For some reason, the Gulen charter chain thought that it would be a good idea to open a charter in a rural county in Alabama. Residents of Washington County were outraged, and the charter didn’t enroll enough students to open. The state charter commission asked no questions of Soner Tarim, the leader of Woodland Prep, and gave the school a one-year extension.
But as veteran education writer Larry Lee reports, the commission members changed and now Tarim was asked tough questions about his enrollment and finances and demanded evidence, which he could not supply.
The school is being built by American Charter Development out of Springville, Utah. Their construction manager was at the meeting. When Henry Nelson wanted to know why so little progress had been made on the building, this guy told him that it rains a lot in Alabama and that was slowing them down.
Everyone in the room guffawed knowing that Alabama is suffering its worst drought in decades.
(State representative Brett Easterbrook of Washington County attended the meeting and said to me afterwards, “If you can’t tell the truth about where you live and the weather, how can you believe anything these folks says?” )
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“Alternative facts” are a guiding principle of the Gulen chain. I am glad that the community showed up to oppose this vandalism of the common good. Gulen is known for shady business practices. All the people of Alabama have to do is to take a look at all the horror stories in the Texas Gulen charter chain to know that investing in their public schools under local governance is a far better choice.
You can read about American Charter Development here:
http://amercd.com/team/
Who owns the school after the public pays to build it? Did anyone ask that?
Why is the public financing a private business investment? So they’re paying to build the school and then the owners lease it back to them? Why are they paying for it twice?
In Utah, anyway, the company owns the schools and equipment, even though tax dollars pay for it. Even the playgrounds are fenced off and locked. And when a charter school folds, they sell the taxpayer-funded equipment to give more money back to the charter school.
Well, this is Alabama. Why can one expect?
WHAT can one expect? . . . .
In Texas, many of the Harmony schools are built through their affiliate, Charter School Services (CSS). CSS sells bonds for the money to build the facility and then leases the school to Harmony at a minimum of 15% more than the bond payments. Harmony makes the lease payments from State taxpayer funding. When the bonds are fully repaid by taxpayer-funded lease payments, Harmony must pay its affiliate $3 million to buy the facility. For each school, CSS is able to garner approximately $7 million of “excess funds” over the lease period that can be spent as CSS desires. In other words, a great “money laundering” scheme to divert taxpayer funding for the other interests of Harmony. Sadly, students pay the price by having fewer dollars available for instruction and the Legislature looks the other way.
Research GULEN and their network of charters in the US. They have Turkish connections.
As a resident of Utah, I truly apologize for the horrible things being exported from this state when it comes to education. Utah has mishandled education for my entire adult life (and probably longer than that), and no one deserves the crap Utah does to education. I promise–many of us are not this crazy.