Lawyers for the government of Turkey filed a lawsuit against the Gulen Concept schools in Chicago, claiming that public money was misspent for private gain. At a time when money for public schools is so limited, you do have to wonder why public officials care so little about fraud, waste, and abuse in the charter industry.
The complaint alleges Des Plaines-based Concept Schools and its Chicago Math and Science Academy engage in “sweetheart deals” that hurt local taxpayers — but benefit the global movement led by Turkish-born cleric Fethullah Gulen….
In their complaint here, lawyers for Turkey accused CMSA’s board of working with Concept and its real-estate arm “to commit ongoing fraud, waste and financial mismanagement of state and federal funds through a series of costly decisions regarding the CMSA property and the construction of a gym.”
The complaint centers on complicated land and financial arrangements involving CMSA and New Plan Learning. The Concept-affiliated group owns the site of the 12-year-old school at 7212 N. Clark St. and is also the landlord at Concept-run campuses in Ohio.
In 2011, New Plan Learning used money from a bond issue to buy the North Side school building from CMSA, add a gym and expand three schools in Ohio.
Under the deal, CMSA was on the hook to pay about $40 million in rent to New Plan Learning, the Chicago Sun-Times has reported.
The newspaper also revealed in 2013 that the CMSA board treasurer at the time of the bond issue, Edip Pektas, was paid $100,000 by New Plan Learning as a financial adviser on the deal.
The lawyers for Turkey say the lease deal for the school building outlined “extremely poor terms for CMSA” and was renegotiated “for worse terms” a couple of years ago.
They also allege CMSA’s $1 million gym has “multiple leaks in its roof, cracks in its foundation, rodent problems, sanitary issue and flooring that peeled upward due to an improperly installed bleacher system.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
This is not the first lawsuit. An earlier suit was filed in Texas. I have not followed the outcome of that one.
Then there is the 2013 FBI raid on a Gulan franchise school in Louisiana.
It seems likly that fraud, waste, and abuse in the charter industry will continue.
If Trump’s proposed bans on immigration also extend to visas, then expansions of the Gulan franchise may be hurt. Whether these lawsuits do anything at all to change state policies and oversight remains to be seen.
http://web.archive.org/web/20140414022638/http://www.wbrz.com/news/fbi-raid-another-scandal-for-charter-school-company/
Last year the same lawyers filed a suit in California against the Gulen Schools with Orange County teacher, Tina Andres, listed as the main plaintiff. Have not heard any more about it.
The Gulen charters must be incredibly politically connected. “Clout heavy” as Chicago newspapers say.
Nothing ever happens to them. They are untouchable. I have never seen anything like it in my life. If anyone ever wants to look into it it would be a great book. Some enterprising journalist could establish a career by unraveling this. It’s an absolute mystery why this continues and why it has been like this FOR YEARS.
Gulen has wooed the uber rich like Adelson, and many of the US legislators, to support him. He regularly sends legislators on his fully paid trips to Turkey to reinforce his stake there. At least all this has happened until the coup…now he is hardly mentioned by our media, yet again. Will he be extradited as Erdogan demands of the US?
From the Los Angeles Times: “Federal agents raided the offices of a network of Los Angeles charter schools Wednesday as part of an ongoing investigation into allegations of fraud and fiscal mismanagement.”
“The charter organization, Celerity Educational Group, opened its first L.A. school more than a decade ago, but it has recently drawn the scrutiny of the inspector general of the Los Angeles Unified School District and the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles. It currently manages seven schools in Southern California, and has ties to four more in Louisiana, all of which are publicly funded but privately operated and exempt from many of the regulations that govern traditional schools. . . . ”
http://www.latimes.com/local/education/la-me-edu-celerity-charter-schools-20170125-story.html?utm_source=Today%27s+Headlines&utm_campaign=d68e80fa51-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2016_12_12&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b04355194f-d68e80fa51-79916137
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education.
Either our government has no clue what’s happening with charters, or it’s part of a plan. Maybe they want to keep Gulen like an ace up the sleeve for their poker game in the Middle East.
The US govt. used to report that Gulen was the greater of the Islamic leaders to foster peace, despite his belief in Sharia Law and in a reinvigorated Ottoman Empire….and that was why they gave him political shelter.
BTW, so much has come out about Linda Sansour (one of the leaders of the Women’s March in DC and nationwide) in the last few days, with photos of her holding up the one finger ISIS salute, and sbouy her role in supporting Sharia Law for women to follow in the US. What are we to believe about this one?
typo…too much to say…not ‘sbouy’…meant ‘about’ her role (as a Palestinian Islamist) who supports Sharia Law.
Off topic- Two tech billionaires’ wives, Melinda Gates and Laurene Jobs, tweeted inane, syrupy, comments about the Women’s March. And, a wife of a wealthy t.v. producer, used the March, as an opportunity to tweet praise for the hedge funders’, Cory Booker.
The output from a Google search, “CIA” and “Gulen”, is interesting.
If local tax dollars, intended for schools, are funding other objectives than local education, its a travesty.
Does it give anyone else pause that a foreign government is filing suit in the US against a business operating in the US on the grounds that it is misusing (US) tax dollars? Why does Turkey have legal standing in this case? We need to be particularly cautious supporting a suit filed by the dictator who blames Gulen for the failed coup against him, the dictator who used it as an excuse to round up not just military but journalists – and teachers.
Why is a foreign national getting public money from American taxpayers to run “public schools,” staffed mainly by Turkish nationals and led by a board of Turkish nationals?
Should Americans run “public schools” in other nations?
Diane,
I’m not saying there aren’t real issues with Gulen’s charter school network. And no, an American should not run “public” schools in other countries. But if they did, would the US government have the right to file suit against the American in the other country’s courts on behalf of that country’s taxpayers?
Even if we agree that Gulen’s charter chain should be shut down we should be extremely cautious about hitching our star to dictator Erdogan to make that happen. We’d be acting as accomplices to his actual goal: to get Gulen, who he sees as a threat, extradited so he can be tried for treason and possibly executed in Turkey.
Sally
I don’t want to get involved in Turkish politics. I hold no brief for Erdogan. I just want to see Gulen relinquish control of 150 schools that are led and largely staffed by Turkish citizens. Public schools are supposed to teach American citizenship. I have a big problem with foreign nationals owning “public” schools. Hire them, yes. But not to own the school.
What goes away with privatization and the loss of accountability is exactly that: the assumptions that students are American citizens and that curriculum will reflect, as a matter of course, all that goes along with that fundamental identity.
On the other hand, the teaching of history and social studies, and other areas that broaden human understanding about all-things-human (like the arts) are already slipping away from many of our public schools; so that, in some sense, the cheapening of U.S. education is happening there anyway, only in a different way.
A large number of elected legislators have taken junkets to Turkey, back when Gulen and Erdogan got along. Turkey is trying to have Gulen extradited to Turkey. Gulen inspired schools are very numerous in the U.S. Most of the Gulen schools have men from Turkey as Principals. There is at least one U.S. military base with a Gulen inspired charter.
The way to recognize a Gulen charter is that the board is dominated and led by Turkish men. Not Turkish women.