A lawsuit has been filed against the Gulen-affiliated Magnolia charter chain in California.
The plaintiffs accuse the chain of significant financial improprieties.
“The complaint calls for a comprehensive investigation by the State Department of Education. It cites findings made last year by the state in an audit of Magnolia including that 69% of Magnolia’s financial transactions were unaccounted for; that Magnolia routinely awards large contracts to vendors that have overlapping connections with their own employees and board of directors; and that Magnolia has illegally used hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to pay for visas for Turkish nationals.
“The complaint states that all three of these activities are hallmarks of Gülen charters. Magnolia has denied ties to Gülen, an organization under investigation by the Turkish and United States governments.
“Magnolia is headed by Caprice Young, former president of the board of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), and founder of the powerful lobby, the California Charter Schools Association. Under Young’s leadership, Magnolia runs 11 schools, including eight in LAUSD, and recently submitted petitions for eight more schools in Anaheim, LAUSD, Garden Grove, Fremont, and Oceanside. The complaint states that if all eight charter schools were to be approved, the cost to the state of California would be in the billions of dollars.”
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The old boy network is strong in California. In the case of LAUSD, we already know that all they do is take campaign money and approve 5-6 charters every BOE meeting. With the silent approval of UTLA, with back deal MOU’s, the union constantly violates its own CBA to accommodate designer agreements for charter schools. While public school teachers blindly vote to increase dues, UTLA works diligently to sign more charters to the total neglect of public school teachers and their problems. When will any FBI investigation or dept of justice violation ever end? Wait, did it ever begin? Justice for all the wrongfully terminated teachers denied their civil rights is delayed, therefore denied. What about the taxpayers, your bond money misused and misappropriated. Can we get some type of answer in this century?
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One can only hope that this action will eventually result in the following: bankruptcy for the lucrative charter chain, further exposure of the Gülen Cult movement, further discrediting of the privately managed charter school sector, and perhaps the State Attorney filing criminal fraud charges leading to a long prison sentence for profiteer Caprice Young.
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This is not technically a lawsuit. Rather it is a complaint filed with the California Dept. of Education. Reading about the parties filing this complaint, and the cover letter (suggest everyone read all aspects and links before jumping to conclusions) it appears that the lawyers filing the complaint in behalf of some California educators, are the those who represent the Turkish government.
Since we know that Gulen is avoiding indictment and prosecution brought by Erdogan in Turkey, and the US Govt. is protecting him, it would seem that someone found a clever way to nudge US laws and file, so far, only a complaint. It is a bare beginning hopefully leading to a full expose of the Gulen Movement, the Gulen Charter Schools which masquerade under many names, in LA they are the Magnolia Schools, in Texas they are the Harmony Schools, different names in every state. Many are under investigation by the FBI, and should have been shut down long ago.
With over 148 charters in the US, Gulen is making money hand over fist here, and our legal enforcers and legislators are averting their eyes. He seems to use the technique of purchasing all goods from others of his companies (Ref Rodriguez is up on similar charges regarding food services at his 16 PUC Charters) and if you read online about the devious and economically creative Imam, he has established dozens of side businesses in the US, and is a billionaire, mainly based on the money he accrues from each of us, We the People, who are the taxpayers. He has cultivated high officials and legislators and religious leaders, to support all this hanky panky, while he sits in his palacial guarded estate in the Pocono Mtns. raking in over $500,000,000 each year from just the schools, and he uses this vast wealth to manipulate wars in the Middle East. He is open in telling about his desire to establish a second Ottoman Empire, and to rule it himself, using a basis of Islamic Sharia Law.
Do you homework folks….some few of us have been waving red flags for years about this shameful use of American law and tax money by this dangerous foreign national. Thank you Sharon Higgins for all the education you have produced on the Gulen Movement. And to Caprice Young, you are pathetic in your greed.
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They must know that at some point there will be a huge scandal with these schools that can’t be covered up. If it isn’t in California it will be in another state- IL, Oh, take your pick.
They’re completely unregulated, hugely politically connected and there’s no transparency. It’s like a recipe for corruption.
We’ve all see the reporting on how “our” representatives are taking trips to Turkey on their dime and we know there’s an investigation in IL.
It is inevitable. Tick tock.
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Let’s be real. They are not interested in making charters more accountable, heck, the accountability in public schools is not up to pare. What someone said here that is spot on is that money to charters is like a big voucher give away.until the public turns off this spigot of public funds that their elected officials are allowing to flow to charters, this will continue. They all are in on it. The taxpayers, the big short done to us over and over again. What can be done? On a basic level, parents, teachers, students, opt out. Do it now!
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I’m not surprised.
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Public Education has proven to be hugely profitable.
For anyone to pretend that much of the battles between the Private and Public Agendas on education is about the “kids” is to deny the billions of dollars that are at stake.
When organizations are fighting over who gets the rights to the re-cycling contracts in New Jersey, it is not about who loves the Earth more.
The word “accountability” has been used as a cudgel against teachers and public unions for the last twenty years. Both neo-liberal Democrats and Republicans have hugged this word to death.
In recent months and for the first time in many years, the charter industry has been put on the defensive. Yes, they get the scrutiny they have used to undermine public education and we get to see what (and who) is under the hood.
Education is a public trust–not a business opportunity.
Those who use the business model to “run” the schools, the pedagogy and the infrastructure have a very different philosophy of education than anything I can endorse or want for my own kids. So be it.
But if they expect public dollars, then expect someone to examine those dollars.
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California charter schools should be required to at least file the same SACS budget reports — quarterly, with an annual audited report — that other public schools are required to file. The fact that charter schools don’t file such reports and that they aren’t governed by a publicly-elected school board is strong evidence that charter schools are NOT really public schools and that, therefore, public tax dollars should not be given to them. In effect, without such oversight and accountability to the public, the money going to charter schools is a form of voucher and is unconstitutional. If charter schools want to be public schools, they should file the audited SACS budget reports so that taxpayers know how tax dollars are being spent, and they should be governed by publicly-elected school boards. There’s nothing unreasonable about requiring these two essential things; in fact, what’s unreasonable is allowing charter schools to get and spend public tax dollars with virtually no accountability to the public taxpayer.
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Just a warning. I know ESSA was billed as a departure from what we’ve had for the last 20 years in ed reform but the people designing the new testing and assessment systems are the same “rock stars” of ed reform who completely dominated the federal and state approach for the last decade:
http://edexcellence.net/articles/essa-accountability-design-competition-meet-the-judges
I just don’t see any departure here. It’s lock-step ed reform. It’s the identical set of big players in the ed reform “movement”.
If anyone else wants any say in how tens of millions of public school kids are evaluated in their respective state, they better start contacting state lawmakers or one of these plans will be copied and pasted into your state code.
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Land Grab
Click to access EDI_brief_First5LA.pdf
“EDI implementation in L.A. County began in the 2009-2010
and 2010-2011 school years as a partnership between the Los
Angeles Unified School District and the Early Developmental
Systems Initiative (EDSI), with support from First 5 LA.
Local initiatives organized and implemented the EDI process
in Pacoima under the leadership of the Los Angeles Education
Partnership (LAEP), and in the Metro L.A. area under the
leadership of the Magnolia Community Initiative.1”
http://www.rand.org/events/2011/09/24.html
Who paid for this? The So. Cal Grant Makers, that’s who. https://www.socalgrantmakers.org/about/board-of-directors
file:///home/chronos/u-92f52cc0f6857cfbca7ee5abe8f0d565847a4b33/Downloads/EDI%20Fact%20Sheet%20v17.pdf
“The Los Angeles County Civil Grand Jury has issued a report that takes the multi-million dollar public agency, First 5 LA to task, criticizing it’s administrative overhead, planning and follow through on initiatives.
In the report, grand jurors said three-years ago, First 5 LA spent 64 percent of its budget for “place-based” work on operating costs – including public relations and research and evaluations. Last year, the agency was much better, spending 25 percent on overhead.”http://www.scpr.org/blogs/education/2014/07/02/16949/civil-grand-jury-criticizes-first-5-la-s-prioritie/
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What?
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