The Turks are coming...to a charter school near you
10
Beware the “Gulenization” of public charter school.
#Who
is Fethullah Gulen, and why does he want to teach San Diego’s kids? That’s a
question some in the wake of a recently submitted application by Gulen’s
followers to open their second public charter school in San Diego.
#“Think
of a combination of the Scientologists, the Moonies, and the Mafia. That’s what
the Gulenists are like,” says Sharon Higgins. “They’re shady, nebulous, and
very secretive. Very few Americans know that they’re behind all of these
taxpayer-funded charter schools.”
#Higgins,
a former public school parent and self-described “parent activist” who lives in
Oakland, has crafted a quasi-career tracking and chronicling the domestic
activities of this Turkey-based group. She lays out the details: Over the past
few years, the Gulen movement, an Islamic group that melds religion and
politics, has succeeded in a stealth campaign to infiltrate the American
educational system via the portal of the charter school. Among their goals,
according to Higgins and other Gulen watchers, is fundraising for the Gulen
movement in Turkey and the recruitment of future members.
#Critics
allege that Gulen public charter schools reject qualified American teachers,
instead importing Turkish men via H-1B visas, which allow Americans to employ
foreigners in “specialty” occupations. These non-union teachers are then paid
salaries characterized as “inflated,” and are expected, in turn, to donate a
substantial portion to the Gulen movement via a network of “charitable”
foundations. There are also charges of sweetheart deals with local Gulen-owned
businesses. Gulen U.S.A., say some, is no less than an intricately woven
Turkish rug of deceit.
#Operating
under all-American monikers like “Magnolia Public Schools” and structured as
tax-exempt not-for-profit entities, there are nearly 150 Gulen charter schools
operating now in America, with around a dozen in California, including one in
San Diego: Momentum Middle School in San Carlos. If the Gulenists have their
way, San Diego Unified School District will host another Turk-centric
schoolhouse when the Fall 2014 semester opens.
#Leading
the charge is Mehmet Argin, Magnolia’s chief executive. A native of Turkey,
Argin holds a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Arizona State University and
was (prior to his California campaign) instrumental in kick-starting the
Sonoran Science Academy, a Gulen school in Tucson. Argin’s fellow Magnolia
board members are all Turks, with the exception of one man who’s a citizen of
Kazakhstan.
 |
| Democratic loving Turkish Americans protest the Gulen Movement in front of one of their West Coast front Groups the Pacificia Institute |
A demonstration of Turkish Americans against Gulen
schools in Pennsylvania, where Fethullah Gulen, the alleged founder of Magnolia
Public Schools, lives in self-imposed exile.
#I
asked Argin how much of the proposed school’s profits will go to pay for Gulen
activities in Turkey? Is the Gulen movement a cult? And what exactly is
Magnolia schools’ role within the Gulen movement? To each question, he
responded with a robotic mantra: Magnolia Science Academy is a non-sectarian,
secular, tuition-free, not-for-profit public school that serves underserved
communities.
#I
also asked, “What is your role in Turkish politics?” Argin stammered, “It’s,
uh...my personal life.”
#The
disciples of Fethullah Gulen point to standardized test scores and
science-competition victories as evidence of the schools’ efficacy and
legitimacy. However, Higgins and others beg to differ, saying that the
ballyhooed earmarks of “success” are fraudulent, concocted by “cherry-picking”
small groups of Gulen students. Higgins states that standardized test score
averages are grossly inflated because they reflect only a small number remaining
after attrition. As for “science fairs,” she says they’re rigged — run and
judged by Gulen insiders.
#Who
is Fethullah Gulen? The gospel, as set forth in his followers’ well-coiffed
websites, paints the picture of a benevolent, even saintly, man. However, the
movement’s critics, as well as various and sundry media sources, say that
portrait is flackery, at best. As it turns out, evidence suggests that the
supreme ruler of the Gulen cabal, with a rumored net worth in the billions, is
a former imam with little formal education. No one disputes, however, that
Gulen (who directs his charges from a compound in Pennsylvania’s Pocono
Mountains) is a recluse living in self-imposed exile.
#Gulen
school bigwigs go to comical lengths to deny the close ties, some even
disclaiming the very existence of the Gulen movement as an organized entity.
Nonetheless, praise is ubiquitous and effusive on their websites, where the
phrase, “We are inspired by Fethullah Gulen,” crops up with regularity.
#But
just what sort of “inspiration” are we dealing with here? Gulen charter-school
boosters are incessant: the 70-year-old hermit, they gush, is a renowned
scholar, a prominent leader in a push for world peace, and a tireless promoter
of “interfaith dialogue,” a sort of “Johnny Appleseed” for a kinder, gentler
Islam.
#Many
fellow Turks, however, have a different take, claiming that the real aim of the
Gulenistas is to overthrow the secular government of Turkey and replace it with
an Islamic kingdom redolent of the old Ottoman Empire. And how will they pay
for the takeover, the writ-large repudiation of Kemal Ataturk, and the “new
Turkey”? With American taxpayers’ money, of course.
#Critics
also say that, unless one can read Turkish, the in-group message flies under
the radar, while the “made for the West” spin is lapped up by a naive public.
Ideology aside, Gulen-watchers acknowledge that the Turks are media-savvy,
ready at a moment’s notice (à la the Scientologists or Lyndon LaRouche’s
acolytes) to pounce on opponents online.
#But
if the masses have been fooled, then so have the politicians, opines Higgins. I
asked Higgins if she thought that Bob Filner knew the score when the Pacifica
Institute, a Gulen front group, paid his way to Turkey. Didn’t
(then-congressman) Filner, while strolling through Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar,
have even an inchoate sense about the Gulen folks? And why would a member of
Congress purporting to represent San Diego take junkets to Asia Minor paid for
by a Turkish politico-religious movement?
#Filner,
claims Higgins, failed in the due-diligence department. Flattered by an award
from the affable emissaries and wowed by talks of Turkish tolerance toward all
(Christians and Jews included), he succumbed, just as many other American
politicians and bureaucrats have, to the machinations of the Gulen machine.
#But
the most oblivious aren’t politicians. The school’s customers — students and
their parents — are seldom aware of the connections. Largely poor, non-white,
and urban — just the sort of folks who claim to be victims of substandard
public schools — they’re lured by the siren song of super-sized test scores and
potential scholarships. What they find instead are schools with high attrition
rates and a curriculum that includes “home visits” by teachers and trips to
Turkey.
#American
opponents of the “Gulenization” of public charter schools hail from points all
across the ideological spectrum. While Sharon Higgins’s criticism has appeared
in the left-leaning Huffington Post, Ricochet, a blog that describes
itself as “right of center,” voices similar concerns. Ricochet’s Claire
Berlinski (who lists her hometown as Istanbul) does note, however, that part of
the animus against the Gulen charter schools may emanate from organized labor
(read: teachers’ unions) or secular Turks.
#San
Diego Unified School District’s charter schools director, Deidre Walsh, did not
return calls for comment.
Read more: http://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2013/nov/13/citylights2-turks-charter-school/#ixzz2l3fkEGymAND HERE IS AN ARTICLE IN THE SANTA ANA NEWS:
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