Magnolia Science Academy riddled with scandals, Teacher arrested for having Sex with Students still trying for NEW campus in Anaheim

http://www.dailybreeze.com/general-news/20150911/carson-teacher-arrested-in-alleged-sexual-relationship-with-underage-girl

A teacher at a Carson school is suspected of having a sexual relationship with an underage girl, sheriff’s deputies said Friday.

Mark Falkowski, 28, a teacher at Magnolia Science Academy No. 3, was arrested Thursday following the discovery of inappropriate email communication and Skype conversations with the girl dating back to early 2014, Orange County sheriff’s Lt. Jeffrey Hallock said.

Falkowski was booked at the Orange County jail on suspicion of sending harmful matter to a minor.

Sheriff’s Department investigations were “made aware of the inappropriate relationship after discovery of several inappropriate e-mails between Falkowski and the victim” about a week ago, Hallock said.

“Investigators began collecting evidence and obtained information that indicated that Falkowski and the victim were still involved in a sexual relationship, even though the victim now lives out of state,” Hallock said.

The girl’s age was not disclosed, but she is younger than 18, Hallock said.

In addition to his teaching job, Falkowski coaches a female youth hockey team based in Long Beach, but players come from throughout Southern California.

“Investigators believe that based on his perpetual contact with female juveniles in his capacity as a hockey coach, there may be additional victims,” Hallock said.

Falkowski was held on $100,000 bail and scheduled to appear Tuesday for arraignment. More charges are pending.

Deputies asked anyone with information about victims to call the Orange County Sheriff’s Department’s Special Victims Unit at 714-647-7060 or 714-647-7000.

According to the school, Magnolia Science Academy No. 3 is a public charter school that offers a college preparatory education. Students come primarily from the communities of Carson, Gardena, Wilmington, Compton and Torrance. Students are primarily black and Latino and more than 85 percent receive free and reduced-price lunch.

Magnolia Science Academy was to be closed by the LAUD but negotiated to stay open with their expensive attorney despite the scandals and the Gulen Movement affiliation they have applied for a new school in Anaheim, public hearing December 9, 2015

Anaheim School District 

Caprice Young new superintendent of Gulen operated Magnolia Science Academies

Did Caprice Young get the Turks out of the dog house or is it more smoking mirrors of the Gulen Islamic Movement?

Proposed new campus 

One of the more interesting developments in California in recent years has been charter schools – public schools operating outside most of the state education bureaucracy’s red tape. And one of the leaders of that movement, Caprice Young, has just begun her first full year heading the troubled Westminster-based Magnolia Public Schools, which runs 11 charters in California.

Their local school is the Magnolia Science Academy Santa Ana, with 150 students, grades 6-12. Currently located in Costa Mesa, next year it will move to a new campus at 2840 W. 1st Street in Santa Ana, expanding to 660 students in grades K-12; then it will grow gradually to 1,020 students.

A pioneer of the charter movement as the president of Los Angeles Unified School District board from 1999 to 2003, Young helped expand district charters from seven to more than 40. A vicious campaign by the teachers unions pushed her off the board.

She didn’t stop, but founded and led the California Charter Schools Association from 2003 to 2008. Since then, she told a meeting of the Register editorial board, “I’ve turned around broken charters.” In 2010, she saved Inner City Education Foundation charters in Los Angeles.

A devotee of Alexis de Tocqueville and his book, “Democracy in America,” Young enthused about how the French visitor was impressed with 1830s Americans solving their own problems without recourse to a gigantic government bureaucracy.

“That’s really what charter schools are all about,” she said. “Local parents begin fixing our own schools.” In the case of the Gulen operated charter schools, it's foreigners fixing nothing and stealing American money. 

The charter movement sometimes is criticized because some of its schools fail due to financial or other problems. But that’s a feature, not a bug. A big problem with traditional public schools has been that the worst of them, instead of being shuttered, too often are shoveled even more taxpayer dollars. With charters, the bad ones close fast – or are rescued by Young.

MPS nearly ended up in the dustbin of educational history. In January, the Los Angeles Times reported, a LAUSD audit found MPS “was $1.66 million in the red, owed $2.8 million to the schools it oversees and met the federal definition of insolvency.”

Enter the feisty Young. In March, MPS and the LAUSD came to an agreement to keep the charters open. Then a May 7 report by California Auditor Elaine Howle concluded, “[T]he Foundation and the academies have improved their financial position, but should strengthen some of their financial controls.” Some of the academies “were insolvent at points during the past three fiscal years, partly because of state funding delays.” All academies were solvent by July 2014.

The audit also looked at academics and found, “[T]he academies generally had higher APIs than their authorizing” school districts’ regular schools.

Young promised an even greater emphasis on academics, stressing STEM: science, technology, engineering and math. “Orange County is a hotbed of entrepreneurialism,” she said. “It needs employees. The fastest way to get out of poverty is with STEM subjects.”

A criticism sometimes leveled at charters is that they shun lower-performing students. But the state audit found, “The academies’ charters also outline their plans to recruit low-achieving and economically disadvantaged students.” The audit cited demographic data showing the percentage of “socio-economically disadvantaged” students at Magnolia Science Academy roughly was the same as all students in Orange County, about 50 percent.

Young also lamented schools too often “lack attention to gifted kids, who will be our future technology leaders,” and promised to make sure they got adequate opportunities and challenges.

I’ve been writing about charters since they started in the early 1990s and have known Young since 2003. Magnolia’s new location in Santa Ana will be four miles from the Register. I’m looking forward to reporting on their progress.

MAGNOLIA SETTING UP BOOTHS AT STREET FESTIVALS TO ENROLL STUDENTS

Gulen operated Magnolia Science Academy Back to School and groundbreaking Remzi Oten Gulenist -Speaker

Magnolia Santa Ana gets a new prinicpal (non Turk) and a new campus 

The Magnolia Science Academy, which was chartered by the Orange County Board of Education after it was rejected by the SAUSD School Board, is hosting a groundbreaking ceremony on Friday, August 7, 2015, from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m., at 2840 West 1st Street, in Santa Ana.

Light Refreshments will be served at 9:30 a.m. Parking will be available on-site.

Speakers:

• MPS Board Member Remzi Oten (Keynote Speaker) Gulenist
• MPS CEO and Superintendent Dr. Caprice Young
• MSA-Santa Ana Principal Laura Betsabe Schlottman
• Host – Chief External Officer Alfredo Rubalcava

In Attendance:

• U.S. Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez, 46th District of California
• Field Representative will be present for Supervisor Andrew Do, 1st District of Orange County
• Field Representative Phil Smith will be present for California State Senator Janet Nguyen, 34th Senate District
• Board of Trustees President Robert M. Hammond, Orange County Board of Education – District 1

Magnolia has allocated more than $150,000 for common-core ready textbooks with full online curriculum support. They also are moving towards blended education including online tools.  For that new mission they have allocated $40,000 to provide Chromebooks for every student attending their school.  They are currently located at 102 Baker St. E, in Costa Mesa.

Magnolia Science Academy is a chain of publicly-funded charter schools in California run by MERF (Magnolia Education and Research Foundation), which was formerly Dialog Cultural, Scientific and Educational Foundation (often abbreviated as “Dialog Foundation”) in Reseda, California. 

In March 2012, a Turkish newspaper ran an article on Huseyin Hurmali (a.k.a. “Joseph” Hurmali) the founding director of the first Magnolia Science Academy who was involved in many subsequent charter school applications, including the failed application for the Pioneer school in Oregon.  The article shows a photo montage of Hurmali along with Fethullah Gulen, and mentions Hurmali’s involvement in the Magnolia Science Academy, according to a charter school blog.

Here is more information about this movement courtesy of Wikipedia:

The Gülen movement is a transnational religious and social movement led by Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen. He has attracted a large number of supporters in Turkey, Central Asia and increasingly in other parts of the World.  Globally, the Gülen movement is especially active in education. In 2009 Newsweek claimed that movement participants run “schools in which more than 2 million students receive education, many with full scholarships”.[25] Estimates of the number of schools and educational institutions vary widely, from about 300 schools in Turkey to over 1,000 schools worldwide.[26][27]

In 2008, the Dutch government investigated the movement’s activities in the Netherlands. Ella Vogelaar, the country’s minister for housing, communities, and integration, warned that “in general terms, when an organization calls for turning away from society, this is at odds with the objectives of integration.” It was, she noted, incumbent upon the government to “keep sharp watch over people and organizations that systematically incite anti-integrative behavior, for this can also be a breeding ground for radicalization.” Testifying about one of the schools in the investigation, a former member of the movement called it a “sect with a groupthink outside of which these students cannot [reason]”:

“After years living in the boarding school it is psychologically impossible to pull yourself away; you get guilt feelings. Furthermore, it forces the students to live, think and do as the Big Brothers [the abis] instruct them to. Furthermore, through psychological pressure, these students are told which choice of career is the best they can make for the sake of high ideals. . . . Another very bad aspect is that students no longer respect their parents and they do not listen if the parents do not live by the standards imposed by the group; they are psychologically distanced from their parents; here you have your little soldiers that march only to the orders of their abis. The abis are obliged to obey the provincial leaders, who in turn must obey the national leaders, who in turn obey Fethullah Gülen.”

The United States of America is the only country in the world where the Gülen movement has been able to establish schools funded to a great extent by the host country’s taxpayers. In June 2011, New York Times shed light on schools in the United States, revealing that “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.”[32]

Federal authorities are investigating several of the movement’s schools for forcing employees to send part of their paychecks to Turkey. In March 2011, Philadelphia Enquirer reported that Federal Agencies including “FBI and the Departments of Labor and Education – were investigating whether some employees were kicking back part of their salaries to a Muslim movement founded by Gulen known as Hizmet.”[34]

The schools are also H-1B visa factories. (These visas are supposed to be reserved for highly skilled workers who fill needs unmet by the American workforce.) In 2011, 292 of the 1,500 employees at the Gülen-inspired Harmony School of Innovation, a Texas school, were on H-1B visas, the school’s superintendent told the New York Times. The schools claim, according to an article written by Sharon Higgins in the Washington Post, that they are unable to find qualified teachers in America—which seems implausible, given the economic crisis and given that some of these new arrivals teach English, which often they speak poorly, or English as a second language, which often they need themselves.[35]

Two schools, located in Texas, have been accused of sending school funds—which are supplied by the government—to Gülen-inspired organizations. The New York Times reported that the some schools were funneling some $50 million in public funds to a network of Turkish construction companies, among them the Gülen-related Atlas Texas Construction and Trading. The schools had hired Atlas to do construction, the paper said, though other bidders claimed in lawsuits that they had submitted more economical bids.

Questions have arisen about the Gülen movement’s possible involvement in the ongoing Ergenekon investigation (Ergenekon allegedly being an ultra-nationalist, pro-military, anti-government gang),[49] which critics have characterized as “a pretext” by the government “to neutralize dissidents” in Turkey.[50] In March 2011, seven Turkish journalists were arrested, including Ahmet Şık, who had been writing a book, “Imamin Ordusu” (The Imam’s Army),[51]which alleges that the Gülen movement has infiltrated the country’s security forces. As Şik was taken into police custody, he shouted,[52]“Whoever touches it gets burned!”. Gülen Movement newspaper Today’s Zaman published an interview[53] with publishers and writers who had published or written the harshest pieces against Gulen and they all claim “nothing happened to them” and thus voids claims made by Şik who made his claim apparently on an attempt to divert attention to Gulen rather than his arrest. Upon his arrest, drafts of the book were confiscated and its possession was banned. Şik has also been charged with being part of the Ergenekon plot.

 More Info:

• http://www.charterschoolwatchdog.com/the-map-of-gulen.html
• http://gulencharterschools.weebly.com/magnolia-science-academy.html
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DReAWz1mSZo
• http://magnoliascienceacademy.blogspot.com/
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%BClen_movement

http://newsantaana.com/2015/08/01/magnolia-science-academy-to-host-a-groundbreaking-at-their-new-santa-ana-site-on-87/

This groundbreaking was a joke and should never have been allowed. 

Gulen California operation Pacifica Institute the lobbying arm over Magnolia Science Academies

Congressman Mike Honda is among a group of lawmakers who accepted trips from organizations secretly funded by a Turkish religious movement in apparent violation of House rules and possibly federal law, USA Today has reported.

An article published online Thursday evening said that Honda, D-San Jose, took a 2013 trip to Turkey and that the Pacifica Institute picked the $5,675 tab. The institute had certified to the House Ethics Committee that it had been designated it as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit charitable group by the IRS, but the agency has no record of such a designation, the newspaper said.

The Ethics Committee approved the trip on Aug. 14, 2013, and Honda went to Turkey that year from Aug. 20 to 28.

U.S. Rep. Mike Honda speaks at Moffett Field in Mountain View on Aug. 28, 2015. (LiPo Ching/Bay Area News Group)

"The congressman, quite simply, took a trip approved by the House," Honda spokeswoman Lauren Smith said in an email Friday. "Note that this was also after trips taken by other members and staff that were also approved."

The House Ethics Committee currently is investigating Honda -- but not for his travel. The probe is focused on allegations that his campaign and his office blurred or crossed their lines in violation of House rules or federal law.

Honda is currentlyfending off a second consecutive challenge from fellow Democrat Ro Khanna as he seeks a ninth term in 2016. And Khanna has made the alleged ethical violations a major campaign issue.
Honda checked a box on that form saying he was unaware "of any registered federal lobbyists or foreign agents involved in planning, organizing, requesting, and/or arranging the trip."

USA Today reported that a 2008 cable from the U.S. embassy in Turkey, released by the online whistleblower clearinghouse Wikileaks, describes the Pacifica Institute as a "sister organization" of a Turkish-based group called the Bosphorus-Atlantic Association of Cultural Cooperation and Friendship, known by its Turkish initials BAKIAD.

BAKIAD secretly funded the Turkish leg of a trip to Azerbaijan taken by 10 other members of Congress who took 32 staffers in May 2013, according to a report filed this month by the Office of Congressional Ethics. That trip was sponsored by groups connected to a worldwide moderate Islamic movement led by a religious scholar named Fethullah Gülen, who has been accused by the Turkish government of attempting a coup in that country, USA Today reported. Turkish leaders have asked the United States to extradite Gülen from a remote compound in rural Pennsylvania where he has lived for 20 years.

USA Today identified 214 congressional trips sponsored by Gülen organizations that seem to have been improperly disclosed, with similar itineraries that included visits to the same istorical sites, and meetings with Gülenist journalists, lawmakers and business associations.

Honda was among dozens of House members, including others from the Bay Area, who signed a February 2015 letter urging U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to help secure the release of Gülenist journalists who had been arrested by the Turkish government.

Mahmut Altun, the Pacifica Institute's Northern California director, signed and filed forms with the Ethics Committee before Honda's trip in which he said his organization was a charitable nonprofit and that the trip would not be financed by any foreign agents.

Altun, reached by phone Friday, said he was driving and couldn't talk, and then hung up. He didn't respond to an emailed inquiry.

The Pacific Institute's website indicates it has offices in Sunnyvale -- at the Tasman Drive address that Altun listed on the Ethics Committee forms -- as well as in Los Angeles, Orange County, San Diego; the East Bay, Burlingame, the San Fernando Valley, Salt Lake City, Portland, Oregon, and Boise, Idaho.Hari Sevugan, spokesman for Khanna's campaign, said Friday that there are "serious questions raised by these new revelations into how Mike Honda used his office which the congressman will have to publicly answer."

"What is disturbing is that ethics violations and federal investigations are becoming a pattern with Congressman Honda overshadowing everything else," Sevugan said. "This is further evidence for the need for a fresh start in Washington with leadership that can focus on our common priorities, like education and an economy that works for everyone, rather than on ties to narrow special interests."

Josh Richman covers politics. Follow him at Twitter.com/Josh_Richman. Read the Political Blotter at IBAbuzz.com/politics.

Gulen Politicians - aka "Useful tools of Gulen": Gulen"Faith Movement" funds 200 trips for lawmaker...

Gulen Politicians - aka "Useful tools of Gulen": Gulen"Faith Movement" funds 200 trips for lawmaker...: WASHINGTON — A Turkish religious movement has secretly funded as many as 200 trips to Turkey for members of Congress and staff since ...