked for the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute, according to Wikipedia.
Diane, I hope you will put a similar investigative power toward looking into what Erdogan is doing regarding regarding press freedom in his country, jailing journalists and editors for criticizing him, and even school kids for taking down posters of him, before you fall for the argument that Gulen is some coup leader. It’s about the only thing you’ve written that I disagree with, though. Keep up the heat on charters, standardized tests, and education corruption
Should Americans accept a Turkish guy, in Pennsylvania, as a step-up for leadership, in a country, a half a world away (solely, based on indications of ties to U.S. public school, privatization)?
Wouldn’t it be bizarre for a foreign policy objective, to be financed from local American community school taxes?
KILLING ED, a new documentary by Mark Hall will be finished very soon. It exposes the problems behind the charter schools of the Islamic Gülen Movement in the USA – and efforts to privatize American public education. To check on its progress, ‘like’ KILLING ED’s Facebook page @ https://www.facebook.com/killinged/ and follow KILLING ED on Twitter @KillingEdFilm
One more thing. Listen to yesterday’s fascinating segment on Wisconsin Pubic Radio with USA Today reporter Paul Singer who wrote the piece. He talks for ten minutes on what he’s been discovering about the Gulen Movement. http://www.wpr.org/listen/836296 (starts at 9:44 min. mark)
But, no Congressional call for hearings, which is consistent with a Princeton professor’s findings. Congress does not listen to 90% of Americans.
If Wikipedia is correct that Gulen is pro-business and “former teachers…called into question the treatment of women and girls in Gulen schools”, then, why reside in Pennsylvania, and not Silicon Valley?