Dan Mihalopoulos of the Chicago Sun-Times followed up on an important story: Two years ago, the FBI raided the offices of Concept Schools, which runs charter schools in Illinois. They also raided one of its charters.
Chicago Public Schools’ officials were aware of the raid, and they exchanged emails about what to do. They decided to do nothing.
More than two years since the FBI raids brought the still-ongoing federal investigation involving Concept to light, the charter operator has continued to do business with contractors identified in court documents as allegedly having been involved in defrauding a U.S. Department of Education grant program, records obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times show.
The charter-management organization — which runs four taxpayer-funded charter schools in Chicago and dozens more across the Midwest — has paid more than $519,000 since the raids to companies federal authorities said were involved in the corruption probe and their subsidiaries, according to documents the newspaper obtained from individual Concept schools.
There has been no correspondence between CPS and Concept Schools — which gets millions of taxpayer dollars a year to operate its Chicago schools — regarding the federal probe, according to CPS and the charter operator.
A CPS spokeswoman declined to comment Friday, citing the ongoing investigation.
Three years ago, Mihalopolous investigated the number of trips to Turkey that Illinois legislators have taken, paid for by the Gulen organization. Michael Madigan, Speaker of the House. is the Gulenists’ best friend in Illinois.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
This is SIC! We have Leadership VACUUM in this country. The so-called leaders are lining their pocketbooks and lying to us.
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It runs much deeper than corruption and bribe pay offs from the Gulen Movement. It seems that the Gulen Movement has been somewhat successful in labeling anyone that questions their unlawful behavior as “islamophobic” or “agents of Erdogan’s Turkey” etc., no one has balls to stand up to them for fear of these labels. Then there is their excessive use of legal intimidations – bullying by sending letters out to those activists, teachers, professor, parents that dare to speak up. Yet they have never followed throw with a court hearing or deposition just dirty threats. Americans need to stand together and stand tall against this group, they are weakened and losing money every day. We don’t need a bunch of weakling politically correct people who have no guts. Stand and deliver or kindly stand out of the way. The American enablers for the movement have been worse than the Gulen movement.
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MaryBeth,
The Turkish government hired an American lawyer to unravel the finances of the Gulen movement. I met with him and asked him about Islamophobia. His response: the Turkish government is Islamic, how can it be Islamophobic?
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Diane, how do you support Hillary when you have also reported that Gulen has donated millions to the Clinton Foundation? Hillary is part of the problem, not the solution.
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Crysti here is part of the donors list of which many are attacked to charter schools.To Diane’s point above about “islamophobia” it’s true and correct what Bob states, however the reality is in some areas of the USA the Gulenists have strategically aligned themselves with reporters who are writing about the Turkish Gov. vs. Gulenists as the big ugly ISIS Turkey is harming poor little Gulenists. When everyone seems to forget or not understand it was CIA backed Gulenists that put the AKP party and Erdogan into power. That is the issue – and it seems that in Texas they have been somewhat successful in spinning this narrative as well as pockets of news throughout the USA. http://www.slideshare.net/GulenCemaat/gulen-movement-clinton-campagn-donors
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The fact that our policymakers are turning a blind eye to any oversight or regulation of the charter industry shows how deeply embedded these charter frauds are. That they continue to fund Gulen after an FBI raid shows how how partial our leaders are to this industry. Taxpayers in Illinois should express their disdain by voting out incumbents involved with charters in the state. They should also call local representatives and insist on an investigation. Nobody should be writing fraudsters blank checks.
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They must just be incredibly politically powerful, because there have been plenty of exposes- we can’t blame media- they cover it.
Nothing happens.
Compare to how public schools are treated. The Ohio auditor went into Columbus Public Schools like he was busting a criminal ring- they were juicing their attendance stats to massage funding. This was The Scandal of the Century. People went to jail. Meanwhile, the Gulen charter empire seems to be untouchable.
Maybe public schools have to give lawmakers and their staff free trips with luxury hotels? Is that the difference? How corrupt are these people? Do we still employ prosecutors, or are charter schools exempt from that “regulation” too?
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2015/10/29/turkish-faith-movement-secretly-funded-200-trips-lawmakers-and-staff/74535104/
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How about the Atlanta teachers that cheated on a bubble test that were sent to jail for “racketeering!” Our leaders can ignore an FBI raid, but it is OK to assign VAM scores that have the validity of a dartboard to teachers. Of course, it is just fine to denigrate, insult and fire teachers on trumped up charges, but let’s hand public money to Gluen.http://clemsy.blogspot.com/2016/07/my-final-annual-evaluation-or-if-i.html
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Ciara ; politicians are very carefully staying away from this group the word is out on Capitol Hill “you touch it you burn” just ask Dennis Hastert, Jean Schmidt, Tom Horne, John McGee, Tom Filner et al. No lawmakers have been to Turkey in over 16 months except for 1 who was the guest of a Norwegian Corp. http://www.gulenpoliticians.blogspot.com
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Sounds like the trail can lead to Rahm … or Duncan …. or Bill and Hillary Clinton ….
or Obama himself.
it’s just like the State Department delaying its response to journalist David Sirota’s request for copies of Hillary Clinton’s e-mail to U.S. Trade Rep. Michael Froman, until November 31, 2016. (That’s the actual date from the state department!)
I would not be surprised if the Feds were told to back off, lest it hurt the upcoming coronation.
Jill Stein, 2016
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Whatever happened to the giant online charter rip-off in Pennsylvania? The FBI intervened 2 years ago because Pennsylvania state lawmakers were too corrupt to act.
They were exchanging bags of taxpayer cash in a Pizza Hut parking lot.
Is anyone ever going to prison for that? They perp walked those Atlanta teachers fast enough. Seems like we’d occasionally see some jail time for ed reform thieves. Must be nice to have all that political protection.
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Look for some desperate spin from Ohio ed reformers next week. Their failing online charter operator is suing the state to continue getting funding with no oversight:
http://www.10thperiod.com/2016/07/ohio-department-of-education-lets-ecot.html
I hope it goes to trial. Maybe we’ll finally have a real debate in this state on privatizing public schools. Our cowardly lawmakers won’t be able to dodge that.
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The wheels of justice turn slowly if they turn at all.
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Illinois is not the only state with Gulen Concept Charter schools. The St Louis Post Dispatch has notcovered the FBI raids on the headquarters of the St Louis Gulen Concept charter schools.
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KWMU radio and KETC tv public media in St Louis have also not covered the FBI raids on these St Louis Gulen Concept charter schools. Guess they don’t want to lose all their Walton Family Foundation underwriting. At least Chicago has a free press.
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