10.6.11 -- “The Roadmap to Winning a NCLB Waiver” – Donna Garner’s response to this article:

Bottomline: The Obama administration will pick the “judges” and “set the definitions.”  Whoever has that kind of control will determine the outcomes.  In other words, the Obama administration will be able to decide beforehand which states get the NCLB waivers and which ones won’t.  Those states that dance to the Obama administration’s tune (meaning the adoption of Common Core Standards and its accompanying national standards, national curriculum, national assessments, teachers’ salaries tied to students’ test scores, teachers teaching to the test each and every day, national indoctrination of our public school children, national database with student/educator/family-identifiable data) will get the NCLB waivers.  AND all of this will be done right under the noses of Congress without their ever having taken a single vote.

I beg of you to contact your Congressmen. (I have posted various Congressional e-mail addresses at the bottom of this page.)  All they have to do is to cut the funding for Common Core Standards/Race to the Top RIGHT NOW, and the whole Obama scheme would come falling down in ashes.

States and locals can work together to write their own standards that are explicit, grade-level-specific, knowledge-based, academic, and measurable.  Then these standards can be tested with a majority of objective (instead of subjective), right-or-wrong answers so that the resulting student scores can be trusted.

In May 2008 Texas began redoing its curriculum standards and is in the process of redoing its testing and accountability system.  Other states could do the same.  The Texas Education Agency has even offered to help other states to develop their own state-specific process.  

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2011/09/_overall_instructions_a_plan.html?cmp=ENL-EU-VIEWS1

Roadmap to Winning an NCLB Waiver

By Michele McNeil on September 29, 2011 6:01 AM

Although Education Secretary Arne Duncan holds the ultimate power in choosing which states get a No Child Left Behind waiver and which don't, a group of outside judges will wield a tremendous amount of influence in deciding states' fates.

And now, the very important peer review guidebook is out from the department, which issues instructions to the judges as they evaluate each state's waiver plan. This document outlines (almost) exactly what states have to do to win the judges over and get coveted flexibility under NCLB.

The judges have not been selected yet, and it's unclear how many will be needed and if their names will be made public before the judging starts. (If you'll remember, in Race to the Top, their identities were kept secret until after the winners were announced by the department, they said, to prevent undue influence.)

In the guidance, there are a lot of clear-cut, yes or no questions that will be easy for the judges to answer: Is the state part of the Common Core or has its university system certified that its standards are college- and career-ready? Does a state's school turnaround strategy include a provision for additional student learning time? Did a state attach its guidelines for its teacher and principal evaluation systems?

But then come the more complicated, nuanced, and even controversial decisions and judgments peer reviewers will have to make.

Overall, peer reviewers for the waiver package will be deciding whether a plan is "high-quality," and "comprehensive and coherent." They will also be looking for whether the plan will increase the quality of instruction and improve student achievement.

The judges also will examine whether the state "meaningfully" engaged and solicited input from teachers and their representatives. More importantly, the judges will be told to ask: Will implementation be successful because of the input and "commitment" of teachers and their representatives? Commitment seems like a pretty strong word, and seems akin to the buy-in the department stressed as part of Race to the Top.

Then, the peer reviewers will drill down and focus on the three main commitments states have to make to get more freedom under NCLB.

On adopting college and career ready standards

Judges will ask: Is there a plan to provide professional development to teachers and principals? Will the state disseminate high-quality instructional materials to accompany the new standards? Is the state planning to increase access to college-level courses, dual-enrollment courses, and other accelerated learning opportunities? Is the state going to work with colleges of education to better prepare teachers for the new standards?

On creating a differentiated accountability system

Are the state's new proficiency targets ambitious but achievable given the state's existing proficiency rates? In identifying rewards for successful schools, has the state made the case that the rewards will actually be meaningful and worthwhile to schools? For the "focus schools" (those that aren't in the bottom 5 percent, but are within another 10 percent of the state's most-troubled schools), has the state justified that the interventions selected will actually increase student achievement? Has the state outlined a rigorous review process for outside providers who will help with school turnaround work?

On adopting guidelines to improve teacher and principal effectiveness

Is student growth a significant enough part of the new evaluation system to differentiate among teachers who have made "significantly different contributions" (emphasis added) to student growth or closing achievement gaps? Will evaluations be frequent enough? Is there a plan for differentiated professional development based on evaluations? Will the state's plan ensure that local school districts will actually be able to put these new evaluation systems into place by 2013-14 (as a pilot), and 2014-15 (full implementation)?

What's missing? The guidance offers zero help to peer reviewers (or states) as to what it means for a state to have to use its new evaluation system to "inform personnel decisions." So, what does that mean? Can you give the poorly performing teachers lunch duty, and does that count? Will you need to hire and fire based on the evaluations? This is a huge question mark.

The Politics K-12 initial takeaway: The extensive number of questions in the Common Core section makes it clear that the department sees implementing standards as a huge challenge. There seems to be a lot of room for interpretation, especially in the teacher evaluation section, and in deciding whether state-designed interventions in low-performing schools are appropriate. If it wasn't clear before, it is now: The people chosen to be peer reviewers—their backgrounds, their ideologies, their employers—will matter greatly.

Senators -- E-Mail Addresses

(2.10.11)

Senate -- Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee

http://help.senate.gov/

Senator Tom Harkin                        Committee Chairman   (D-IA)   Democrat
E-mail Address(es):
  harkinintern8_help@help.senate.gov

Senator Michael Enzi                                                      (R-WY)
E-mail Address(es):
 (Delete contact) 

Senator Lamar Alexander                                                (R-TN)
E-mail Address(es):
  brandon_ball@alexander.senate.gov

Senator Richard Burr                                                      (R-NC)
E-mail Address(es):
  eric_leath@burr.senate.gov

Senator Johnny Isakson                                                  (R-GA)
E-mail Address(es):
  glee_smith@isakson.senate.gov

Senator Rand Paul                                                          (R-KY)
E-mail Address(es):
  seana_cranston@paul.senate.gov

Senator Orrin Hatch                                                         (R-UT)

E-mail Address(es):
  juliann_andreen@hatch.senate.gov

Senator Orrin Hatch                                                        (R-UT)
E-mail Address(es):
  senatorhatch@hatch.senate.gov

Senator John McCain                                                      (R-AZ)
E-mail Address(es):
  christopher_bowlin@mccain.senate.gov

Senator Pat Roberts                                                       (R-KS)
E-mail Address(es):
  joshua_yurek@roberts.senate.gov

Senator Lisa Murkowski                                                 (R-AK)                                                  
E-mail Address(es):
  karen_mccarthy@murkowski.senate.gov

Senator Mark Kirk                                                           (R-IL)
E-mail Address(es):
  jeannette_windon@kirk.senate.gov

 Senators -- Other

Senator Tom Coburn                                                          (R-OK)
E-mail Address(es):
  jenny_clem@coburn.senate.gov

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Congressmen -- E-Mail Addresses

(2.10.11)

Congressmen -- Education & the Workforce Committee

http://edworkforce.house.gov/Committee/SubcommitteesJurisdictions.htm

Congressman John Kline           Chairman   (R-MN)
E-mail Address(es):
  brian.melnyk@mail.house.gov

Congressman Tom Petri                        (R-WI)
E-mail Address(es):

(Contact deleted)        

Congressman Buck McKeon                (R-CA)
E-mail Address(es):
  chris.perry@mail.house.gov

Congresswoman Judy Biggert                (R-IL)
E-mail Address(es):
  brian.looser@mail.house.gov

Congressman Todd Platts                        (R-PA)
E-mail Address(es):
  mollie.vanlieu@mail.house.gov

Congressman Joe Wilson                        (R-SC)
E-mail Address(es):
  melissa.chandler@mail.house.gov

Congressman Duncan Hunter                   (R-CA)
E-mail Address(es):
  allison.sadoian@mail.house.gov

Congressman David Roe                           (R-TN)
E-mail Address(es):
  amanda.little@mail.house.gov

Congressman Glenn Thompson                   (R-PA)
E-mail Address(es):
  matthew.brennan@mail.house.gov

Congressmen -- Other

Congressman Eric Cantor           Majority Leader      (R-VA)
E-mail Address(es):
  liz.keith@mail.house.gov

Congressman Paul Ryan                                    (R-WI)            Chm. -- House Budget Comm.
E-mail Address(es):
  allison.steil@mail.house.gov

Congressman Darrell Issa                                    (R-CA)                   Comm. on Oversight,  Comm. on Judiciary
E-mail Address(es):
  kelsey.kerr@mail.house.gov

Congressman Mike Pence                                    (R-IN)                    2008 -- Chm. House Repub. Conf.
E-mail Address(es):
  lindsey.craig@mail.house.gov

Donna Garner

Wgarner1@hot.rr.com

Circulation: 185,000

Science friction

By Boston Herald Editorial Staff | Sunday, August 14, 2011 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Editorials

We’ve always thought Massachusetts should stay out of national curriculum standards in math and English because our standards were better, but the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education signed up anyway. We did say national standards were bound to be an improvement for many states. Now we’re no longer so sure.

An influential body has proposed new science curriculum standards (“frameworks” in education jargon). The state board plans to align the Massachusetts standards with whatever national ones emerge. Both the board and the national organizations sponsoring the “Common Core” project should reject this bewildering effort from the National Academy of Sciences.

We were alerted to this by Ze’ev Wurman, a software expert who helped develop California’s standards and who commented critically on the new Massachusetts standards. In his blog comment on the Academy’s proposal he said: “The framework does not expect students to use any kind of analytical mathematics while studying science.”

The document only expects students by grade 12 to be competent in recognizing this and expressing that, and in using “simple mathematical expressions’” to see if something “makes sense,” Wurman wrote.

Wurman could find only one equation in all 280 pages of the proposal. A careful reading of the 29 pages of the physical sciences section, where equations would be most important, found none at all.

This is baffling. Mathematics, to which the authors devoted much praise, is the language of science. Wurman’s conclusion, which we share: The document “simply teaches our students science appreciation.”

The size of the document is a disqualifier, too. Teachers and principals need a concise document that will tell them what students need to know and how to learn it, not endless streams of sludgy prose.

Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/editorials/view.bg?articleid=1358585

“The Three-Legged Stool: Obama, Duncan, Gates”

by Donna Garner

5.22.11

The one thing that this New York Times article (posted below) “forgets” to mention is that Obama shares the same agenda with Bill Gates and Arne Duncan. All three have worked together to take the public schools of America away from local control and put them under the control of the federal government.  All three share a big-government, Socialist agenda.  Gates had the money; Obama and Duncan had the power.  Obama, Gates, and Duncan are “the three-legged stool.”

To learn the inner details about the takeover of the public schools by the Obama administration (including Bill Gates), please go to my 5.16.11 article entitled “Rising Chorus of Voices Against Federal Takeover of U. S. Public Schools:

http://www.educationnews.org/commentaries/insights_on_education/156088.html

Donna Garner

Wgarner1@hot.rr.com

===============================

5.22.11 -- Here is a quick summary of this New York Times article.  I have listed the individuals and organizations who were “paid off” by Bill Gates to carry out the Obama/Duncan takeover of the public schools.

INDIVIDUALS AND ORGANIZATIONS “PAID OFF” BY BILL GATES TO CARRY OUT THE OBAMA AGENDA

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

Allan C. Golston, president of U. S. Program for Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

Frederick M. Hess, American Enterprise Institute

Education Equality Project and Education Trust

Bill Gates and Eli Broad -- influenced Presidential candidates -- 2008

National Governors Association, Council of Chief School Officers -- promoted and developed Common Core Standards (CCS)

Achieve, Inc. -- coordinating national assessments aligned with CCS

Alliance for Excellent Education -- to grow support for CCS

Fordham Institute -- received $959,000 to review and develop supportive materials for CCS

Chester E. Finn Jr. (president of Fordham Institute) --promoted CCS when released in March 2010

Center on Education Policy (president Jack Jennings) -- tracked states who committed to CCS

New Teacher Project -- wrote report faulting teacher evaluation systems -- led to development of national teacher evaluation system for CCS/RTTT

$2 Million to produce “Waiting for Superman”

American Federation of Teachers

National Education Association

Foundation for Education Excellence (founded by Jeb Bush) -- advocacy group -- established strong ties to journalists

Educators for Excellence and Teach Plus -- pressures new teachers  -- mouthpieces for Gates

================

Behind Grass-Roots School Advocacy, Bill Gates

By SAM DILLON

Published: May 21, 2011

INDIANAPOLIS — A handful of outspoken teachers helped persuade state lawmakers this spring to eliminate seniority-based layoff policies. They testified before the legislature, wrote briefing papers and published an op-ed article in The Indianapolis Star.

Bill Gates's foundation spent $373 million on education efforts in 2009, the latest year for which its tax filings are available.

Annotated Excerpts of the Gates Foundation 990 Form 2009

They described themselves simply as local teachers who favored school reform — one sympathetic state representative, Mary Ann Sullivan, said, “They seemed like genuine, real people versus the teachers’ union lobbyists.” They were, but they were also recruits in a national organization, Teach Plus, financed significantly by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.  Read more

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/22/education/22gates.html?_r=1&ref=education

Indeed, this should be a wake up call to all the states to start looking at the truth--common core states standards was a well thought of plan to use federal money to nationalize education and it certainly was not to raise the nation's standards as facts speak loud and clear even the best standards in California's math and Massachusetts ELA are now dumbed down thanks to blind leading the blind syndrome.  Thank God for Rep John Kline, Texas Gov Rick Perry, Donna Garner, Peyton Wolcott and others who are trying to shine the light.  In today's economic suicide that this Administration have us heading for--it is time to put the brakes and isn't it ironic--it must start in the Dept of Education!

Read article

Visit and find the truth in

http://truthinamericaneducation.com/

[Please share this information widely because all of us know people who are struggling with the challenges presented by autistic children. -- Donna Garner]

6.10.11 -- A New Spin on Autism -- by Lynette Louise

Lynette Louise has launched her new book Miracles Are Made to give parents, loved ones, teachers, friends, and healthcare professionals fresh ideas about how to relate to autistic children.

The guest on Lynette Louise’s podcast this week is Dr. Harold Burke, a highly respected neuropsychologist and medical psychologist, who speaks on the topic “What Dads Do Best.”  You will love the way Dr. Burke takes very complicated brain research and puts it into easy-to-understand and practical terms for laymen to understand.

The podcast lasts about 21 minutes and is full of basic information about both the male and the female brain and how their differences can work together to help the autistic child.  

http://webtalkradio.net/shows/a-new-spin-on-autism-answers/   

Donna Garner

Wgarner1@hot.rr.com

http://truthinamericaneducation.com/

Excerpts from this website:

Truth in American Education (TAE) shines a beacon of light directly on the government’s behind-the-scenes efforts to drastically alter American education. As taxpayers, parents and concerned citizens, we believe that proper respect for the American people requires that major educational changes be subject to an open and public discussion prior to approval and implementation, not the other way around…

Truth in American Education provides information to parents, taxpayers, school board members, educators and legislators who are concerned about these issues.

Donna Garner

Wgarner1@hot.rr.com

The free trips to Turkey and the campaign contributions given to our Texas Legislators by the Gulenists are highly troubling and leave taxpayers wondering how objective can our Legislators actually be about their votes on these charter school bills that financially enable the spread of Gulen charter schools.  Is this yet another example of “pay for votes”?  -- Donna Garner

6.7.11 -- BREAKING NEWS:

MAJOR INVESTIGATION OF GULEN CHARTER SCHOOLS BY NEW YORK TIMES

When the New York Times decides to do investigative journalism, they have the resources and staff to find things out that few others can discover.  I am sure you will want to go to this NYT link (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/07/education/07charter.html?_r=1&emc=eta1&pagewanted=all ) to view the photos and other graphics which will give you more of an understanding about the Gulen charter schools. 

The NYT, however, also has shortcomings because of its left-leaning political bias that has kept their reporters from including very important aspects of the dangers of Fethullah Gulen and his Gulen charter schools.

Below the NYT article, I have posted links to other articles that explain the many dangers of Fethullah Gulen and his indoctrination of our nation’s youth into Islam, Sharia law, and anti-Americanism.  

Fethullah Gulen is an Islamist imam who has been behind the successful efforts in Turkey to turn that country into an armed camp that is now anti-American.  Its security police force has been almost totally infiltrated by Gulenists, and Turkey is on the verge of joining up with the rest of the Muslim world against the United States and Israel.  

As we speak, our Texas Legislature is in Special Session and is moving toward providing even more funding for Gulen charter schools.  A faithful few, such as Peyton Wolcott, are trying to convince Legislators to look more deeply into the financial “payoffs” that Gulen has given to elected officials. 

Please go to this link to see who has taken free trips to Turkey and/or reaped huge campaign contributions from Gulen-controlled entities.  Is it any wonder that these Texas Legislators are promoting the establishment of more Gulen schools in our state?

http://www.peytonwolcott.com/TX_TCSA_Delisi_Cash_2011Lege.html

Peyton Wolcott is presently leading an effort to force the Texas Legislature to include in its pro-charter-school bills three safeguards to protect the Permanent School Fund which by law in Texas is supposed to be used for students’ textbooks.  The Legislature is trying to take some of the PSF funds and make those dollars available for charter school bonds, including more Gulen charter schools. 

Wolcott has made the case that all charter schools should (1) have to show proof of U. S. citizenship for board members (e.g., ISD trustees) and top administrators; (2) post online the names, titles, and bios of board and top administrators, and (3) post their checkbook registers online so that taxpayers will know how their tax dollars are being spent.

ACTION STEP:  If you are a fellow Texan, you must contact your legislators and alert them to the alarming content of this NYT article, to the links posted under the article, and to the safeguards that Wolcott and others are trying to get the Legislators to include in the charter school bills.

Donna Garner

Wgarner1@hot.rr.com

======================

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/07/education/07charter.html?_r=1&emc=eta1&pagewanted=all

New York Times

Charter Schools Tied to Turkey Grow in Texas

By STEPHANIE SAUL

Published: June 6, 2011

TDM Contracting was only a month old when it won its first job, an $8.2 million contract to build the Harmony School of Innovation, a publicly financed charter school that opened last fall in San Antonio.

It was one of six big charter school contracts TDM and another upstart company have shared since January 2009, a total of $50 million in construction business. Other companies scrambling for work in a poor economy wondered: How had they qualified for such big jobs so fast?

The secret lay in the meteoric rise and financial clout of the Cosmos Foundation, a charter school operator founded a decade ago by a group of professors and businessmen from Turkey. Operating under the name Harmony Schools, Cosmos has moved quickly to become the largest charter school operator in Texas, with 33 schools receiving more than $100 million a year in taxpayer funds.

While educating schoolchildren across Texas, the group has also nurtured a close-knit network of businesses and organizations run by Turkish immigrants. The businesses include not just big contractors like TDM but also a growing assemblage of smaller vendors selling school lunches, uniforms, after-school programs, Web design, teacher training and even special education assessments.

Some of the schools’ operators and founders, and many of their suppliers, are followers of Fethullah Gulen, a charismatic Turkish preacher [Gulen is actually an Islam imam who believes in Sharia law and wants to establish a universal caliphate. -- Donna Garner] of a moderate brand of Islam whose devotees have built a worldwide religious, social and nationalistic movement in his name. Gulen followers have been involved in starting similar schools around the country — there are about 120 in all, mostly in urban centers in 25 states, one of the largest collections of charter schools in America.

The growth of these “Turkish schools,” as they are often called, has come with a measure of backlash, not all of it untainted by xenophobia. Nationwide, the primary focus of complaints has been on hundreds of teachers and administrators imported from Turkey: in Ohio and Illinois, the federal Department of Labor is investigating union accusations that the schools have abused a special visa program in bringing in their expatriate employees.

But an examination by The New York Times of the Harmony Schools in Texas casts light on a different area: the way they spend public money. And it raises questions about whether, ultimately, the schools are using taxpayer dollars to benefit the Gulen movement — by giving business to Gulen followers, or through financial arrangements with local foundations that promote Gulen teachings and Turkish culture.

Harmony Schools officials say they scrupulously avoid teaching about religion, and they deny any official connection to the Gulen movement. The say their goal in starting charter schools — publicly financed schools that operate independently from public school districts — has been to foster educational achievement, especially in science and math, where American students so often falter.

“It’s basically a mission of our organization,” said Soner Tarim, the superintendent of the 33 Texas schools.

The schools, Dr. Tarim said, follow all competitive bidding rules, and do not play favorites in awarding contracts. In many cases, Turkish-owned companies have in fact been the low bidders.

Even so, records show that virtually all recent construction and renovation work has been done by Turkish-owned contractors. Several established local companies said they had lost out even after bidding several hundred thousand dollars lower.

“It kind of boils my blood a little bit, all the money that was spent, when I know it could have been done for less,” said Deborah Jones, an owner of daj Construction, one of four lower bidders who failed to win a recent contract for a school renovation in the Austin area.

Harmony’s history underscores the vast latitude that many charter school systems have been granted to spend public funds. While the degree of oversight varies widely from state to state, the rush to approve charter schools has meant that some barely monitor charter school operations.

In Washington, concern is growing. A number of charter schools across the country have been accused of a range of improprieties in recent years, from self-dealing on contracts to grade-changing schemes and inflating attendance records to increase financing.

Last year, the inspector general’s office in the federal Education Department cited these complaints in a memo alerting the agency of “our concern about vulnerabilities in the oversight of charter schools.”

The Texas Education Agency has a total of nine people overseeing more than 500 charter school campuses. “They don’t have the capacity at the state level to do the job,” said Greg Richmond, president of the National Association of Charter School Authorizers. Even so, the state’s education commissioner, Robert Scott, last year took the unusual step of granting Harmony permission to open new schools outside the normal approval process.

Officials at the education agency said staffing was sufficient to oversee charter schools. They would not discuss Harmony’s contracts, but a check of the agency’s past audits — largely desk reviews of financial statements submitted by the schools — did not find any alarms raised about Harmony contracting.

In April, however, the agency notified Harmony of an unreleased preliminary audit questioning more than $540,000 in inadequately documented expenses, the vast majority involving federal grant money. Neither the agency nor Harmony would disclose details of the findings.

Starting Out

The charter school movement did not begin in Texas, but the state embraced it with ideological fervor in the late 1990s as a pet project of the governor at the time, George W. Bush. The schools’ independence from local school boards and union contracts, the theory went, would free them to become seedbeds of educational achievement in a landscape of underperforming failure.

While Texas charter schools must meet core curriculum standards, they may emphasize some subjects over others, as Harmony does with math, science and technology. They do not have to hew to standard public school calendars or hours. They may — and some do — pay teachers less than the standard state-mandated salaries. (In exchange for this flexibility, the schools get less state money than regular schools, with various calculations showing an annual difference of between $1,000 and $2,000 per pupil.)

David Bradley, a member of the Texas Board of Education, served on the panel that reviewed the early charter proposals. “The only requirement was that you expressed an interest,” he said, adding, “The first time Harmony came forth, they had a great application, and they were great people.”

One of those people was Yetkin Yildirim, who had arrived from Turkey in 1996 to attend the University of Texas in Austin. He also worked as a volunteer tutor in local high schools. The idea for the Harmony schools was born, he said, when he and friends — including Dr. Tarim — saw how much less rigorous the American high schools were in teaching science and math.

“Then we realized that something can be done,” said Dr. Yildirim, now a University of Texas professor specializing in asphalt technology. They spent a year writing their proposal, and in 2000 the group opened its first school, in Houston.

The schools represented the expansion of a mission that had already created hundreds of schools — and a number of universities — in Turkey and around the world. According to social scientists who have studied them, these schools have been the primary vehicle for the aspirations of the Gulen movement, a loose network of several million followers of Mr. Gulen, who preaches the need to embrace modernity in a peace-loving, ecumenical version of Islam. At the center of his philosophy is the concept of “hizmet” — public service.

The movement is also influential in Turkish politics and controls substantial commercial holdings, including a bank, Asya; one of Turkey’s largest daily newspapers, Zaman; and an American cable television network, Ebru-TV, based in New Jersey.

Mr. Gulen, 70, considers his teachings a bulwark against Islamic extremism. Yet he and the movement that bears his name have been surrounded by controversy in Turkey. He came to this country in 1999 while under pressure from secular Turkish authorities who accused him of promoting an Islamic state. He was charged, though the case was thrown out. More recently, the arrests of Turkish journalists critical of the Gulen movement have led to accusations of retaliation by followers in the current government, which has a more religious leaning.

Mr. Gulen now lives in a Pennsylvania retreat owned by a foundation. In an interview there last year with The International Herald Tribune, he said he had not benefited financially from the movement. His only possessions, he said, were a blanket, some bed sheets and a few prized books.

Still, at least for the schools, America has been a land of opportunity. The creation story has been enacted across the country — Turkish immigrants, often scientists or professors, founding charter schools run by boards of mostly Turkish-born men. Today the United States has more Gulen-inspired schools than any country but Turkey, according to a presentation by Joshua Hendrick, a professor at Loyola University Maryland whose 2009 dissertation explored the movement.

In Texas, Harmony now educates more than 16,000 children. Eight schools have opened in the last year alone.

Dr. Yildirim said that while he had been influenced by Mr. Gulen — he writes and speaks about his teachings — his primary motivation in starting the schools was to give back to the community.

“My life changed here. I’m so thankful for that,” he said. “I believe some people born in this country are taking some things for granted.”

At first, Harmony Schools used a mix of local American and Turkish immigrant contractors. But as it has grown, especially in the rush of new schools, Harmony has increasingly relied on its Turkish network.

In response to questions, Harmony provided a list showing that local American contractors had been awarded 13 construction and renovation jobs over the years. But a review of contracts since January 2009 — 35 contracts and $82 million worth of work — found that all but 3 jobs totaling about $1.5 million went to Turkish-owned businesses.

TDM, builder of the new San Antonio school, is one of several companies that stand out — for the size of their contracts, their seemingly overnight success or both. One of TDM’s owners, records and interviews show, is Kemal Oksuz, president of the Turquoise Council for Americans and Eurasians, an umbrella group over several foundations established by Gulen followers. Since TDM was formed in November 2009, its work has involved only Harmony Schools and a job at the Turquoise Council headquarters, according to a company accountant.

Another TDM principal is a civil engineer, Osman Ozguc.

“Please don’t think that I’m a new guy, inexperienced in this area,” Mr. Ozguc said when asked about the San Antonio project, explaining that he had 26 years of construction experience, mostly on large projects in Turkey. “I provided all the requirements asked in the bid. And when we got the job, we delivered in a very short time period, and with a very economical result.” He did acknowledge that change orders had added about $1 million to the cost.

Mr. Ozguc said he formed TDM after a split from Solidarity, another Houston company that has done major ground-up construction jobs for Harmony in the past two years. Records show that Solidarity is run by Levent Ulusal, a civil engineer with a prior connection to Harmony: he was a school business manager until March 2009, when he joined Solidarity.

Since Texas charter schools do not get separate public money for facilities, Harmony’s construction program is financed by bonds that will be paid off over time using regular public payments to the schools, bond documents show. The group has issued more than $200 million in bonds since 2007, making it the state’s largest charter school bond issuer.

[The Texas Legislature is presently considering charter school legislation that would allow the Permanent School Funds to be used to pay for charter school bonds. -- Donna Garner]

With public money in play, Texas law requires charter schools to award contracts to the bidder that offers the “best value.” Lowest is not necessarily best, with the schools given leeway. But the criteria for choosing the best bidder must be clear.

Last year, local contractors questioned the fairness of bidding on two Harmony renovation jobs in the Austin area. On one job, in the suburb of Pflugerville, the low bidder, at $1.17 million, was a well-known Texas company, Harvey-Cleary. The job went to Atlas Texas Construction and Trading, even though its bid was several hundred thousand dollars higher. Atlas, with offices in Texas and Turkey, shows up on a list of Gulen-affiliated companies in a 2006 cable from the American Consul General in Istanbul, Deborah K. Jones, that was released by WikiLeaks.

A vice president of Harvey-Cleary said Harmony never explained its decision.

The same day Atlas won the Pflugerville contract, it got a job at another Austin-area Harmony school, even though four bidders came in lower.

Harmony Schools asked two architects to analyze the disputed Austin jobs. Both architects had previously worked for Harmony Schools; both concluded that the jobs should have been awarded to Atlas.

Atlas has an eclectic business portfolio: for several years, it has also supplied breakfast and lunch at many Harmony schools. The contract is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Two other bidders submitted formal catering proposals. One was Preferred Meal Systems, a national company that undercut Atlas’s price by 78 cents a day, a substantial margin given that the two meals are often supplied for about $4.

Jim Drumm, the regional vice president for Preferred Meal, said that when the company learned that its bid was lower than the winner’s, “We attempted, without success, to recontact Harmony Schools to learn why our proposal was rejected.”

Dr. Tarim said Preferred Meal was turned down because its food is heated in special company-installed ovens. With no kitchens in the schools, he said, there is no room for ovens.

Inside the Schools

Recently Dr. Tarim led a tour of one of Harmony’s big renovation jobs — the new home of the Harmony Science Academy, the chain’s marquee Houston high school. The academy, one of 11 Harmony schools in Houston, was recently rated among the city’s top 10 high schools by Children at Risk, an advocacy group. The campus used to be an ITT business center, and even now, the low-slung buildings communicate office park more than high school. There is also a new building, constructed by TDM, housing a gym and the Cosmos Foundation’s headquarters.

This being Texas, the academy is conspicuous for the absence of a football field. But in many ways, the Harmony Schools seem much like standard public schools, albeit of the strict, testing-oriented sort in vogue today.

Students wear uniforms, and anything that detracts from uniform appearance — even hoop earrings or highlighted hair — is frowned upon. One teacher described a disciplinary system in which students receive points for behavioral infractions as minor as tilting back in a chair.

The students, as at most Gulen-inspired schools, represent a racial and ethnic cross-section of the community. Many are children of immigrants drawn by the upwardly mobile allure of careers in technology and health care. Beginning in fourth grade, all students must complete science projects.

In a physics class, students demonstrated a homemade hovercraft — a simple plywood disc fitted with a chair. Rigged to a leaf blower, the contraption levitated inches above the ground, even with someone in the chair.

The project illustrates principles of physics, but the larger point, said the teacher, Levent Sakar, is developing an excitement about science.

“Once a student does a project like that, they will never forget it,” he said.

Still, the bottom line is measurable achievement. And so the Harmony schools place a heavy emphasis on preparing for state assessment tests, with four practice tests annually, according to schedules on school Web sites. Each practice test occupies the better part of a week, and students who fail get mandatory tutoring, some of it on Saturdays.

Judging school quality, of course, is an imprecise business. But by the measure that Harmony and most charter schools have embraced — scores on the state tests — the Harmony schools seem to be succeeding. Last year, 16 of the schools were deemed “exemplary,” the highest rating, while seven were rated “recognized,” and the other two “academically acceptable.” The eight new schools have not yet been rated.

The Harmony schools advertise themselves as college preparatory schools with every graduate accepted to college, and a bulletin board in the hallway at the science academy displays pictures of this year’s senior class, along with their college acceptances. But Harmony’s “100 percent” acceptance rate actually represents only a small census, since most of the schools do not have senior classes and many students transfer earlier on. Statewide, 154 students graduated this year, the largest class yet.

And while the schools’ combined math and English SAT scores — an average of 1026 — were 37 points above the statewide average last year, they fell short of the 1100 on those two parts that the state regards as predicting “college readiness.”

[In other words, Harmony students do well at mastering how to “play the game” on the state-mandated TAKS tests but fall short on actual college readiness.  Other troubling aspects to consider regarding Harmony students’ supposed academic “success” is (1) nobody monitors these Harmony Schools during the administration of tests. What is to prevent these H-1 visa teachers who are from Turkey and who have no commitment to the American value system to give their students the answers?  (2)  The Wikileaks cable from the U. S. Ambassador several years ago revealed that the Gulenists are taking over the Turkish Security Forces by giving applicants the answers to the tests. If this is their mode of operation in Turkey, it very well could be the way they operate here.  (3)  Dr. Ed Fuller’s research showed that over half of the students who start at Harmony leave.  This would certainly be a major factor in raising their TAKS scores -- weed out the weak students. -- Donna Garner]

Dr. Tarim, who came from Turkey and studied aquatic ecology at Texas A&M, objects to common references to the schools as Turkish. Still, even if they are American charter schools first and foremost, the schools do have an undeniable Turkish flavor.

Many of the furnishings are imported from Turkey — at a San Antonio school, the entryway features a turquoise arch, and the lobby ceiling is decorated with images of the sun and a star and crescent moon. Harmony advertises that its teachers “are recruited from around the world,” but most of its foreign teachers are Turkish men, and all but a handful of the 33 principals are men from Turkey. In addition to the standard foreign languages, the schools offer instruction in Turkish. They encourage students and teachers, even parents, to join subsidized trips to Turkey.

What they avoid, as publicly financed schools, is religious instruction. And amid jabs from critics — educators, disaffected parents and bloggers — about their Turkishness and ties to a Muslim group, the schools take great pains to separate themselves from the Gulen movement. They are not “Gulen schools,” they insist, and have no affiliation with any movement.

“I’m not a follower of anybody,” Dr. Tarim said in an interview. Records show, however, that when applying to the State of Texas to form Harmony schools, he was a consultant to Virginia International University in Fairfax, one of the private universities that lawyers for Mr. Gulen say were originally inspired by his teachings.

At a forum on the schools last December in Houston, Dr. Hendrick, the Maryland professor, argued that such denials had only deepened the ambiguity and helped fuel suspicion. “Why do leaders deny affiliation when affiliation is clear?” he asked.

Ultimately, some scholars say, the schools are about more than just teaching schoolchildren.

Hakan Yavuz, a Turkish-born assistant professor at the University of Utah’s Middle East Center, says he does not oppose the movement, though he is critical of what he calls its male domination and lack of transparency. In his view, the schools are the foundation for the movement’s attempts to grow in the United States.

“The main purpose right now is to show the positive side of Islam and to make Americans sympathize with Islam,” Dr. Yavuz said.

Teachers and Visas

Around the country, the most persistent controversy involving the schools — and the one most covered in the news — centers on the hundreds of Turkish teachers and administrators working on special visas.

The schools say they bring in foreign teachers because of a shortage of Americans qualified to teach math and science. Of the 1,500 employees at the Texas Harmony schools this year, Dr. Tarim said, 292 were on the special “H-1B” visas, meant for highly skilled foreign workers who fill a need unmet by the American workforce.

But some teachers and their unions, as well as immigration experts, have questioned how earnestly the schools worked to recruit American workers. They say loopholes have made it easy to bring in workers with relatively ordinary skills who substitute for American workers.

“I think they have a preference for these H-1B workers,” said Dr. Ronil Hira, a professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology who has studied the visa program. “It may be a preference for a variety of reasons — lower wages or a network where they’ve got family or friends and connections and this is a stepping stone for them to get a green card.”

The American jobs, often offered to educators at Gulen schools around the world or graduates of Gulen universities, also provide a way for the movement to expand its ranks in this country, Dr. Yavuz said.

American consular employees reviewing visas have questioned the credentials of some teachers as they sought to enter the country. “Most applicants had no prior teaching experience, and the schools were listed as related to” Mr. Gulen, a consular employee wrote in a 2009 cable. It did not say which schools had hired the teachers. Some with dubious credentials were denied visas.

In February, a Chicago charter school union affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers complained to the federal Department of Labor, alleging that the Chicago Math and Science Academy and Concept Schools, a group that operates 25 schools in the Midwest, had abused the visa system by “routinely assigning these teachers duties or class load that seemingly do not take into account the laws governing H1-B visa holders.”

The Labor Department had already been investigating at least one Concept school. The investigation appeared to have been triggered by a complaint in July 2008 by Mustafa Emanet, a network systems administrator and teacher at a middle school in Cleveland. By law, imported teachers must be paid “prevailing wage.” Mr. Emanet alleged that while his visa reflected his promised salary, $44,000, he was actually paid $28,000 his first year.

A Labor Department spokesman said the investigation was ongoing.

Expanding the Network

The heart of the movement’s Texas operations is the Turquoise Center, a Houston complex that houses several foundations established by Gulen followers. Their activities show how the movement has integrated itself into life in Texas, often by dint of the foundations’ connections to the Harmony Schools.

The Turquoise Center opened in 2008, financed partly through donations from Gulen followers, who on average tithe 10 percent of their income, experts say. The money, Dr. Hendrick wrote in his dissertation, goes “to pay for a student’s scholarship, to provide start-up capital for a new school, to send a group of influential Americans on a two-week trip to Turkey or to sponsor an academic conference devoted to Fethullah Gulen.”

Dozens of Texans — from state lawmakers to congressional staff members to university professors — have taken trips to Turkey partly financed by the foundations.

One group, the Raindrop Foundation, helped pay for State Senator Leticia Van de Putte’s travel to Istanbul last year, according to a recent campaign report. In January, she co-sponsored a Senate resolution commending Mr. Gulen for “his ongoing and inspirational contributions to promoting global peace and understanding.”

In an interview, Ms. Van de Putte described the trip as a working visit.

The Raindrop Foundation says its mission is to promote Turkish culture in America. It sponsors cooking classes, traditional Turkish dinners and performances of the Whirling Dervishes, a dance group associated with Sufi Muslim tradition. It also organizes an annual Turkish Language Olympiad where 6,000 students, many from Harmony schools, compete in Turkish language, poetry, dance and singing contests.

The 2011 singing winner was a Hispanic girl from a Harmony school in northwest Houston.

The Raindrop Foundation’s president, Mehmet Okumus, is a former Harmony school principal, and some of the foundation’s income — $770,000 a year, he said — comes through arrangements with the schools. Two Raindrop Foundation units, Zenith Learning and Merit Learning, operate after-school programs, test preparation programs and summer camps at the schools. Parents pay Zenith up to $200 a week to leave their children after school. Of that, Harmony collects 25 cents per child per day, according to Dr. Tarim.

Another group at the Turquoise Center, the Institute of Interfaith Dialog, sponsors lectures on interfaith relations and finances the Gulen Institute at the University of Houston, which sponsors graduate scholarships in social work and pays for graduate students to study in Turkey.

The Institute of Interfaith Dialog — founded by Mr. Gulen himself, according to court documents — does not appear to have business dealings with Harmony. But its president, Yuksel Alp Aslandogan, does. Indeed, in 2002, he purchased the former Austin church that became Harmony’s second school.

Dr. Aslandogan, a former computer science professor at the University of Texas at Arlington, paid $1.375 million for the building, then leased it to Harmony. Last year, he said in an e-mail, Harmony bought it for $1.7 million. He described his original purchase as “an investment opportunity toward a good cause” but declined to say how much he made off the deal, emphasizing that he had to pay taxes and make repairs.

Dr. Aslandogan has other connections to Harmony. He is chief executive of the Texas Gulf Foundation, a nonprofit that provides an array of services to the schools.

The foundation, in fact, grew out of Harmony: its owners and operators originally worked for the schools, according to a statement from Harmony, but left to form Texas Gulf, which they believed would “provide Harmony and other Texas schools with quality services at lower costs.” Until recently, Texas Gulf had offices at a Harmony campus.

Since 2007, Harmony says, it has paid Texas Gulf $525,000 for services that include an online professional development program for teachers and administrators, an assessment tool for students and special education assessments.

Dr. Aslandogan reflected on his role in Texas’ Turkish community in a PBS program on the Gulen movement broadcast in January. He said he donates “beyond the expected level in my income” and added: “I believe that all these actions — charitable donations, volunteerism — are pleasing to God. That’s why I am doing all this.”

SUBSTANTIVE RESOURCES ON GULEN SCHOOLS

5.28.11 -- “Return of Islamic College Raises New Questions” by David Lepeska --

http://libertylinked.com/posts/7445/return-of-islam-college---/View.aspx

5.20.11 -- “Feds Question Schools' Visa Use: Federal Funds Used To Pay for Teachers' Families” by Jennifer Smith Richards  --

http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2011/05/20/feds-question-schools-visa-use.html?sid=101

5.2011 - “Harmony Science Academy, Cosmos Foundation: Evidence of Affiliation with the Gulen Movement” --

http://gulencharterschools.weebly.com/harmony-science-academy-cosmos-foundation.html

5.1.11 “Frog in the Water”  by Donna Garner --

http://www.educationnews.org/commentaries/insights_on_education/155212.html

4.19.11 -- “Flood of Turkish Teachers Prompts Investigation: Witness Says Feds Looking into Islam-Influenced Network” World Net Daily --

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=289153

4.11.11 -- “H-1B + K-12 = ? A First Look at the Implications of Foreign Teacher Recruitment” by David North --

http://www.cis.org/h-1b-teacher-recruitment

4.9.11 -- “Harmony Charter” by Dr. Ed Fuller --

http://fullerlook.wordpress.com/2011/04/09/harmony-charters/

4.5.11 - “Turkish Authorities Launch Raids To Censor Book before Publication”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/05/turkey-censorship-ahmet-sik-perrier

4.5.11 -- “Texas: Land of Charters and Economic Opportunity” by Peyton Wolcott --

http://www.peytonwolcott.com/

3.30.11 -- “Is Fethullah Gulen Working for the CIA?” by Dr. Aland Mizell --
 

http://www.kurdishaspect.com/doc043011AM.html

3.26.11 -- “Gulen Is Indeed a Dangerous Man” by Donna Garner --

http://www.educationnews.org/political/152367.html

3.24.11 -- “FBI Launches Investigation of Gulen and His Movement” by Paul L.
Williams --

http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/34766

============================

3.24.11 -- “Re: FBI Investigation of Gulen Schools (a.k.a., Harmony Science Academies in Texas) by Donna Garner, EducationNews.org  --

http://www.educationnews.org/commentaries/insights_on_education/152233.html

Here is a YouTube (Parts 1 and 2) by a TV news station in Pennsylvania that tells of the FBI investigation of the Gulen schools in Pennsylvania and across the country:  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TN04cOqLc9g

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZtg9jfVZbo 

==========================

3.22.11 -- “Young Scholars Charter School Faces Scrutiny over Ties with Islamic Leader” --  

http://www.centredaily.com/2011/03/22/2597590/charter-school-faces-scrutiny.html#ixzz1HJbliDXz

======================

2.10.11 -- “Texas Senate Honors Islamist Imam, Fethullah Gulen” by Donna Garner --

The Texas Senate passed SR 85 on Jan. 25, 2011.  Guess who was honored:  Fethullah Gulen.   “WHEREAS, The Senate of the State of Texas is pleased to recognize Fethullah Gˇlen for his ongoing and inspirational contributions to the promotion of global peace and

Understanding...” 

Here is the link: 

http://www.legis.state.tx.us/tlodocs/82R/billtext/pdf/SR00085F.pdf#navpanes=0

The authors of SR 85 are Senators Lucio, Fraser, Huffman, Nelson, and Van de Putte:  http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/BillLookup/history.aspx?LegSess=82R&Bill=SR85

Now look at how this action by the Texas Senate was viewed by the people in Turkey.  This link is to a Turkish newspaper article that covered this “momentous” decision: 
http://www.todayszaman.com/news-233740-texas-senate-passes-resolution-commending-fethullah-gulen.html

===============

3.3.11 -- “7 More Journalists Detained in Turkey” by Sebnem Arsu --

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/04/world/europe/04turkey.html?_r=1

10.17.10 -- “TIZA, an Islamic Public School, Threatens and Intimidates Witnesses in ACLU Lawsuit” --

http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2010/10/tiza-an-islamic-public-school-threatens-and-intimidates-witnesses-in-aclu-lawsuit.html

8.16.10 -- “Fethullah Gulen: Infiltrating the U.S. Through Our Charter Schools?” by Guy Rodgers of Act! for America --

http://www.actforamerica.org/index.php/learn/email-archives/1069-fethulla-gulen-infiltrating-us-through-our-charter-schools/

3.29.10 -- “Islamist Gülen Movement Runs U.S. Charter Schools” by Stephen Schwartz --

http://www.americanthinker.com/printpage/?url=http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/03/islamist_guelen_movement_runs.html

Donna Garner

Wgarner1@hot.rr.com

A ‘Common’ Education Disaster

By DOUGLAS HOLTZ-EAKIN & ANNIE HSIAO

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0511/55857.html#ixzz1NsJZQKOh 

Education standards are hot. The hottest are the Common Core Standards –- cooperatively-developed standards for k-12 English and Mathematics classes. Sadly, this voluntary movement is being distorted into a sweeping federal centralization and control of what students learn.

Reflecting the growing popularity, standards-based reform is now the centerpiece of the Obama administration’s education agenda. The President’s Blueprint for Reform – his top four priorities for reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act – begins by “calling on all states to develop and adopt standards in English language arts and mathematics.”

But not just any standards, it turns out. The administration has chosen to sanction precisely the same Common Core Standards.

For example, it tied $4.35 billion of the Race to the Top federal funding to their adoption – even before they were finalized. On top of that, it is already funding – to the tune of $345 million – two consortia to develop assessments, instructional materials, and professional development based specifically on the Common Core Standards – perilously close to a de facto curriculum.

In short: voluntary out; coercion in. Federal control up; local control down.

That would be fine if international evidence showed that national standards and curriculum improved global competitiveness. High-performing countries with national curriculum, like Finland and South Korea, are more homogenous than the United States — which is poorly suited for a sweeping one-size-fits-all centralization of educational content.

Moreover, even those countries preserve local flexibility. Most national curricula highlight a few key topics, and permit teachers to develop the content to address them.

Usurping local control from states and districts is an unprecedented overreach by the federal government into education. It robs schools of the freedom of flexibility and opportunity for innovation.

Perhaps most important, once the feds take over who gets to decide what the curriculum and standards look like? Dense concentration of decision-making could lead to special-interests groups driving the agenda for their interest, not the students’.

The federalization of the Common Core Standards has provoked an outcry from a bipartisan group of leading education reformers. They released a letter reminding the nation that there is no constitutional authority for a national curriculum. In addition, there is no evidence demonstrating that national standards improve educational outcomes, or a track record showing that the Common Core Standards are rigorous and first-rate.

The latter point brings the debate full circle. Yes, standards are a good idea. But critics of the Common Core Standards include five dissenters of the Common Core Validation Committee, some of the most internationally reputable standards experts.

They argue that these English language arts standards for grades six to 12 do not reflect knowledge needed for college-level work and that the standards themselves are unclear and ambiguous. Though proponents of these standards claim they have been informed by research, no research was ever provided.

Similarly, in math, the standards were found to be poorly organized, lowered expectations for college-readiness, were confusing and focused on low-level mathematics.

National standards are a bad idea. Nationalization of the wrong standards is even worse.

Education reform is a serious issue. Too serious to let the administration’s penchant for education pork-barreling lead America’s students down the disastrous path of federal curriculum micromanagement, and the overthrow of local school boards, districts — and ultimately parents.

Douglas Holtz-Eakin served as a director of the Congressional Budget Office. He is now president of the American Action Forum. Annie Hsiao is the director of education policy at American Action Forum. 

Donna Garner

Wgarner1@hot.rr.com

[Comments from Donna Garner:  Please read the statement from someone called “John Benjamin” that I have posted below this New York Times article.  Benjamin makes it clear that Fethullah Gulen is not supporting a mild, secular form of Islam but that Gulen is an Islamist imam who believes that those who do not convert to Islam must die.  

The New York Times article fails to clarify that most (if not all) Gulen charter schools in the U. S. operate on taxpayers’ dollars. (In Texas Gulen schools are either called Harmony Schools or Raindrop Turkish House.) 

Reportedly these Gulen students are steeped in the importance of being secretive and are taught that they must keep information to themselves. Gulen students also practice “taquiya” which is a belief that it is all right to lie to infidels.

The Gulenists have learned to spread their movement by targeting particular elected officials and key media sources.  I have been told by Texas Legislators that they personally have been offered free trips to Turkey; and undoubtedly, many elected officials have accepted them.  No wonder these politicians are hyped up about the Gulen schools and use their political influence to advocate for these charter schools.   

What about the supposedly high test scores that the Gulen school students make?  What we need to remember is (1) nobody monitors these Harmony Schools during the administration of tests, at least in Texas. What is to prevent these H-1 visa teachers who are from Turkey and who have no commitment to the American value system to give their students the answers?  (2)  The Wikileaks cable from the U. S. Ambassador several years ago revealed that the Gulenists are taking over the Turkish Security Forces by giving applicants the answers to the tests. If this is their mode of operation in Turkey, it very well could be the way they operate here.  (3)  Dr. Ed Fuller’s research showed that over half of the students who start at Harmony leave.  This would certainly be a major factor in raising their TAKS scores -- weed out the weak students. -- Donna Garner]

==============================

Chicago News Cooperative

Return of Islamic College Raises New Questions

By DAVID LEPESKA

Published: May 28, 2011

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/29/us/29cncislamu.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=education

The American Islamic College, closed since 2004 when the state revoked its operating authority, is expected early next month to win approval to reopen.

Supporters see the opening of the Chicago college, founded in 1981 in the Lakeview neighborhood, as an important step for Islamic instruction in the United States. But its detractors point to the college’s ties to a secretive and far-reaching international movement that has been accused of Islamism in some countries and of an overuse of non-immigrant work visas to hire foreign teachers in its schools in the United States.

The movement, led by Fetullah Gulen, a Turkish religious leader living in self-imposed exile in rural Pennsylvania, supports scores of charter schools that have gained a reputation for academic achievement and a commitment to spreading Turkish language and culture.

Yet the Gulen schools have caused widespread concern about possible manipulation of immigration laws and misallocation of taxpayer dollars. Mr. Gulen, an extremely wealthy and well-connected Turkish spiritual and political leader, fled Turkey amid charges of plotting to overthrow the secular government. He was acquitted of all charges in 2006.

The college would become the second Islamic educational institution in the country to offer college-level credit. For Muslims in the area, it would be a rejoinder to those who depict followers of Islam as prone to extremism.

“It looks like a resurrection of the college, which is great,” said Zaher Sahloul, head of the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago. “It’s very important to have an institution of higher learning run by the Muslim community.”

Top officials at American Islamic College have been linked to Mr. Gulen’s movement. In a cable obtained by Wikileaks, the United States’ former ambassador to Turkey characterized the Gulen movement as a potentially destabilizing influence in Turkey that more secular Turks see as an effort to bring about an Islamic state.

The Gulen movement, called Hizmet (a Turkish word meaning “service”), promotes public service and education and oversees research institutes, universities, media outlets and one of Turkey’s largest banks. The movement seeks to spread Gulen’s influence internationally through an informal network of 1,000 schools in 130 countries.

Hizmet operates more than 120 publicly financed charter schools in 25 states, in addition to a handful of private schools, like the Science Academy of Chicago, run by Niagara Educational Services, a Mount Prospect firm associated with the Gulen movement. Like many of the movement’s American schools, the Science Academy focuses on math and science.

Administrators of the schools often deny any official connection to the movement, which has no formal organization or official membership but operates through a network of followers, according to Hakan Yavuz, a political science professor at the University of Utah and co-editor of a 2003 book on the organization.

“It’s safe to assume that A.I.C. will be influenced by the Gulen movement,” mainly through the selection of the college’s instructors and administrative staff, Mr. Yavuz said.

“It makes sense for them to hire people from the Gulen community,” he said, “as they have much more knowledge and experience in the American education system.”

According to recent news reports, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Departments of Labor and Education are investigating accusations that as many as 100 of the movement’s American schools have used taxpayer money to pay for the immigration of teachers’ families from Turkey and provide other financial support for the Gulen movement.

Federal officials declined to comment.

Ali Yurtsever, head of the executive committee setting up the American Islamic College, denied any connection with Gulen. The school will have to generate its own income, unlike Gulen schools in the United States that are supported by the movement, he said.

Mr. Yurtsever has long been a follower of Mr. Gulen and serves as administrator of Niagara Educational Services. He previously was president of the Gulen-backed Rumi Forum, a Washington research institute whose honorary president is Mr. Gulen.

Attempts to contact Mr. Gulen through his Web site and through Mr. Yurtsever were unsuccessful.

School officials say the college will present what Mr. Gulen has long stood for: a more moderate form of Islam than the extremist version that has often dominated public debate in the United States since Sept. 11, 2001. The school plans to offer more than a dozen courses in the fall and hopes to attract up to 400 local and international students in the next few years.

The college was established 30 years ago by the Organization of the Islamic Conference, a Saudi Arabia-based association of more than 50 predominantly Muslim countries. In 2004, the Illinois Board of Higher Education revoked its operating authority, citing a failure to comply with state regulations.

Now, after spending $500,000 from the Islamic Conference to renovate its library, dorms, mosque, and 1,000-seat auditorium, the college is reopening under new management. It is led by Mr. Yurtsever, a mathematician with a Ph.D. from Ege University in Turkey who taught at Georgetown University.

College officials expect to receive authority to offer for-credit courses from the Illinois Board of Higher Education on June 7. The college has applied for full accreditation, which would allow it to confer four-year degrees.

Mr. Gulen, 70, has lived in the United States since 1999, when he left Turkey. In a widely circulated video from that time, he advised his followers to “move within the arteries of the system, without anyone noticing your existence, until you reach all the power centers.”

In the United States, Gulen schools often import Turkish teachers using H-1B visas, which allow American employers to temporarily hire foreign workers in specialty jobs.

The federal government places a strict limit on the number of H1-B visas it issues, and corporations often complain the cap restrains their ability to transfer highly qualified workers from foreign countries. Yet Gulen-backed schools received 839 H-1B visas in 2010, a 65 percent increase from 2007, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Teachers unions and education reform groups in several states have spoken out against the spike in foreign-born teachers at Gulen schools. “There is no reason to bring teachers in from other countries under the guise of lack of staffing,” said Jenni White, president of Restore Oklahoma Public Education.

Mr. Yavuz, the political scientist, said he did not see the movement as a danger, “but I don’t see it as productive. “

“I think their main goal is to improve the image of Islam in the U.S.,” he said, “but even there, I don’t know if they can be successful.”

==========================

John Benjamin’s comment posted on 5.26.11 --  FBI Investigation of Gulen Schools (a.k.a., Harmony Science Academies in Texas:

• ·        

Fetullah Gulen, A Turkish Imam, figured out ]that he needed] to destroy the secularism and bring down the modern Turkey targeting the leaders of the future… Kids! FGM has been providing secret study houses for mostly boarding school kids, picked the talented ones to train them in the selected universities. FGM has taken its time to proceed and reach today’s scale of operations. Secularism in Turkey is about to be demolished by the existing Islamist government whose members are mainly the secret members of the Gulen movement. We will all see a transition of Turkey, a Nato Ally, from being a secular country to another Islamic republic in the middle east very soon.

Why the US government is reaching out and providing opportunities to Gulen movement is because the US government is failing to deal with radical islam. The US goverment is under the impression that the FGM is the answer for moderate Islam since FG pretents to promote dialog among the faiths.

This is a fatal mistake. Because in Islam, there is no Dialog, there is no moderation. Kur’an states and Muslims believe that every human being needs to convert to Islam sooner or later, otherwise, they all deserve to die. This is not a joke, nor a foolish statement. This is what all kids who receives Kur’an training before they reach the age of 12 believe.

As Gulen Schools slowly but surely moves forward in their operations in the US, the main idea is to bring up more gradeuates of FGM who may in the future become the leaders of te US. Fetullah Gulen’s next school, The Harmony School of Political Science in Austin TX, being built is just a clue to prove my point.

This movement needs to be stoped. The US parents need to be warned, educated and made aware of the danger awaiting their children.

SOURCES OF MORE INFORMATION ON GULEN SCHOOLS

5.9.11 --  http://alicelinahan.net/2011/05/09/texas-karen-hughes-gulencosmos-foundation/

5.1.11 -- http://libertylinked.com/posts/7224/troubling-schools----frog-in/View.aspx

3.30.11 -- http://my.firedoglake.com/dougmartin/2011/03/30/fbi-investigating-gulen-charter-schools-gulen-leaders-lavish-gifts-and-dinners-on-mitch-daniels-and-other-indiana-officials/

3.24.11 -- http://www.educationnews.org/commentaries/insights_on_education/152233.html

3.22.11 (Please also read the comments posted below the article.) --  http://asbarez.com/94335/fbi-investigating-gulen-schools/

3.1.11 -- http://www.educationnews.org/commentaries/insights_on_education/152233.html

8.7.10 -- http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2010-08-17-turkishfinal17_CV_N.htm

Please go to this link to see an updated list of Gulen schools throughout the United States:

http://turkishinvitations.weebly.com/news---gulen-schools.html

Donna Garner

Wgarner1@hot.rr.com