Reply #94: Gulen charter schools

[RRF1966]

It's been very difficult to explain to the general public why these schools are a concern. The main reason is that the instant the word "Muslim" is mentioned, there are knee jerk responses. Right-wing people immediately assume the problem must be terrorism and overt religious indoctrination in schools (it isn't.) Progressives immediately assume the problem is bigotry (it isn't.)

The issue here is a corrupt, dishonest, secretive, power-hungry group abusing of our charter system to pursue its own goals. They are not terrorists. But we don't like corrupt, dishonest, secretive, power-hungry groups of any religious affiliation. So there is no reason to give them a free pass just because they happen to be Muslim.

Fethullah Gulen is likely the most masterful manipulator of the media and public opinion living today. He and his followers have devoted a huge amount of energy to building a public perception of him in the west as a man who only wants to promote peace, tolerance and interfaith dialog.

Ask Hanefi Avci if he thinks Gulen promotes tolerance. Avci is sitting in a Turkish jail right now, his only crime being that he wrote a book critical of Gulen and the Gulen Movement:
http://www.eurasianet.org/node/62090">Gulen Movement Taking PR Beating in Arrest Row

Supporting these schools means lending financial and moral support to Gulen and his Movement. Is this what our children should be involved in? University of Utah professor Hakan Yavuz, who used to be sympathetic to the Gulen Movement, now says
"Character assassination, sexual and racial innuendo aimed at destroying people's reputation in the eyes of conservatives, invented news stories, transcripts from illegal police wiretaps … In its fight to be the hegemonic power, the movement stops at nothing. It is terrorizing people."

Getting back closer to home, here are some things wrong with every one of these schools:

(1) They lie and deny their affiliation to the Gulen Movement (GM), even though there is massive evidence of this affiliation. Should people who lie be running our schools?

(2) They try threats and intimidation on anyone - including parents and teachers - who get in the way of their agenda.

(3) These schools are fronts for the GM to pursue its goals. They don't care about education; they only want the schools to succeed so they can use them to get what they want. The GM uses the same methodology, not only across the US, but across the world. They focus on winning awards, and preparing a very small, select group of students for competitions. The purpose is to generate good press.

(4) Low-performing and special needs students are marginalized. Psychological and other techniques are used to skew the enrollment towards higher-performing students. For example, parents are asked to list awards and honors and give information about academic performance on admissions forms, even though it is against charter law to use this in deciding admission. Students are asked to take a "placement exam" while still on an alleged "waiting list." All sorts of games are played with the waiting lists.

(5) As far as their high scores on state standardized tests, which is the main reason parents want their children to attend, look at this page
http://www.greatschools.org/modperl/achievement/nj/4106#from..HeaderLink">Paterson Charter School New Jersey standardized test results
How does a school go from 17% passing rate in math in 2008 to 68% in 2009? This cannot possibly reflect a true improvement in academic performance, unless inferior students were selected out, or the students were prepared intensely and specifically for this test, or some other manipulation was done. Ask any educator...this kind of improvement simply does not happen if everything is above board.

(6) These schools discriminate against women and teachers who aren't affiliated with the GM. Teachers have worked in them for years, expecting to be promoted, and not understanding that it will never happen because only GM members are allowed to control the key decision-making posts.

(7) The schools are abusing the H-1B visa system to bring people with little or no teaching experience here, taking jobs from Americans at a time when the teachers' job market is the worst in decades.

(8) The trend has been for these schools to have more and more overhead going to umbrella GM organizations that are often not even in the same state as the school. See a recent article out of Arizona:
http://azstarnet.com/news/blogs/senor-reporter/article_9b232eea-de22-11df-bacf-001cc4c03286.html">What does $364K in tax money buy these charter schools?
The schools are not getting much in return for this overhead; it is mainly a way to funnel the money to Gulen's organizations.