{"id":1761,"date":"2016-09-20T22:37:13","date_gmt":"2016-09-21T02:37:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/openmindedrealism.com\/?p=1761"},"modified":"2020-03-13T18:04:05","modified_gmt":"2020-03-13T22:04:05","slug":"the-surprising-story-of-over-100-charter-public-schools-operating-in-the-united-states-that-are-secretively-owned-and-controlled-by-a-turkish-radical-islamic-imam-living-in-pennsylva","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/openmindedrealism.com\/2016\/09\/20\/the-surprising-story-of-over-100-charter-public-schools-operating-in-the-united-states-that-are-secretively-owned-and-controlled-by-a-turkish-radical-islamic-imam-living-in-pennsylva\/","title":{"rendered":"The surprising story of over 150 \u201ccharter\u201d public schools operating in the United States that are secretively owned and controlled by a radical Muslim Imam living in Pennsylvania"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/152654863\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>This article is a written summary of the 2016 documentary video \u201cKilling Ed\u201d, which details a chain of over 150 public charter schools in the United States and 1,200 around the world that are being operated by a radical Muslim Imam named Fethullah G\u00fclen, who is politically powerful in Turkey and has many followers around the world.\u00a0 The schools are dysfunctional despite being promoted as high quality, they serve as a gateway for G\u00fclen\u2019s secretive businesses which are all connected to the political establishment, and they are used to indoctrinate American students into Turkish culture for potentially being appointed to positions in the extremist Islamic G\u00fclen movement later in life.<\/p>\n<p><em>See the <a href=\"http:\/\/killinged.com\/resources\/\">official website<\/a>,\u00a0 also <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/KILLING-ED-Mark-Hall\/dp\/B01EYJSJ6E\/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1474391064&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=killing+ed\">purchase the documentary video<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>ARTICLE SUMMARY<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cCharter schools\u201d are a new concept of public schools that are funded with taxpayer money but are privately operated, however most of the initial proponents of the concept have now become opposed to the idea after seeing the corrupt abuses of the corporations who own those schools.\u00a0 Politicians and school boards are often bought off, which leads to charter schools propagating despite being inferior to traditional public schools.<\/p>\n<p>The largest chain of charter schools in America is run by a Turkish Islamic Imam living in Pennsylvania named Fethullah G\u00fclen, who is very politically powerful in Turkey and has many follower around the world.\u00a0 He secretively runs more than 1,200 charter schools, with over 150 being in the United States.\u00a0 Fethullah moved to the U.S. in the late 1990\u2019s after being accused by Turkey of trying to overthrow its government, and video has been leaked with him instructing his followers to \u201ctravel in the arteries until you reach all of the power centers.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>G\u00fclen charter school operators try to claim that their schools are unrelated to the G\u00fclen movement, and they also claim no connection to the G\u00fclen charter schools that are abroad, but investigations show that the all of the schools are in fact connected to the movement.<\/p>\n<p>Many teachers who taught at G\u00fclen schools share similar stories about dysfunctional conditions at the institutions, including the fact that the buildings are often located in inappropriate industrial parks, unqualified teachers are often hired, many teachers are brought from Turkey who can\u2019t adequately speak English and they get paid much more than the American teachers, teachers are told not to give students failing grades, special needs children are neglected, students receive credits for classes that don\u2019t exist, and G\u00fclen schools hold fraudulent \u201cscience fairs\u201d to deceptively create an appearance of the schools being top quality institutions for learning about science, among many other issues.<\/p>\n<p>The schools use deceptive techniques in their marketing strategies to create a perception of being high quality institutions so they can expand by establishing more schools.<\/p>\n<p>A former Turkish G\u00fclen follower who taught at a G\u00fclen school in Ohio recalls his experience, saying he started teaching with no experience and with only a substitute teacher\u2019s license.\u00a0 He says 99.99% of the Turkish staff are G\u00fclen followers, he explains the national structure of the hierarchy of managers, he explains that the motivation of those involved is not to educate but rather to use the schools as a means to connect with high level politicians and to finance other activities, and he explains that when he resigned from the school and tried to get away from the movement they framed him and made false accusations of him being involved with international drug trafficking.<\/p>\n<p>G\u00fclen schools are built with shoddy and dangerous construction methods due to hiring sub-par Turkish contractors who dangerously cut corners, suspiciously avoid inspection by building officials, and practice fraudulent techniques of claiming construction expenses that don\u2019t exist.<\/p>\n<p>The G\u00fclen movement is smart about targeting high level politicians and people of influence, grooming them to be sympathizers.\u00a0 They make use of their schools, their interfaith dialog centers, their Turkish cultural centers and their businesses to establish a presence for geopolitical power.\u00a0 There are hundreds of such organizations and they have branches in many States, where they host \u201cinterfaith dialog\u201d events to give awards to influential members of the community and politicians ranging from city mayors to national level figures.\u00a0 There are a lot of NGO\u2019s run by G\u00fclenists in the United States.<\/p>\n<p>The G\u00fclen movement has been exposed by the mainstream media for wooing U.S. congressmen with campaign donations and secretive trips to Turkey.\u00a0 Thousands of politicians and members of the media have been on propaganda trips to Turkey.<\/p>\n<p>Two Journalist in Turkey explain that they started writing about how the Fethullah G\u00fclen movement organized in Turkey and what that really means, which irritated both the AKP Government and the G\u00fclen movement.\u00a0 What they wrote led to them being arrested due to documents being discovered on their computers that were planted by members of the G\u00fclen movement, with the journalists then being jailed for 19 months.<\/p>\n<p>All through Fethullah G\u00fclen\u2019s teaching and preaching, he has always been obsessed with the idea of establishing a worldwide Islamic State.\u00a0 His movement is a deceptive plot to incrementally subjugate the world to Sharia law.<\/p>\n<p>American parents of kids studying at the public charter schools usually don\u2019t understand anything about the situation.<\/p>\n<p>From elementary to high school the schools teach the kids the Turkish language and Turkish culture, for example they may have Turkish dance teams at the schools that perform and compete rather than cheerleading teams, and they have Turkish singing in the schools.<\/p>\n<p>The students are also brought on school trips to Turkey where they are further indoctrinated into the culture so they can be appointed to positions by the G\u00fclen movement later in life.<\/p>\n<p>The final segment of the video shows an election night party where reform candidates for the Austin school board are anxiously watching the close race.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AN INTRODUCTION TO THE ISSUE OF \u201cCHARTER\u201d PUBLIC SCHOOLS IN AMERICA<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Section summary:\u00a0\u00a0<em><strong>\u201cCharter schools\u201d are a new concept of public schools that are funded with taxpayer money but are privately operated, however most of the initial proponents of the concept have now become opposed to the idea after seeing the corrupt abuses of the corporations who own those schools.\u00a0 Politicians and school boards are often bought off, which leads to charter schools propagating despite being inferior to traditional public schools.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Sharon Higgins is the founding Member of \u201cParents Across America\u201d\u2014\u00a0a national group created to educate parents about issues going on with the education \u201creform\u201d movement.\u00a0 She explains that charter schools aren\u2019t really \u201cpublic\u201d schools\u2014 they are privately managed schools that are funded with taxpayer money, and they usually have many problems making them what she explains is a \u201cperfect storm\u201d that is destroying American public education.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Many experts are critical of the charter school movement.\u00a0\u00a0 One of the main voices is Diane Ravitch, who is a former assistant U.S. Secretary of Education.\u00a0 She had previously been a proponent of corporate education, but she soon realized that it was going in the wrong direction and became an advocate against it.\u00a0 She calls the privatization movement a mighty hoax to grab what belongs to all of us.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>There are now 6,000 charter schools in the United States, but they do not get higher scores than public schools as some claim, and in fact they often have low test scores, low graduation rates, and high teacher turnover, but they are very profitable for those who own them.\u00a0 The schools enroll over 60,000 children in 26 states.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In the late 1980\u2019s, Albert Shanker came up with the concept of charter schools due to the fact that there are many kids that were not doing well in school.\u00a0 He thought that charter schools would be a good way for teachers to get together to try different approaches, and then bring whatever they\u2019ve learned back to the public schools so they could incorporate it to help educate all children.\u00a0 However, in 1993 he repudiated his own idea noting that the charters were being used by for-profit companies.<\/p>\n<p>Politicians often advocate for \u201cvoucher\u201d systems which are very destructive to public education, because they take money out of the public school system.\u00a0 Dan Patrick is a Texas Senator who chairs the Senate Education Committee, and he is extremely aggressive in terms of introducing legislation for charter school expansion.\u00a0 He is interviewed saying that many public schools are failing, and he says it is outrageous that the public school system dictates that people must sent their kids to schools in their own districts no matter what the quality of those schools are.\u00a0 He explains that Texas has over 500 campuses and 215 charters, with charters that are \u201csuccessful\u201d being allowed to replicate.<\/p>\n<p>David Dunn, the Executive Director of Texas Charter School Association, says that charter schools are tuition-free public schools where 90% of operating funds come from the State, with the other 10% coming from the Federal Government.\u00a0 Charter school boards are not subject to local elections.\u00a0 There are State laws and regulations that don\u2019t apply to charters.\u00a0 He cites an example of the benefits of a charter school, saying, \u201cIf a charter school figures out on Friday that their sixth grade math program isn\u2019t meeting the needs to kids, they\u2019ll frequently work over the weekend, and on Monday they\u2019ll have a revised math program to hopefully better meet the needs of those kids. In traditional school districts, on the other hand, you have to appoint community committees, faculty committees, parent committees, you\u2019ve got to go through several hearings, go through the local school board, and so it may take a year or more to be responsive to meet the changing needs of the students.\u00a0 We can be much more adaptive and change much more rapidly than traditional school districts.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Vincent Tovar is an anti-charter school parent activist who is the co-Founder of PRIDE of the Eastside.\u00a0 He explains that a once public elementary school in Austin, Texas has been taken over by an charter school company in 2012 despite the fact that it was academically acceptable.\u00a0 In that case the school district board gave the community three options of handing the school over to a charter with a fourth option of \u201cthe community can come up with a different proposal.\u201d\u00a0 He explains the community did work to come up with a better proposal but that proposal wan\u2019t accepted.\u00a0 He talks about how the new charter school doesn\u2019t teach art, doesn\u2019t teach music, doesn\u2019t have counselors, and they didn\u2019t even want the library books that the previous school had.\u00a0 The charter is trying to take over other schools in Austin as well, and he explains it is possible to vote against that happening if enough people take an interest and vote for the proper school board candidates.<\/p>\n<p>Dr. Jayme Mathias is strongly opposed to privatization of schools, and he is a grass roots candidate that is running for the Austin ISD school board\u00a0\u00a0 He is a certified teacher, an experienced school administrator, and a pastor.\u00a0 He along with others are running against incumbents who are pro-charter schools.\u00a0 Anti-privatization campaigning is difficult due to the unprecedented amount of money being pored into school board races to support candidates who are in favor of charter schools that undermine local control.\u00a0 Some of the worst offenses taking place in public education today are in Texas, and Mathias is hoping to gain a seat to right the wrongs that the current school board is currently implementing.<\/p>\n<p><strong>ABOUT THE G\u00dcLEN RELIGIOUS MOVEMENT<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Most Americans are not aware that the largest chain of charter schools in the United States is run by a group of Turkish men associated with a Muslim Imam named Fethillah G\u00fclen, who is living in seclusion in Pennsylvania.<\/strong>\u00a0 Fethillah is a very politically powerful man in Turkey were he leads a significant political movement.\u00a0 His \u201cG\u00fclen Charter Chain\u201d runs more than 1,200 charter schools around the world, with over 150 being in the United States.<\/p>\n<p>Sharon Higgins explains that she found a newspaper article talking about parents in Utah discovering that their children\u2019s charter school was operated by the Turkish G\u00fclen religious movement, which prompted her to look into her own children\u2019s school (The Bay Area Technology School in Oakland, California) where she discovered that it was run by the same group, which prompted her to learn more and become an activist speaking out about the such situations.<\/p>\n<p>Higgins explains that <strong>Fethillah G\u00fclen fled Turkey in the late 1990s and came to the United States, continuing to lead an Islamic movement that is active around the world.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cSerhan\u201d is a G\u00fclen historian and critic who initially met Fethillah G\u00fclen when he was a preacher in a Mosque.\u00a0 He explains the followers of G\u00fclen (\u201cG\u00fclenists\u201d) had established more than 150 schools around the world by the time that the Soviet Union collapsed, with students from those schools eventually being appointed to high positions, being called the \u201cGolden Generation\u201d by G\u00fclen.\u00a0 The more they get in power, the more they abuse others.<\/p>\n<p>The Turkish military tried G\u00fclen in court accusing him of trying to overthrow the government.\u00a0 An affidavit is shown making the following statement:\u00a0 \u201cIt is alleged that the accused, Fethullah G\u00fclen, has the intent to establish a theocratic Islamic republic by demolishing the Republic of Turkey with its secular, democratic, and social state of law, and uses domestic schools and schools abroad to indoctrinate a significant portion of the society with his theocratic views, which he disguises as moderate, democratic Islam.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Due to being persecuted by the Turkish government, G\u00fclen cited health reasons to his Turkish followers in 1999 and moved to the United States.\u00a0 [ NOTE: It is most likely that Fethullah is deceitfully projecting a facade of being persecuted by the Turkish government. ]<\/p>\n<p>After Fethillah came to the United States, a video was leaked of G\u00fclen advising his followers to \u201ctravel in the arteries until you reach all of the power centers.\u201d From the leaked video: \u201cBy opening up a house and building our web with the patience of a spider, wait for those people who\u2019ll fall in that web.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>AN OVERVIEW OF G\u00dcLEN RUN CHARTER SCHOOLS IN THE UNITED STATES<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>G\u00fclen school chains have different names in different regions of the United States, for example it\u2019s Texas schools are called \u201cHarmony\u201d and it\u2019s midwest schools are called \u201cConcept.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cHarmony\u201d schools make up the largest chain of charters in Texas, operating over 35 campuses all over the state, and there are about 30 \u201cConcept\u201d schools in the midwest.<\/p>\n<p>The G\u00fclen movement has applied to open at least 12 new schools in the U.S. in 2016.<\/p>\n<p><strong>G\u00fclen charter school operators try to claim that their schools are unrelated to the G\u00fclen movement, and they also claim no connection to the G\u00fclen charter schools that are abroad, but investigations show that the schools are in fact connected.<\/strong>\u00a0 For example, the same text is used in the welcome letters of the student handbooks across all schools, even in their international schools.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The schools claim to have a long waiting list as a part of their marketing strategy in order to create an impression of being high quality so they can demand more charters.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The schools also claim to have a 100% university acceptance rate as a part of their marketing strategy, however the reason for that is because all of the kids attending the schools are automatically accepted at the G\u00fclen-run \u201cNorth American University.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>FIRSTHAND ACCOUNTS OF CONDITIONS AT G\u00dcLEN OWNED AND OPERATED SCHOOLS IN THE UNITED STATES<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Section Summary:\u00a0 <em><strong>Many teachers who taught at G\u00fclen schools share similar stories about dysfunctional conditions at the institutions, including the fact that the buildings are often located in inappropriate industrial parks, unqualified teachers are often hired, many teachers are brought from Turkey who can\u2019t adequately speak English and they get paid much more than the American teachers, teachers are told not to give students failing grades, special needs children are neglected, students receive credits for classes that don\u2019t exist, and G\u00fclen schools hold fraudulent \u201cscience fairs\u201d to deceptively create an appearance of the schools being top quality institutions for learning about science, among many other issues.<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Recollections of an Ex-Harmony school teacher Amy Warren who taught in Austin, Texas<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Amy Warren, a teacher at a \u201cHarmony school of excellence\u201d in Austin, Texas, gives a tour of the deplorable conditions at her school.<\/p>\n<p>The school is located in a very non-kid friendly industrial park, around a lot of traffic and noise.\u00a0 She was hired as a teacher\u2019s aide, but she was abruptly told that she would be teaching health for fourth through eight grade even though she had no prior experience teaching health and it was not what her certification is in.\u00a0 When she expressed her concern that she was not qualified to teach these classes, she was told by the principal that she could just take the kids to recess each week during class instead.<\/p>\n<p>The school is very unorganized and dysfunctional.\u00a0 It is difficult for the teachers to do their jobs due to the principal not even knowing what they are supposed to be doing.<\/p>\n<p>The school has a tiny playground that is surrounded by the parking lot that 300 kids are expected to use.\u00a0 A lot of injuries and fights happen there due to it\u2019s small size.<\/p>\n<p>The Turkish administrators do most of the planning of what happens at the schools.<\/p>\n<p>She was told by Administrators that when a student is failing she should \u201chelp them out,\u201d implying she should change their grades.<\/p>\n<p>She was called into a meeting room with the rest of the staff and were made to watch a video about Fethullah G\u00fclen, with the video explaining who he is, what he stands for, about his education philosophy, but after the video was over the principal said that he was a great guy but \u201cthey weren\u2019t affiliated with him at all.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Many of her colleagues have tried calling the central office in Huston with questions such as about the curriculum, but nobody ever answers the phone.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Recollections of an ex-Harmony school Teacher \u201cMelissa\u201d who taught in Lubbock, Texas<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Melisa kept a Journal of her experiences while teaching. She notes that the most qualified teachers would quit their positions as soon as possible due to not wanting to put up with the administration, leaving more uncertified teachers at the school than there are certified, and having more first year teachers than seems legal.<\/p>\n<p>Many of the teachers were Turkish, and most of their English was so bad that she couldn\u2019t understand them, and they couldn\u2019t understand her.<\/p>\n<p>The administration was completely under-qualified to hold administrative and management positions.\u00a0 They were more concerned with forcefully promoting the \u201cawesomeness\u201d of Turkey with staff, faculty and students rather than providing a good educational work environment.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Recollections of an ex-Harmony school Teacher \u201cLinda\u201d who taught in Huston, Texas<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>When \u201cLinda\u201d first began looking for a job, she thought that teaching at Harmony would be a great opportunity due to seeing all of the supposedly good reviews about the school, but she soon discovered that the positive PR was fraudulently put out, and she is glad to get the truth out about the situation.<\/p>\n<p>She brought a covert camera into the school and videotaped the conditions while she was teaching.\u00a0 She noted that special education students are left outside of the classrooms in the hallway in almost every class, and she notes that she knew one of them personally and knew he was a smart kid who was interested in learning, saying it\u2019s a shame he wasn\u2019t getting the education he deserves.\u00a0 In public schools, teachers would be in a lot of trouble if they were to do that.<\/p>\n<p>Whenever she spoke to the principal about conditions at the school, he would either ignore her or just say \u201cok.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Her school was also in an industrial park as many other Harmony schools are, where only a grassy median in the middle of a parking lot was used as a playground for the kids.\u00a0 The kids generally play in the parking lot with no one watching them, and it is also next to a very busy freeway.<\/p>\n<p>She discovered that one of the Turkish male teachers who worked at the school for only two years and was in the same pay grade as her was being paid more than double what she was being paid.<\/p>\n<p>She also recorded kids being told to play in the parking lot when the schedule said that they were actually supposed to be in a science class, despite the fact that the school was supposedly well-know for being a \u201cscience\u201d academy.<\/p>\n<p>She believes that the test scores at the school are manipulated in order to give it an appearance of being a quality academic institution.<\/p>\n<p>Her videos show many Turkish men essentially doing nothing all day, with many of them starting to teach only a few months after arriving the country.\u00a0 Also many had serious language problems and had to rely on google to translate things.<\/p>\n<p>It seems shady to her that such people would be in education in the first place.<\/p>\n<p>She was told by the school that they were not affiliated with G\u00fclen, but she doesn\u2019t believe that they were being truthful with her, in particular because a lot of their dinners and \u201cteam building\u201d activities were at a \u201cTurquoise Center\u201d which had signs of supporting the Fethullah G\u00fclen.<\/p>\n<p>Next to the school is a large new building that is the headquarters for the Harmony Schools and also the \u201cCosmos foundation,\u201d but she is not sure what goes on in there.\u00a0 She knows it is where Soner Tarim, the Superintendent of Harmony schools has his office, but she has never met him, never seen him, and does not know of anybody who has seen him.\u00a0 ( The filmmakers then go into the building with a hidden camera asking to meet with Soner Tarim, and they are placated by a woman in the lobby who said she will contact them to let them know when they could speak with him, but she never calls them back. )<\/p>\n<p><strong>Recollections of an ex-Concept school Teacher \u201cMary Addi\u201d who taught in Cleveland, Ohio<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Addi was employed as an English teacher at her school, where the teachers were predominantly Turkish, and all of the administrators were Turkish males.\u00a0 The majority of the Turkish teachers had nothing more than a substitute teaching license, and not only were they not as qualified as their American counterparts, they were also actually being paid much more.<\/p>\n<p>After a year into her employment with the school, she learned through one of her Turkish Colleagues that all the Turkish teachers and administrators at the school were part of the Fethullah G\u00fclen movement.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Recollections of a Harmony student Tatiana who attends classes in Beaumont, Texas<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Tatiana was looking forward to going to her school because its brochure said that it had a \u201czero-tolerance\u201d policy for bullying, but when she started attending she discovered that she was actually bullied by the teachers.\u00a0 Most of the teachers at the school come straight from Turkey and are Muslims, and she recalls a situation where a teacher in a geography class was making jokes with students about the Holocaust, so Tatiana said that she was Jewish, which put off a lot of the teachers, leading them to make her feel as if she doesn\u2019t belong at the school.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Issues with the Kenilworth Charter School in Baton Rouge, Louisiana<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Students and parents at the school had difficulty understanding the Turkish teachers, and the teachers treated minority parents, minority students, minority teachers, and females differently than others.\u00a0 Three non-Turkish teachers testified in court that they were wrongfully terminated and discriminated against and harassed until they were fired.\u00a0 Also a mother filed a suit against the school for neglect and mistreatment of her child by the school.<\/p>\n<p>The school was bringing in a large number of teachers from Turkey on H-1B visas due to making claims that nobody else would be able to perform their jobs, which was not true.\u00a0 They were allegedly being brought in the teach Turkish but instead they taught a variety of other courses\u2014 all of which they were not certified to teach.<\/p>\n<p>The former principal of the school Cuneyt Dokeman insisted that the students should be given passing grades by the teachers, and he would become an enemy of any teacher who would question him.\u00a0 When he left the school under criticism he resurfaced as the principal of the Abramson Science and Technology school in New Orleans, which is another G\u00fclen school.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Issues with the Abramson Science and Technology School (now closed) in New Orleans<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>An investigation was ordered into the Abramson school once news reports came out in a local paper where a teacher wrote a letter explaining many of the improprieties that were going on in the school.<\/p>\n<p>When the state launched its investigation, it implemented unannounced audits and interviewed teachers, collecting volumes of reports about improprieties happening at the school.\u00a0 The findings of the investigation mirrored all of the testimony others have supplied about issues with the G\u00fclen schools.<\/p>\n<p>Examples of problems found include the school forging parent\u2019s signatures, educational competitions existing where students received awards for projects that were plagiarized, students receiving credits for classes that do not exist, science fair projects being completed by teachers, and science materials being found never to have been used despite the school claiming to have a top-notch science program.<\/p>\n<p>And the end of his investigation, the chief investigator Folwell Dunbar recommended to the State Board of Education that the charter should be revoked, and the school was then closed and taken over by the state.<\/p>\n<p>Within days of the scandal breaking, the Principal of the school Cuneyt Dokeman once again abruptly took a new position, this time at the North American University in Huston, which is also a G\u00fclen school.<\/p>\n<p><strong>G\u00fclen schools hold phony science fair competitions as a marketing ploy<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The G\u00fclen schools have even gone as far as to create their own competitions, such as one held in Texas called I-SWEEEP, being a science fair which draws students from G\u00fclen schools all over the world.\u00a0 Such science fairs are used to market the schools as being legitimate science schools.\u00a0 However, unlike most science fairs, the students are actually assigned the specific projects that they are to do and they merely follow the instructions of putting the display together, and they then stand in front of it as if it the project was their own idea.<\/p>\n<p><strong>COMMENTS BY A FORMER G\u00dcLEN FOLLOWER \u201cMEHMET\u201d WHO TAUGHT AT THE HORIZON SCIENCE ACADEMY IN CLEVELAND, OHIO<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cMehmet\u201d is a former G\u00fclen follower who became acquainted with the movement in Turkey through friends.\u00a0 One of his friends was going to move to the United States to work at one of the G\u00fclen charter schools in Ohio, and he offered for Mehmet to come as well, which he accepted.\u00a0 When he came to work in the United States he started working at the Horizon Science Academy in Cleveland, Ohio.\u00a0 <strong>He didn\u2019t have any teaching experience, but he got a substitute teaching license and then started teaching 27 hours per week.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Mehmet explains that the G\u00fclen movement is acting secretly in the United States despite the fact that they deny any connection to the schools.\u00a0 He says 99.99% of the Turkish teachers at the schools are followers of Fethullah G\u00fclen, and all of the charter schools are managed by Turkish people who are part of the G\u00fclen movement.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The \u201cTuzuk\u201d is the organization\u2019s by-laws which specify the rules for the organization, such as how money is distributed.\u00a0 Every person in the movement has to follow those by-laws.\u00a0 <strong>It breaks the United States into five regions, with a manager for each region, managers for each state, managers for each city, and each school has a director who is responsible for the Turkish teachers who work for the school.<\/strong>\u00a0 Fethullah G\u00fclen is at the top of the hierarchy.<\/p>\n<p>Fethullah G\u00fclen lives in seclusion in an estate in Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania.\u00a0 <strong>Mehmet explains that Fethullah has much to hide from the public, he is running all kinds of scams including immigration scams.\u00a0 Like all of the teachers, Mehmet was required to pay a percentage of his salary to the G\u00fclen movement in cash.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The United States is the only country in the world where the G\u00fclen schools are fully funded by the host country\u2019s taxpayers.\u00a0 <strong>G\u00fclen charter schools are receiving half a billion dollars a year from the U.S. government to support their existence.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Mehmet says, <strong>\u201cNone of the Turkish people came over here to open a charter school to teach the U.S. citizens science and math.\u00a0 What I can say it that it\u2019s a good business. \u2026 They usually use the charter schools to finance their other activities, so they can have other businesses, so they can have contact with high level people.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Almost everything in schools is shipped over from Turkey, including lockers, uniforms, and chairs.\u00a0 Mehmet says they were trying to open a catering company in Ohio to get catering service for each school.\u00a0 In many cases food is shipped to the schools each day from far away locations.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mehmet resigned from the school, talked to the FBI, Department of Labor, the IRS, INS, and then went back to Turkey.<\/strong>\u00a0 The G\u00fclen schools sent a science teacher from the school he taught at in Ohio to talk to him to try to get him to sign a written statement saying that he manufactured the documents which he has discussed in this documentary, but he told them that he wasn\u2019t going to do that; then shortly after that, <strong>narcotics police showed up at his house and arrested him, framing him and making false accusations of him being involved in international drug trafficking.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>COMMENTS BY FORMER BUILDING CONTRACTORS WHO HAD NEGATIVE EXPERIENCES DEALING WITH THE CONSTRUCTION OF G\u00dcLEN SCHOOLS IN TEXAS<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A Harmony school in Texas constructed their building using a contractor called Solidarity Contracting, and it hired Steve Thompson to do subcontracting work.\u00a0 Thomson explains how the owner of Solidarity contracting was extremely abusive toward other subcontractors, firing one who was competent while still owing him close to half a million dollars.\u00a0 Thomson notes that <strong>Turkish subcontractors were treated totally differently, and even though they did a poorer workmanship job and didn\u2019t even finish, they always got paid.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Solidarity rushed through the job, missing a lot of important steps in building the structure properly according to plans and specifications, and the defects are still in the building today.\u00a0 <strong>Concrete slabs were poured onto unstable soil and the structural steel was not put together properly and then it was concealed.\u00a0 The quality of the construction is so poor that it puts the lives of people in the building in danger.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Thomson says, <em><strong>\u201cThey\u2019ve all been built by Turkish contractors who have taken the money, closed their businesses, you can\u2019t even get in contact with them.\u00a0 And what\u2019s happening?\u00a0 The school is left undone. .. In order to open up a school you\u2019ve got to have everything complete, just like we do here in Texas with our public schools.\u00a0 Do you think [public schools] are going to open up a school if it\u2019s not done right?\u00a0 No, they\u2019re not.\u00a0 Where are our building officials?\u00a0 I\u2019m going to say it plain and simple\u2014 are they being bought off?\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>With the lack of oversight in charter schools, their financial management is murky.\u00a0 There isn\u2019t really any way of knowing where the money is being funneled.\u00a0 <strong>Thomson also shows examples of construction change orders that were paid for but never implemented, which resulted in over a million dollars in fraudulent monetary gains for the G\u00fclen schools.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>THE G\u00dcLEN MOVEMENT APPEASES HIGH PROFILE POLITICIANS FOR THEM TO BE SYMPATHIZERS<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>The G\u00fclen movement is smart about targeting high level politicians and people of influence, grooming them to be sympathizers.\u00a0 They are using their schools, their interfaith dialog centers, their Turkish cultural centers and their businesses to establish a presence for geopolitical power.\u00a0 There are hundreds of such organizations and they have branches in many States, where they host \u201cinterfaith dialog\u201d events where they give awards to influential members of the community and politicians\u00a0 ranging from city mayors to national level figures such as James Baker.\u00a0 There are a lot of NGO\u2019s run by G\u00fclenists in the United States.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The G\u00fclen movement has been exposed by the mainstream media for wooing U.S. congressmen with campaign donations and secretive trips to Turkey.\u00a0 Thousands of politicians and members of the media have been on such propaganda trips to Turkey.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JOURNALISTS IN TURKEY ARE PERSECUTED FOR CRITICIZING FETHULLAH G\u00dcLEN<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Two Journalist in Turkey explain that they started writing about how the Fethullah G\u00fclen movement organized in Turkey and what that really means, which irritated both the AKP Government and the G\u00fclen movement.\u00a0 What they wrote led to them being arrested due to\u00a0 documents being discovered on their computers that were planted by members of the G\u00fclen movement, with the journalists then being jailed for 19 months.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>G\u00dcLEN SCHOOLS IMPOSE TURKISH CULTURE ON ITS STUDENTS<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>All through G\u00fclen\u2019s teaching and preaching, he has always been obsessed with the idea of establishing a worldwide Islamic State.\u00a0 His movement is a deceptive plot to incrementally subjugate the world to Sharia law.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>American parents of kids studying at the public charter schools usually don\u2019t understand anything about the situation.<\/p>\n<p><strong>From elementary to high school the schools teach the kids the Turkish language and Turkish culture.\u00a0 There are also often Turkish dance teams at the schools that perform and compete rather than cheerleading teams, and they have Turkish singing in the schools.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The students are also brought on school trips to Turkey where they are further indoctrinated into the culture so they can be tapped by the G\u00fclen movement later in life.<\/p>\n<p><strong>LOCAL ELECTIONS CAN MAKE A TREMENDOUS DIFFERENCE<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The final segment of the video shows an election night party where Dr. Jayme Mathias is hoping to be voted on to the Austin school board, where he is anxiously watching the close race.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This article is a written summary of the 2016 documentary video \u201cKilling Ed\u201d, which details a chain of over 150 public charter schools in the United States and 1,200 around the world that are being operated by a radical Muslim Imam named Fethullah G\u00fclen, who is politically powerful in Turkey and has many followers around &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/openmindedrealism.com\/2016\/09\/20\/the-surprising-story-of-over-100-charter-public-schools-operating-in-the-united-states-that-are-secretively-owned-and-controlled-by-a-turkish-radical-islamic-imam-living-in-pennsylva\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;The surprising story of over 150 \u201ccharter\u201d public schools operating in the United States that are secretively owned and controlled by a radical Muslim Imam living in Pennsylvania&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/openmindedrealism.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1761"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/openmindedrealism.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/openmindedrealism.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openmindedrealism.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openmindedrealism.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1761"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/openmindedrealism.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1761\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4130,"href":"https:\/\/openmindedrealism.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1761\/revisions\/4130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/openmindedrealism.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openmindedrealism.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openmindedrealism.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}