THE PERIMETER PRIMATE: BBC news story hot off the press

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

BBC news story hot off the press

Gulen Movement on BBC Radio4 (May 24, 2011): “Edward Stourton investigates the Islamic Gulen movement in Turkey whose influence permeates right around the world.”

Also see http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b011c0ty
And http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00h5b4j
For the time being, you can listen to the full 38-minute version @ http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b011c0ty

@1:20 min.

…Many of the students here are fee-paying, but scholarships for bright children from poor backgrounds are a big feature of Gulen schools. They began in Turkey, but they’ve now spread everywhere from Kazakhstan to Texas…there’s even one in Britain…

Note how the piece says “fee-paying” with scholarship supplementation? Outside the U.S., Gulen schools are tuition-based and private, NOT publicly-funded!

It is only in the U.S., with our pathetically-monitored charter school system (of which members of the Gulen movement have taken advantage), where this amorphous but highly-organized and driven group is running their schools with hard-earned public money.

Here's something to ask Arne Duncan and your local and state officials next time you see them: Why are you letting the American government give our tax dollars to a foreign, cult-like religious movement so they can operate 120 charter schools???

And here's a question for the U.S. press: Can we please get some decent news coverage about this??? The BBC gives it to the Brits, and I'm sure Great Britain has a much smaller number of Gulen schools.

Does everyone understand that the Gulen movement has been infiltrating the U.S. for the past 12 or so years? This is being done via a large network of charter schools AS WELL AS a whole host of Turkish cultural and "interfaith dialogue"organizations (and HERE) which are constantly schmoozing with targeted individuals of influence, and regularly pay favor-currying, gift-bearing (usually award plaques or Turkish ceramics) visits to the offices of public officials and politicians, AND ALSO give free (or greatly-reduced-price) Gulenist-guided trips to Turkey to influential, willing Americans as well as to the students at their charter schools.

Here's a trip for NJ mayors. It's not the first one. Montclair, NJ's Mayor Jerry Fried was given one of these trips a couple of years ago.
Here’s one for Baton Rouge’s (LA) mayor, Kip Holden:
Here’s one for a group from Colorado, including Alan Gottleib who writes for EdNews Colorado. Firestone's (CO) mayor Chad Auer got one, too, but he has deleted the webpage where he shared his report.
Here’s one for a group from Oklahoma. Bill Sherman, a reporter from the Tulsa World got one, too.
Here’s another one for reporters from the Vail Daily (CO)
Here’s one for Seattle-area residents. One of the tour guides was also the CEO of one of the charter school organizations.
Here's one about the tour guide for 100 Oklahomans.
Here’s one for the Bergen County (NJ) sheriff.
Here's one for some people from California.
Here’s one for the CEO of a public radio station in Florida and his wife (Michael and Susan Boylan), along with the president of Florida State College and his wife (Steve and Amelia Wallace), Florida state Representative Jennifer Carroll, (District 13), and Jacksonville’s sheriff and his wife (John and Patricia Rutherford)
Here’s one for a group from Colorado.
Here’s one for a bunch of people from Nebraska.
Then there was the time last December when Raindrop Turkish House took the Austin school district superintendent and 10 of his staff members to Turkey. This turned out to be very a fruitful investment.

“Austin ISD has a new relationship with Raindrop Turkish House (RTH), which will assist district staff in creating a curriculum on Turkey.”

Fancy that.

The number of these trips given to Americans by now must number in the many tens of thousands. This is just a tiny, tiny peek into what's going on, believe me.

In return for their free trip, one way travelers often repay their hosts is by writing dutiful testimonials which are always posted online. This is just the "evidence" needed to develop legitimacy and build up political and social cover for the Gulenists. Here are a few examples.

For a look at some of the office visits and gift-giving to politicians, go to http://www.charterschoolwatchdog.com/look-what-a-plate-will-buy.html

Recall what the BBC report said at 2:07 min.?

But in 1999 a video surfaced in which Mr. Gulen appeared to be urging his followers to, and I quote, “Move within the arteries of the system without anyone noticing your existence until you reach the centers of power.” He was charged with trying to undermine the state and left for America. He was later cleared in absentia, but he’s never been back to Turkey and still lives in Pennsylvania today.

Given the clear evidence of the Gulen Movement's activities in the U.S., with all their denials and evasions (and HERE and HERE), and the fact that so few Americans know anything about what's going on, I'd put my money on the claims that Gulen DID INSTRUCT his followers as was reported, and that they proceeded to do exactly what he had instructed them to do. "Keeping Secrets" anyone?

Just about the time Gulen made his famous "move within the arteries" statement, the first Gulen charter school was opened (1999).

Today there are 120 Gulen charter schools in operation in 27 states, with at least 22 currently being attempted, and 47 attempts that never materialized.

Hawaii might have wised up to the shenanigans. Read how they did it at “Gulen Cult strikes out in Hawaii Legislature, School?”

Maybe some bigger news is about to break. More and more, concerns about the number of imported Turkish teachers these charter schools are bringing in on H-1B visas have been cropping up in the news.

“H-1B + K-12 = ? : A First Look at the Implications of Foreign Teacher Recruitment.” Center for Immigration Studies April 2011
"Exclusive 5 On Your Side investigation uncovers federal probe into Ohio charter schools." WEWS (Cleveland, OH) 15 May 2011.
"Oklahoma charter schools hire math, science teachers from overseas.” The Oklahoman 24, May 2011

60 Minutes and Frontline producers, where are you???

1 comment:

The Perimeter Primate said...: NOTES

David Tittensor, research assistants for the Centre for Dialogue at at La Trobe University in Australia

"His dissertation entitled ‘The Gülen Movement: Muslim Educational Activism in Turkey and Abroad’ examined the ideo-theology and practice of the transnational Turkish Educational Muslim activist network that has come to be known as the Gülen Movement after its spiritual leader Fethullah Gülen. He has published a number of articles on the Movement and has presented at a number of conferences on the Movement, and has also presented on Australia and its role in the Middle East, Turkey and the EU."

Examples:
At 2008 conference he led the workshop "Fethullah Gülen's 'schools of love': a model for the future?"

At 2011 Gulen conference he presented "An Alternative Pilgrimage: Teachers Doing Hizmet Abroad"
http://www.fgulenconference.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=52&Itemid=56; May 28, 2011 at 8:05 AM

Inform yourself about the Gulen movement!

1. WATCH the Gulen Movement 101: Session One webinar presentation (1/22/2014)
2. READ the "Expose the Gulen Movement" report.
3. LISTEN to my interview with At The Chalk Face , slide marker to 32:00 min. (5/19/2013)
4. WATCH the 60 Minutes segment "U.S. charter schools tied to powerful Turkish imam" broadcast. (5/13/2012)
5. READ my response to the 60 Minutes piece.
6. READ my guest article about Gulen charter schools published by The Washington Post. (3/27/2012)
7. WATCH my interview talking about Gulen charter schools, or my presentation at LaborFest (segment between 49:18 min. & 1:07:36 min.)
8. READ my postings labeled "Gulen movement" HERE.

As one observer tweeted, "U.S. media have focused too much on the Islamic nature of the Gulen movement. Real concern is its shady dealings and improprieties."

Please be aware that Gulenists have created a large number of anonymously-operated damage control websites. They started to appear a few months after publication of Greg Toppo's article in USA Today (August 2010).

WE CAN DO IT!

Jim Hightower on populism:

"... what populism is at its essence is just a determined focus on helping people be able to get out of the iron grip of the corporate power that is overwhelming our economy, our environment, energy, the media, government."

Jim Hightower on plutocracy:

"Plutocracy and democracy don't mix."

More Jim Hightower HERE.
Read his Lowdown newsletter HERE.

Plutocracy is rule by the wealthy, or power provided by wealth. In a plutocracy, the degree of economic inequality is high while the level of social mobility is low.

On Bill Gates' ed reform

Joel Shatzky's comment on Huffington Post:

The inferior "test-prep" agenda which bases the pedagogically fraudulent "data" standardized test scores serves as a way of diverting the concerns of working parents who hope that better test scores will lead to better job opportunities for their children. If they realized that they were being given a con job, they might consider other, more "active" forms of political and social protest than simply lobbying for more money for charter and public schools.

New wealth gap report

Research and Policy Brief from the Institute on Assets and Social Policy, Brandeis University, May 2010:

"New evidence reveals that the wealth gap between white and African-American families has more than quadrupled over the course of a generation."

You absolutely must click on this link to view the graph.

Now compare that graph to the one you'll see here.

Now read this entry.

And if you are a person who blames the schools, or believes they are responsible for fixing these problems, you can stop that type of thinking right now.

A Keeper

Posted on the Oakland Public School Parents listserv by a member:*

As a public health nurse, I am working with a generation of young parents who were drug-exposed, who are now having children who are drug-exposed, and it's a whole new ballgame. Many who were premature and will carry some deficits for life.

There are also many other families who have several generations of all kinds of abuse, not enough to eat, violence in and out of their homes, as well as chronic exposure to pollution and nutritional deficits. And there are regular people in the same neighborhoods who are just trying to live, but are poor and can't get ahead.

And there is major grief, and continuous LOSS. So many folks have lost so many folks, people around them dying, of one thing or another, every month almost. Young people (cousins, brothers, friends) dying from violent means, the elders dying too young of chronic disease and disparities in health care, among other things.

What we know about learning and development is that stressed nervous systems CANNOT learn, and that's what we have. Children with many major stressors. Abandonment, attachment disorders, fear, post traumatic stress, sadness, inability to trust or sleep. Many children. Many.

Resulting in: Lack of impulse control, lack of executive function, difficulty in expressing and controlling emotions, difficulty in sleeping, holding still, and paying attention, not to mention following directions and prioritizing tasks.

Our teachers will (perhaps already do) need more training, support, and smaller class sizes. They need major support and help with mental health issues. We really need some kind of expanded vocational track for those who can't perform even at the community college level.

We can't expect teachers to undo years and years of living. The availability of universal preschool would help. Sometimes a classroom is the first kindly, safe, structured, stimulating environment a child encounters.

Wise insights such as these are never uttered by people like Eli Broad, Joel Klein, Michelle Rhee, Arne Duncan, Joe Williams, or any others who are of this type of school reform ilk. And this is why I know for certain that they just don't "get it." Maybe they don’t want to, OR maybe they don’t care.

* Thank you, B.R.

What Children Need

From Playing to Learn by Susan Engel (New York Times, 2/1/2010):

"Our current educational approach — and the testing that is driving it — is completely at odds with what scientists understand about how children develop during the elementary school years and has led to a curriculum that is strangling children and teachers alike.

…Simply put, what children need to do in elementary school is not to cram for high school or college, but to develop ways of thinking and behaving that will lead to valuable knowledge and skills later on."

And to tag onto that, check out this video about the wood shop at one of Oakland's middle schools.

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Tuesday, May 24, 2011

BBC news story hot off the press

1 comment: