THE PERIMETER PRIMATE: H1B visas

Showing posts with label H1B visas. Show all posts

Friday, July 23, 2010

Gulen schools and their booming H1B visa applications

This entry has also been posted at Charter School Scandals.

Consider the following (based on the list Top 100 H1b Visa Sponsors In Secondary School Education Since 2008 appearing on 7/23/2010):

The Gulen schools and their related organizations account for 31.5% of all H1B visa applications requested by the top 100 secondary school education H1B visa sponsors. (Table 1)
Of the top 100 secondary school education H1B visa sponsors, 34 of the 100 sponsors were Gulen schools or their related organizations.
A total of 4277 visas were requested by the top 100 sponsors.
1349 of the 4277 applications were submitted by Gulen schools or their related organizations.
There were fewer than 100 U.S. schools in this subterranean network of schools operated by Gulen movement missionaries in this same year. Read about the characteristics of these schools here.
The Cosmos Foundation, which operates approximately 27 Gulen schools in Texas, ranked #1 with 521 visa applications. These schools are heavily, but not exclusively, staffed with Turkish and Turkic teachers. The administrators and founders are nearly exclusively Turkish males.
To contrast, Global Teachers Research Resources (a teacher headhunting organization) ranked #2 with 325 visa applications. GTRR’s newsletters reveal a wide range of teacher nationalities.
Further investigation is likely to reveal that close to 100% of the visa applications of the Gulen schools and their related organizations will be for individuals from Turkey.
Public school districts also applied for visas. In fact, seven of the top-20 largest school districts in the country were also top-100 sponsors for visa applications. These seven districts represent nearly 2,900,000 students attending approximately 3,831 schools. (Table 2)
When averaged, seven of the top-20 largest school districts in the country submitted one H1B visa application for every 6.2 schools.
The average number of visa applications for the Gulen schools was 13.5 H1B visa applications per school!

The hypothesis which has been presented elsewhere in the blogosphere is that the Gulenists operating the charter schools and their related organizations use “teacher shortage” as their rationale for bringing more and more fellow Hizmet volunteers (A.K.A. Gulen missionaries) into the U.S. It is important to note that – unlike a more typical teacher headhunting organization – these schools exclusively seek only those foreign teachers who are Turkish or Turkic, and primarily male. And as more and more Gulen schools are established, the number of Gulen missionaries working as Turkish charter school teachers -- courtesy of all those H1B visas -- can continue to grow. Ten more Gulen charter schools are scheduled to open this coming fall.*

Table 1: “TOP 100 H1B VISA SPONSORS IN SECONDARY SCHOOL EDUCATION SINCE 2008” GULEN SCHOOLS & THEIR RELATED ORGANIZATIONS ONLY
Visa Rank	Company	EIN = Federal Employer ID Number*	H1B Visa Applications	Notes
1	Cosmos Foundation dba Harmony Science Academy	760615245	521	~30 charter schools in Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Tennessee
9	Cosmos Foundation [dba Harmony Public Schools	760615245	101	Same as above
10	Riverwalk Education Foundation	760615245	97	4 charter schools in Texas, dba School of Science & Technology
15	Pelican Educational Foundation [dba Abramson Science & Technology Charter School]	203801713	58	2 charter schools in Louisiana
16	Dove Science Academy [dba Sky Foundation]	731578930	57	3 Gulen charter schools in Oklahoma, plus one attempt in Arkansas
18	Lisa Academy	061665076	53	2 charter schools in Arkansas, under Little Scholars of Arkansas (LISA) Foundation
22	Dove Science Academy Oklahoma City	731578930	42	2 charter schools in Oklahoma
26	Sonoran Science Academy (also dba Daisy Education Corporation)	860990917	33	8 charter schools in Arizona
32	Millennium Education Foundation	421692516	26	2, possibly 3, charter schools in Missouri
35	Horizon Science Academy Dayton High Sc	201849958	24	Single charter school in Ohio
41	Beehive Educational Services	200912672	20	Single charter school in Utah
45	Horizon Science Academy		19	Unspecified number of charter schools in Ohio
48	Fulton Science Academy	582512910	18	3 charter schools in Georgia
49	Magnolia Educational and Research Foundation	954649884	17	12 charter schools in California
53	Hampden Charter School Of Science	unknown	16	Single charter school in Massachusetts
53	Paterson Charter School For Sci&tech	223799763	16	Single charter school in New Jersey
58	Paragon Education	201634330	15	Single charter school in AZ; affiliated with Daisy Educational Corporation dba Sonoran Science Academy
58	Milky Way Education Center	223261282	15	Operates a private Gulen school in NJ (Pioneer Science Academy A.K.A. Pioneer Academy of Science); sometimes written “Milkyway”
58	Millenium Education Foundation	421692516	15	See other “Millennium” organization above
58	River City Education Services (FL)	205773949	15	Involved with schools in FL; some sort of relationship to the Grace Institute http://www.graceschools.us/
64	Cosmos Foundation Inc, Dba Harmony School Of Innov	760615245	14	See Cosmos Foundation above
64	Horizon Educational Services Of Columbus	311657839	14	Single charter school in Ohio (?)
64	wellspring cultural educational foundation	061610852	14	This may be the organization which oversees Putnam Science Academy, a private boarding school in Connecticut, More notes below.
77	Brooklyn Amity School	113511046	12	A private Gulen school in NYC, described as a Turkish school by Today’s Zaman
77	Chicago Math. And Sci. Acdmy. Charter Sch	450532536	12	Single charter school in IL
77	Buffalo Academy of Science Charter School	200723492	12	Single charter school in NY
77	Horizon Science Academy Cleveland High School		12	Single charter school in OH
77	Burlington American Turkish Org	470947586	12	For teacher positions in NJ; unspecified school
77	Daisy Education [dba Sonoran Science Academy]	860990917	12	Daisy Education Corporation, see #26 above
77	Chicago Math. & Science Academy Char. School, Inc	450532536	12	Single charter school in IL (Chicago Mathematics and Science Academy Charter School Inc)
77	Sonoran Science Academy-davis Monthan	see SSA ranked #26	12	Single charter school in AZ;
87	Sonoran Science Academy Broadway	412263902	11	Sonoran Science Academy Broadway This SSA has its own EIN
87	Horizon Science Academy Elementary School	262061654	11	Single charter school in OH
87	Horizon Science Academy Toledo	200524037	11	Single charter school in OH

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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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Friday, July 23, 2010

Gulen schools and their booming H1B visa applications