Turkish charter schools in the USA

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Gulen has been accused by the Turkish government of orchestrating the failed coup attempt last year in Turkey, but he denies all charges. Turkey has demanded the US government extradite him, but his case is still wending its way through the Department of Justice. Just recently, however, the German intelligence services have expressed doubt that Gulen was behind the attempt, and Chairman of the US House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Devin Nunes also said he doubted the Turkish government's accusations:

http://nation.com.pk/international/21-M ... -body-head

Many parts of the United States use what are called public charter schools, which are meant to represent alternatives to failing school districts for kids who can't afford private school. One aspect of these public charter schools is that they can set their own curriculum. There are more than a 100 charter schools in the US that are run by Turkish-Americans that some tie to Gulen. They tend to emphasize math and science in their classes, and also seem to emphasize the teaching of Turkish and at least in the past sponsored trips to Turkey for their students. They don't teach religion, however:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/gulen-move ... 1468967536

It appears the students are mostly African-American and Latino and come from poor districts. Because the districts are poor and funding is based largely on local property taxes, the schools suffer. So especially in states led by the GOP charter schools have become popular.

The so-called Gulen schools have become controversial and have been accused of fraud and having helped fund the coup attempt in Turkey last year. Just this month, a Turkish-American-run charter school in New Jersey received permission to open its doors, but opponents have accused it of faking signatures on its petition, which the school denies:

http://www.northjersey.com/story/news/w ... /99333820/

I'm skeptical of this accusation, because when you run a petition you're going to get bad signatures--this is why in California, groups trying to qualify measures for the ballot often collect a lot more signatures than required, because a lot are going to get rejected as bad. The petition was probably submitted in good faith.

Still, there are other accusations, especially those revolving around teachers from Turkey being forced to give kickbacks which are used to fund the Gulen movement:

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/is-turkish- ... r-schools/

When I first started reading about this, I was like WTF? Still, I've been interested in studying the history of Turkic cultures and how they've spread across much of Eurasia, so I am interested in the fact they seem to be bringing it here to the States. This bears watching.

Here, the whole Gulen and Erdogan partnership seemed like it was a whole lot of funny business. This is a very good, thorough article from the New Yorker:

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/ ... -year-coup

Gulen went into an anti-Semitic rant in a book he wrote in the 90s and a former follower of his says he's megalomaniacal and intends to take over the world, Erdogan was apparently trying to send gold to Iran to bypass sanctions. Gulen is suspected of having been a CIA asset. And now Erdogan is trying to destroy his rival Gulen. Good times.

I actually went to one of these schools for a very short amount of time and it was definitely an odd operation considering the amount of Turkish teachers who didn't speak English particularly well that taught there, they were pretty strict and took a quick disliking to me. It would be no surprise to me that that it was a front for the Gulen movement and abused taxpayer money, I ended up transferring back to public school another school and that school would eventually some years later lose accreditation. It was an interesting school, this was not long after 9/11 and there were a number of observant Arab Muslim students at this school so this was the first time I ever seen them pray or ever really interacted with any at that time. Even as fraud, the sad thing is that they were probably still educating the kids better than most the public schools where I grew up.

Yeah. I think charter schools usually serve poor districts, don't they? Of course, one of the big reasons the public schools in those districts don't do too well is because they're dependent on local property taxes for funding, and if property values are low the school isn't getting much. Creating a system of charter schools like we have makes this sort of thing possible.

Anyway, I appreciate your sharing your experience with the Gulen schools.

I think it's a stretch to say that is any significant cause to the issues of my school district which was bad before charter schools even existed. Part of what benefits these charter schools so much is that they can be selective and they can kick people out so its a more controlled environment than the mandatory one where half the kids are just showing up for the free lunch; it's a welcomed desperately needed alternative for some poor people who have kids growing up in schools plagued by drugs, gangs, and violence. I think there is room for tremendous good but there is also the potential for abuse from a lack of oversight.

FWIW didn't make me take Turkish, had Spanish instead. Very good instruction from what I remember, we usually watched movies in "Spanish" later back at public school while the teacher chilled at her desk doing whatever.

I appreciate the response, especially for your clarification of their foreign language instruction.

As we have a charter schools advocate in the Department of Education, let's see how these schools do.

To my eye, I am tan, bearded, and wearing sandals. My genetic profile shows minimal degrees of separation, from a Palestinian, probably within the margin of error.

I tend to think that my Jewish name could cause problems, but, in my own experience, Islamist migrants tend to wear dress clothes, and cannot tell me apart from any other, lowly American, on the street. Their major complaint, offhand, is I am walking dogs, in a tanktop.

I have made conventional sorts-of deliveries to a liquor store, with a shrine of an Ayatollah, in the warehouse, where there was discussion of observing Ramadan and the Hajj. To the best of my understanding, alcohol is off-limits, to Islamists, but some will still sell hard street drugs. How can the authorities not know that, after some years.

It's not straightforward subversion, like from Ali G. They feel pious, while they do it.