click on the CBS logo to share your thoughts or communicate your request:
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
10 Facets of Islamic Deception: Taqiyya Shown in Gulen Charter Schools
1. Hard core Denial: Flatly deny, we are not part of Gulen we are Turkish Scholars, merely trying to educate you Americans in your insufficent educational efforts.
2. Soft Intimidation: Intimidate teachers and parents with cease and desist letters if they mention Gulen in connection with the schools. American teachers threatened with job loss.
3. Hide under the guise of Religion and Tolerance: Claim Gulen is a good man who promotes interfaith dialog with world's religious leaders. (photos to prove 1 time meetings) uses local Gulen Interfaith programs to con local politicians and Christian groups. Turning churches into Gulen Charter schools (Lotus School of Excellence- Aurora, CO) or the ex- private Catholic School purchased by the Gulen movement and shamelessly converted to a new Charter school in St. Louis, MO.
4. Hard intimidation: Send cease and desist letters from Gulen Foundation lawyers to parents or teachers who dare speak the truth. (threats and intimidation start) walk into State Charter meetings with attorney as in the case of Beehive Science Academy. Fire teachers that try to form a Teachers Union and want to improve student academics. Claim parents are disgruntled because their child got bad grades.
5. Step up Marketing and Public Relations: Beef up the marketing and Public relations with Gulen's own web sites and media. Keep up the appearance with local politicians, police, etc., who visit the schools - always have a video or camera ready to capture the moment of presenting tea sets to visiting elected officials. Stay on top of blogs, web sites, news articles that are exposing and questioning the Gulen managed charter schools in the USA. Free trips to Turkey for local media, politicans and interfaith groups.
6. Medium Core Denial: Gulen schools claim "there is no proof or evidence" it is a "conspiracy theory" (by the way there is plenty of proof) or "American paranoia."
7. Pay offs and bribes: Pay off's of victims so the case doesn't reach national attention only local. Dove Science Academy rape victim -family and attorney get $100,000 from the Gulen Foundation in Oklahoma. $5,000 for the kids locked into a closet by Turkish teacher (after all it was a cultural difference) Free trips to Turkey for politicians, students, etc. Turkish language taught at night and in the schools, "Turkish is the language of Love and Peace."
8. Business as usual : Continually apply for more grants, loans and open more schools at a rapid pace. Surely no one will notice (strategic ambiguity) rob grants from Walton Family Foundation and Gates Foundation to pay for payroll, and other non-allowable expenses. Audits come and go - dodge more bullets with attorneys. It is all a misunderstanding, we are another culture. We didn't understand that we cannot use American Tax dollars for HB-1 Visas, Turkish trips, etc, after all we teach Turkish Character in the schools.
9. Soft Core Denialism: Schools are admitting to ties to the Gulen Movement - "We may have teachers that are Gulen followers but we don't teach religion." "We cannot prevent our teachers from being Gulen followers." or Gulen "inspired" school. Be honest: you are all known Gulen members, with ties to each other in the USA and in Turkey.
10. Playing Victim: "Mean Americans don't understand Muslims, you are being unfair and racist (Turkish is not a race but an Ethnicity)" "Why do American people hate us and have so many prejudices toward us?" "We are victims of American ignorance." "All these articles and documentation are untrue." "Gulen is promoting peace and tolerance -Americans promote lies and hatred." "We will sue you"
2. Soft Intimidation: Intimidate teachers and parents with cease and desist letters if they mention Gulen in connection with the schools. American teachers threatened with job loss.
3. Hide under the guise of Religion and Tolerance: Claim Gulen is a good man who promotes interfaith dialog with world's religious leaders. (photos to prove 1 time meetings) uses local Gulen Interfaith programs to con local politicians and Christian groups. Turning churches into Gulen Charter schools (Lotus School of Excellence- Aurora, CO) or the ex- private Catholic School purchased by the Gulen movement and shamelessly converted to a new Charter school in St. Louis, MO.
4. Hard intimidation: Send cease and desist letters from Gulen Foundation lawyers to parents or teachers who dare speak the truth. (threats and intimidation start) walk into State Charter meetings with attorney as in the case of Beehive Science Academy. Fire teachers that try to form a Teachers Union and want to improve student academics. Claim parents are disgruntled because their child got bad grades.
5. Step up Marketing and Public Relations: Beef up the marketing and Public relations with Gulen's own web sites and media. Keep up the appearance with local politicians, police, etc., who visit the schools - always have a video or camera ready to capture the moment of presenting tea sets to visiting elected officials. Stay on top of blogs, web sites, news articles that are exposing and questioning the Gulen managed charter schools in the USA. Free trips to Turkey for local media, politicans and interfaith groups.
6. Medium Core Denial: Gulen schools claim "there is no proof or evidence" it is a "conspiracy theory" (by the way there is plenty of proof) or "American paranoia."
7. Pay offs and bribes: Pay off's of victims so the case doesn't reach national attention only local. Dove Science Academy rape victim -family and attorney get $100,000 from the Gulen Foundation in Oklahoma. $5,000 for the kids locked into a closet by Turkish teacher (after all it was a cultural difference) Free trips to Turkey for politicians, students, etc. Turkish language taught at night and in the schools, "Turkish is the language of Love and Peace."
8. Business as usual : Continually apply for more grants, loans and open more schools at a rapid pace. Surely no one will notice (strategic ambiguity) rob grants from Walton Family Foundation and Gates Foundation to pay for payroll, and other non-allowable expenses. Audits come and go - dodge more bullets with attorneys. It is all a misunderstanding, we are another culture. We didn't understand that we cannot use American Tax dollars for HB-1 Visas, Turkish trips, etc, after all we teach Turkish Character in the schools.
9. Soft Core Denialism: Schools are admitting to ties to the Gulen Movement - "We may have teachers that are Gulen followers but we don't teach religion." "We cannot prevent our teachers from being Gulen followers." or Gulen "inspired" school. Be honest: you are all known Gulen members, with ties to each other in the USA and in Turkey.
10. Playing Victim: "Mean Americans don't understand Muslims, you are being unfair and racist (Turkish is not a race but an Ethnicity)" "Why do American people hate us and have so many prejudices toward us?" "We are victims of American ignorance." "All these articles and documentation are untrue." "Gulen is promoting peace and tolerance -Americans promote lies and hatred." "We will sue you"
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
USA TODAY: Objectives of charter schools with Turkish ties questioned
By Greg Toppo, USA TODAY
They have generic, forward-sounding names like Horizon Science Academy, Pioneer Charter School of Science and Beehive Science & Technology Academy. Quietly established over the past decade by a loosely affiliated group of Turkish-American educators, these 100 or so publicly funded charter schools in 25 states are often among the top-performing public schools in their towns.
The schools educate as many as 35,000 students — taken together they'd make up the largest charter school network in the USA — and have imported thousands of Turkish educators over the past decade.
But the success of the schools at times has been clouded by nagging questions about what ties the schools may have to a reclusive Muslim leader in his late 60s living in exile in rural Pennsylvania.
Described by turns as a moderate Turkish nationalist, a peacemaker and "contemporary Islam's Billy Graham," Fethullah Gülen has long pushed for Islam to occupy a more central role in Turkish society. Followers of the so-called Gülen Movement operate an "education, media and business network" in more than 100 countries, says University of Oregon sociologist Joshua Hendrick.
Top administrators say they have no official ties to Gülen. And Gülen himself denies any connection to the schools. Still, documents available at various foundation websites and in federal forms required of non-profit groups show that virtually all of the schools have opened or operate with the aid of Gülen-inspired "dialogue" groups, local non-profits that promote Turkish culture. In one case, the Ohio-based Horizon Science Academy of Springfield in 2005 signed a five-year building lease with the parent organization of Chicago's Niagara Foundation, which promotes Gülen's philosophy of "peace, mutual respect, the culture of coexistence." Gülen is the foundation's honorary president. In many cases, charter school board members also serve as dialogue group leaders.
Education officials who are familiar with them say the schools aren't trying to proselytize for Gülen's vision of Turkey. While Turkish language and culture are often offered in the curriculum, there's no evidence the schools teach Islam.
Nelson Smith, president of the National Alliance of Public Charter Schools, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group, sees no evidence of an "active network. What I do see is a really impressive group of educators."
The Turkish-affiliated schools focus on math and science and often appear as top scorers on standardized tests. Still, lawmakers, researchers and parents are beginning to put the schools under the microscope for hiring practices — they import hundreds of teachers from Turkey each year — and for steps they take to keep their academic profile high.
The schools' unacknowledged ties to Gülen, they say, mock public schools' spirit of transparency.
"That's what I was always asking for," says Kelly Wayment, a former board member and parent at Beehive Science & Technology Academy in Holladay, Utah. He has pressed for more than a year to get the school to acknowledge ties to Gülen. "I said, 'Parents have a right to know.' "
Wayment says Beehive removed him from the board last year after he began investigating the decision to fire a popular Spanish teacher, saying it was based on a single classroom visit by the Tustin, Calif.-based Accord Institute of Education Research, an education services company with ties to a chain of California charter schools inspired by Gülen. He complained to Utah state Rep. Jim Dunnigan, a Republican lawmaker, who launched an audit of charter school governance — the audit is ongoing.
But Beehive's Karlene Welker says Wayment "removed himself (from the board) by pulling his students out of the school."
Utah's State Charter School Board launched an investigation last year after American teachers complained that Turkish colleagues got hiring and promotion preferences.
The charter school board looked into Beehive's ties to Islam and found them "circumstantial," but a financial probe found that the school was $337,000 in the red — and that Accord officials had loaned it thousands. The board last April revoked its charter, but in June voted to keep the school open on probation.
Dunnigan, the state lawmaker who requested the legislative audit, says the financial details, such as personal loans and public funds spent recruiting overseas faculty, are what concern him. "When they're in such financial difficulty, should they spend $53,000 to bring these people over from another country?"
But questions about hiring and academics also have arisen in Arizona, where Daisy Education Corp. runs five schools and has received certifications for 120 H-1B visas for foreign teachers since 2002, records show. In Texas, the Cosmos Foundation has filed 1,157 H1-B applications since 2001. It operates 25 Harmony schools statewide. Since 2001, Harmony has imported 731 employees using H-1Bs, surpassing all other secondary education providers nationwide. Parents last year also accused one Harmony school of "pushing out" underperforming students — a charge the Texas Education Agency confirmed.
Ed Fuller, a University of Texas-Austin researcher, found that Harmony schools throughout Texas had an "extraordinarily high" student attrition rate of about 50% for students in grades six through eight.
"It's not hard to be 'exemplary' if you lose all the kids who aren't performing," Fuller says.
Crossing the line?
At minimum, the rapid growth of the Turkish-affiliated schools shows how the freewheeling world of charter schools has changed the face of K-12 education in the USA.
In most cases, charters are loosely regulated in exchange for improved performance. A few schools are affiliated with religious groups or offer programs that others can't. But in several cases, a school's orientation has forced it to show that it's not crossing lines and endorsing religion. Examples:
•Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy, a Minnesota charter school authorized by Islamic Relief USA, a Virginia-based aid group. In 2008, the school ran afoul of state officials who said having teachers take part in voluntary Friday prayers could give students the impression that the school endorsed Islam.
•Sacramento City Unified School District in California, which for 12 years has fought a lawsuit that says the city's Waldorf schools are based on the religious beliefs of the Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner.
Whether such schools continue to grow is no small question, since President Obama has made charter school expansion a priority.
While the Turkish-affiliated schools disavow any connection to the Gülen Movement, Gülen himself maintains in legal filings that he's the inspiration behind their growth. But William Martin of Rice University in Houston says educators' assertions of "no organic connection" to Gülen are accurate.
Nonetheless, he says their efforts to minimize ties to Gülen, likely from fear of being branded Islamists, bring "unnecessary and probably counterproductive" suspicion. "I do not think they are a sinister organization."
In an e-mail interview, Mehmet Argin, principal of Tucson's Sonoran Science Academy, says his school's parent corporation, Daisy Education Corp., "has no legal or organic ties" with other schools. He cautions against linking charter schools founded by Turkish-Americans directly to the Gülen Movement "just because Turkish-Americans may be inspired by Mr. Gülen."
In an e-mail interview, Gülen denied any direct connection to these schools, rejecting the notion that there is a "Gülen Movement," but acknowledging there may be educators now in U.S. schools who have listened to his philosophy. "I have no relation with any institution in the form of ownership, board membership or any similar kind," he said.
A 'third force'
Gülen has pushed for more dialogue between the Western and Muslim worlds, yet he is a controversial figure in Turkey.
The University of Oregon's Hendrick, whose writings explore the Gülen Movement, calls him "Turkey's most famous religious personality." His movement is considered the nation's "third force" alongside the military and Turkey's ruling Adalet ve Kalkýnma Partisi, or AKP Party.
In 1999, after traveling to the USA for medical treatment, Gülen was charged in Turkey with trying to create an Islamic state. Since then he has remained in Pennsylvania. After the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service in 2007 denied his bid for a visa as an "alien of extraordinary ability in education," Gülen sued, saying his followers "had established more than 600 educational institutions" worldwide. He eventually prevailed, earning a green card in 2008. But Turkish educators in the USA continue to disavow their ties.
"Gülen is both the reason behind his schools, and he has nothing whatsoever to do with them," Hendrick says.
The schools educate as many as 35,000 students — taken together they'd make up the largest charter school network in the USA — and have imported thousands of Turkish educators over the past decade.
But the success of the schools at times has been clouded by nagging questions about what ties the schools may have to a reclusive Muslim leader in his late 60s living in exile in rural Pennsylvania.
Described by turns as a moderate Turkish nationalist, a peacemaker and "contemporary Islam's Billy Graham," Fethullah Gülen has long pushed for Islam to occupy a more central role in Turkish society. Followers of the so-called Gülen Movement operate an "education, media and business network" in more than 100 countries, says University of Oregon sociologist Joshua Hendrick.
Top administrators say they have no official ties to Gülen. And Gülen himself denies any connection to the schools. Still, documents available at various foundation websites and in federal forms required of non-profit groups show that virtually all of the schools have opened or operate with the aid of Gülen-inspired "dialogue" groups, local non-profits that promote Turkish culture. In one case, the Ohio-based Horizon Science Academy of Springfield in 2005 signed a five-year building lease with the parent organization of Chicago's Niagara Foundation, which promotes Gülen's philosophy of "peace, mutual respect, the culture of coexistence." Gülen is the foundation's honorary president. In many cases, charter school board members also serve as dialogue group leaders.
Education officials who are familiar with them say the schools aren't trying to proselytize for Gülen's vision of Turkey. While Turkish language and culture are often offered in the curriculum, there's no evidence the schools teach Islam.
Nelson Smith, president of the National Alliance of Public Charter Schools, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group, sees no evidence of an "active network. What I do see is a really impressive group of educators."
The Turkish-affiliated schools focus on math and science and often appear as top scorers on standardized tests. Still, lawmakers, researchers and parents are beginning to put the schools under the microscope for hiring practices — they import hundreds of teachers from Turkey each year — and for steps they take to keep their academic profile high.
The schools' unacknowledged ties to Gülen, they say, mock public schools' spirit of transparency.
"That's what I was always asking for," says Kelly Wayment, a former board member and parent at Beehive Science & Technology Academy in Holladay, Utah. He has pressed for more than a year to get the school to acknowledge ties to Gülen. "I said, 'Parents have a right to know.' "
Wayment says Beehive removed him from the board last year after he began investigating the decision to fire a popular Spanish teacher, saying it was based on a single classroom visit by the Tustin, Calif.-based Accord Institute of Education Research, an education services company with ties to a chain of California charter schools inspired by Gülen. He complained to Utah state Rep. Jim Dunnigan, a Republican lawmaker, who launched an audit of charter school governance — the audit is ongoing.
But Beehive's Karlene Welker says Wayment "removed himself (from the board) by pulling his students out of the school."
Utah's State Charter School Board launched an investigation last year after American teachers complained that Turkish colleagues got hiring and promotion preferences.
The charter school board looked into Beehive's ties to Islam and found them "circumstantial," but a financial probe found that the school was $337,000 in the red — and that Accord officials had loaned it thousands. The board last April revoked its charter, but in June voted to keep the school open on probation.
Dunnigan, the state lawmaker who requested the legislative audit, says the financial details, such as personal loans and public funds spent recruiting overseas faculty, are what concern him. "When they're in such financial difficulty, should they spend $53,000 to bring these people over from another country?"
But questions about hiring and academics also have arisen in Arizona, where Daisy Education Corp. runs five schools and has received certifications for 120 H-1B visas for foreign teachers since 2002, records show. In Texas, the Cosmos Foundation has filed 1,157 H1-B applications since 2001. It operates 25 Harmony schools statewide. Since 2001, Harmony has imported 731 employees using H-1Bs, surpassing all other secondary education providers nationwide. Parents last year also accused one Harmony school of "pushing out" underperforming students — a charge the Texas Education Agency confirmed.
Ed Fuller, a University of Texas-Austin researcher, found that Harmony schools throughout Texas had an "extraordinarily high" student attrition rate of about 50% for students in grades six through eight.
"It's not hard to be 'exemplary' if you lose all the kids who aren't performing," Fuller says.
Crossing the line?
At minimum, the rapid growth of the Turkish-affiliated schools shows how the freewheeling world of charter schools has changed the face of K-12 education in the USA.
In most cases, charters are loosely regulated in exchange for improved performance. A few schools are affiliated with religious groups or offer programs that others can't. But in several cases, a school's orientation has forced it to show that it's not crossing lines and endorsing religion. Examples:
•Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy, a Minnesota charter school authorized by Islamic Relief USA, a Virginia-based aid group. In 2008, the school ran afoul of state officials who said having teachers take part in voluntary Friday prayers could give students the impression that the school endorsed Islam.
•Sacramento City Unified School District in California, which for 12 years has fought a lawsuit that says the city's Waldorf schools are based on the religious beliefs of the Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner.
Whether such schools continue to grow is no small question, since President Obama has made charter school expansion a priority.
While the Turkish-affiliated schools disavow any connection to the Gülen Movement, Gülen himself maintains in legal filings that he's the inspiration behind their growth. But William Martin of Rice University in Houston says educators' assertions of "no organic connection" to Gülen are accurate.
Nonetheless, he says their efforts to minimize ties to Gülen, likely from fear of being branded Islamists, bring "unnecessary and probably counterproductive" suspicion. "I do not think they are a sinister organization."
In an e-mail interview, Mehmet Argin, principal of Tucson's Sonoran Science Academy, says his school's parent corporation, Daisy Education Corp., "has no legal or organic ties" with other schools. He cautions against linking charter schools founded by Turkish-Americans directly to the Gülen Movement "just because Turkish-Americans may be inspired by Mr. Gülen."
In an e-mail interview, Gülen denied any direct connection to these schools, rejecting the notion that there is a "Gülen Movement," but acknowledging there may be educators now in U.S. schools who have listened to his philosophy. "I have no relation with any institution in the form of ownership, board membership or any similar kind," he said.
A 'third force'
Gülen has pushed for more dialogue between the Western and Muslim worlds, yet he is a controversial figure in Turkey.
The University of Oregon's Hendrick, whose writings explore the Gülen Movement, calls him "Turkey's most famous religious personality." His movement is considered the nation's "third force" alongside the military and Turkey's ruling Adalet ve Kalkýnma Partisi, or AKP Party.
In 1999, after traveling to the USA for medical treatment, Gülen was charged in Turkey with trying to create an Islamic state. Since then he has remained in Pennsylvania. After the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service in 2007 denied his bid for a visa as an "alien of extraordinary ability in education," Gülen sued, saying his followers "had established more than 600 educational institutions" worldwide. He eventually prevailed, earning a green card in 2008. But Turkish educators in the USA continue to disavow their ties.
"Gülen is both the reason behind his schools, and he has nothing whatsoever to do with them," Hendrick says.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Thacker: Gulen Charter School Issues in Arizona
Arizona's Gulen charter schools have stopped posting the board minutes as of October 2009. It was then and there they had started covering problems with the schools. This gives one the feeling that the administrators do not wish for the specifics to get out. As a non-profit charter in Arizona a school is legally held to the standards of being transparent and those board minutes are to be posted publically.
http://www.sonoranacademy.org/district/OrganizationGovernance/BoardMinutes/tabid/68/Default.aspx
Notice on the "Interest Forms" link, how did you know about Sonoran Science Academy? they listed "door hangers" as a medium for advertising? Seriously have they gone this far to attract and to promote new students? I know one thing, when they are telling parents that there is a waiting list when there isn't one this has got to stop. Are they selling used vacuum cleaners or is there focus really on education or are they to focused on the business side of things? After all the fund raising and promotions from private business and public donations as well as grants we have to ask where did all that go?
http://www.sonoranacademy.org/district/Admissions/OnlineInterestForm/tabid/74/Default.aspx
The last thing that may be considered here on this page that strikes me as alarming as a parent and a consumer are the question Has the student ever been or currently suspended or expelled from any school?" and "Has the student ever been or currently under the supervision of a Juvenile Court?" Are these questions there help screen out certain children at risk and then using the misinformation of a waiting list as back door excuse as not to accept that child?
Under Obama's incentive of backing charter schools "Race to the Top" program and educating children as cheaply as possible has created more problems than it has cured. When charter schools decide to pick and choose students and cut back financially for programs because it may not be good for the bottom line or image then it should be more accurately and penned as a "Race to the Bank" program. Entreprenuership of charter schools will be a thing of the past and a failed experiment that parents have chosen for there kids to participate in as lab rats. While charter school owners had made a fast buck in the amount of hundreds and thousands in some cases millions, will have moved on to there next venture. Charter schools like this one are a complete waste of taxpayers and private donor money. What have we ever gotten in return? In fact there is no proof that charter schools educate better than public schools.
http://www.sonoranacademy.org/district/OrganizationGovernance/BoardMinutes/tabid/68/Default.aspx
Notice on the "Interest Forms" link, how did you know about Sonoran Science Academy? they listed "door hangers" as a medium for advertising? Seriously have they gone this far to attract and to promote new students? I know one thing, when they are telling parents that there is a waiting list when there isn't one this has got to stop. Are they selling used vacuum cleaners or is there focus really on education or are they to focused on the business side of things? After all the fund raising and promotions from private business and public donations as well as grants we have to ask where did all that go?
http://www.sonoranacademy.org/district/Admissions/OnlineInterestForm/tabid/74/Default.aspx
The last thing that may be considered here on this page that strikes me as alarming as a parent and a consumer are the question Has the student ever been or currently suspended or expelled from any school?" and "Has the student ever been or currently under the supervision of a Juvenile Court?" Are these questions there help screen out certain children at risk and then using the misinformation of a waiting list as back door excuse as not to accept that child?
Under Obama's incentive of backing charter schools "Race to the Top" program and educating children as cheaply as possible has created more problems than it has cured. When charter schools decide to pick and choose students and cut back financially for programs because it may not be good for the bottom line or image then it should be more accurately and penned as a "Race to the Bank" program. Entreprenuership of charter schools will be a thing of the past and a failed experiment that parents have chosen for there kids to participate in as lab rats. While charter school owners had made a fast buck in the amount of hundreds and thousands in some cases millions, will have moved on to there next venture. Charter schools like this one are a complete waste of taxpayers and private donor money. What have we ever gotten in return? In fact there is no proof that charter schools educate better than public schools.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Gulen Hype?
Many readers see stories and reports of Gulen schools listed here and elsewhere and believe his antagonists to be really making a stretch to link Gulen to Islamic teaching. Some may suggest "Islam is just another religion" and perhaps espouse the view "it just doesn't matter."
If this describes your sentiments I am hopeful you will invest the time to dig deeper. The threat is real and left unchecked the beast of Islam will swallow up all you hold dear. Ignoring, placation and comprimise will not prevail. Prayer and action are needed now.
Fethullah Gulen is a "religious" Muslim and is head of a Muslim cult bearing his name. That is to say his flavor of Islam is slightly different from others, but at Islam's core are basic tennants. These tennants are very much a part of the belief system of Fethullah Gulen and leadership within the Gulen school network. While these tennants may not find their way into the classroom, they do color their world view and as such these tennants are subtly imparted in the Gulen curriculum and in after hours program and field trips.
Let's look at some of these Islamic tennants:
If this describes your sentiments I am hopeful you will invest the time to dig deeper. The threat is real and left unchecked the beast of Islam will swallow up all you hold dear. Ignoring, placation and comprimise will not prevail. Prayer and action are needed now.
Fethullah Gulen is a "religious" Muslim and is head of a Muslim cult bearing his name. That is to say his flavor of Islam is slightly different from others, but at Islam's core are basic tennants. These tennants are very much a part of the belief system of Fethullah Gulen and leadership within the Gulen school network. While these tennants may not find their way into the classroom, they do color their world view and as such these tennants are subtly imparted in the Gulen curriculum and in after hours program and field trips.
Let's look at some of these Islamic tennants:
- The Quran is the supreme political document of Islam--it's political manifesto and political constitution. It is the only constitution of the nation-state Saudi Arabia, which is the home of Mecca and the Kaaba, where all mosques point, and is the birthplace of Islam.
- The Quran is a totalitarian constitution. It demands submission by anyone within its jurisdiction.
- The Quran governs all mosques everywhere in the world.
- As a political document, the Quran asserts everyone in the world is within its jurisdiction. (So far, Islam has not been able to enforce that totalitarian claim on the entire world, but has managed to do so through threat, infiltration, violence, terrorism, and coercion on roughly 20% of the world.) It is engaged in a 1400-year-long Universal Jihad to dominate the rest of the world. All mosques are its outpost headquarters.
- Central to the Quran's political mandates is prohibition of religious freedom and religious tolerance, along with denouncements of religions such as Christianity and Judaism.
- All mosque leaders must be loyal to and supportive of these political and militaristic mandates.
- The Quran as a political document also forbids separation of church and state. That is why every Islamic nation, where Islamic leaders have managed to gain power, is a theocracy, ruled by the Quran and Islamic Sharia law.
Communication to Catholics
This article was submitted to the National Catholic Reporter, July 9, 2010. Dear reader, please feel free to copy and paste this message in Catholic newsletters, Knights of Columbus, Catholic schools and similar outlets - TB
Last week Ephiphany of our Lord Catholic School in St. Louis closed its doors after 95 years. The reason? Dwindling enrollment. What will become of the facility? It was purchased by Gateway Science Academy. Gateway is but one of the dozens of names used by Gulen charter schools.
Fetullah Gulen, school founder, sought political assylum in the United States in 1998 after fleeing from the then secular Turkish government. Gulen now has dozens of campuses in the USA, paid for by you, the taxpayer. Gulen lives in Pennsylvania and directs a major Islamist movement in Turkey as well as controlling a growing number of schools in the USA. Gulen is ranked 13 among the world's most influential Muslims.
The Gulen charter schools have an excellent reputation in science and math but sadly also promotes certain Islamic beliefs.
Recently Gulen bought a church in Colorado to form a school. Gulen's most recent acquisition in St. Louis hardly creates a trend, but it does make one reflect on the history of the Ottoman Empire where Christian leadership and churches were replaced with those of Islam.
Occupation and conversion of formerly Christian buildings is classic. With the fall of Epiphany in St Louis we see the first of what will likely not be the last for the glory of Gulen and their goal of an Islamized America. Be watchful and in prayer.
Last week Ephiphany of our Lord Catholic School in St. Louis closed its doors after 95 years. The reason? Dwindling enrollment. What will become of the facility? It was purchased by Gateway Science Academy. Gateway is but one of the dozens of names used by Gulen charter schools.
Fetullah Gulen, school founder, sought political assylum in the United States in 1998 after fleeing from the then secular Turkish government. Gulen now has dozens of campuses in the USA, paid for by you, the taxpayer. Gulen lives in Pennsylvania and directs a major Islamist movement in Turkey as well as controlling a growing number of schools in the USA. Gulen is ranked 13 among the world's most influential Muslims.
The Gulen charter schools have an excellent reputation in science and math but sadly also promotes certain Islamic beliefs.
Recently Gulen bought a church in Colorado to form a school. Gulen's most recent acquisition in St. Louis hardly creates a trend, but it does make one reflect on the history of the Ottoman Empire where Christian leadership and churches were replaced with those of Islam.
Occupation and conversion of formerly Christian buildings is classic. With the fall of Epiphany in St Louis we see the first of what will likely not be the last for the glory of Gulen and their goal of an Islamized America. Be watchful and in prayer.
Friday, July 9, 2010
WRAY: Winning the Harmony Lottery
July 07, 2010 2:00 PM
While one might have expected shouting and cheers of delight as numbers were called, parents gathered to find out whether their child will be selected to go to Harmony Science Academy waited quietly as Harmony Schools superintendent Soner Tarim read the numbers aloud.
“Oh, there’s your number. You’re going to Harmony,” Brittany Powers told her 5-year-old son Nick, after his number was called.
Nick, who will be a kindergartner this fall, didn’t seem to be really challenged by regular studies in pre-K, Powers said.
“The charter school focuses on science and computers, things he’s really into. It just looked like a really good program,” Powers said.
Harmony Science Academy is slated to open in the old Dunlaps building, 2755 N. Grandview, this August, and was recently awarded a charter request by the Texas Education Agency. Since receiving their first charter in 2000, Tarim said they open about five schools a year around the state; they are opening seven this year in Texas, including this one in Odessa.
Initially, news of the new charter school was met with protests from the West Texas Patriots, a small local political group who alleged that Harmony schools have ties to Islamic extremists. After the initial flurry caused by their claims, the protesters have disappeared and Harmony is moving closer to opening its doors as students are randomly selected to fill places in the lottery.
There were 517 applications submitted to Harmony Science Academy and 300 places available. The administrators decided to hold a lottery, drawing numbers out of a fish bowl for each grade, because it seemed like the fairest way to select the students.
The school initially planned to fill just 250 spots, but administrators decided to make it 300 after they saw the amount of community interest, Tarim said. There were 50 students selected for kindergarten through second grade, and just 25 spots each grade from third to eighth grade.
Students whose numbers came up in the lottery have until July 16 to submit their paperwork to the school. After this date, any open spots will be filled by starting at the top of the waiting list, Tarim said.
About 150 people attended the charter school lottery, which was held in a lecture hall at University of Texas of the Permian Basin.
Harmony principal Hasan Sazci looked giddy with delight as he surveyed possible Harmony students.
“It’s so exciting. These are the children who are going to make up our school,” Sazci said, with wide, open smile.
Parent Anna De La Cruz was one of the first to apply for a place at the charter school and she said she was excited to know her son would be going to school there.
“I think it’s going to be a great experience for him. It’ll be more entertaining, more involved and more challenging. It was just something new so we thought we’d try it,” De La Cruz said.
BY DIANNA WRAY
Odessa American
While one might have expected shouting and cheers of delight as numbers were called, parents gathered to find out whether their child will be selected to go to Harmony Science Academy waited quietly as Harmony Schools superintendent Soner Tarim read the numbers aloud.
“Oh, there’s your number. You’re going to Harmony,” Brittany Powers told her 5-year-old son Nick, after his number was called.
Nick, who will be a kindergartner this fall, didn’t seem to be really challenged by regular studies in pre-K, Powers said.
“The charter school focuses on science and computers, things he’s really into. It just looked like a really good program,” Powers said.
Initially, news of the new charter school was met with protests from the West Texas Patriots, a small local political group who alleged that Harmony schools have ties to Islamic extremists. After the initial flurry caused by their claims, the protesters have disappeared and Harmony is moving closer to opening its doors as students are randomly selected to fill places in the lottery.
There were 517 applications submitted to Harmony Science Academy and 300 places available. The administrators decided to hold a lottery, drawing numbers out of a fish bowl for each grade, because it seemed like the fairest way to select the students.
The school initially planned to fill just 250 spots, but administrators decided to make it 300 after they saw the amount of community interest, Tarim said. There were 50 students selected for kindergarten through second grade, and just 25 spots each grade from third to eighth grade.
Students whose numbers came up in the lottery have until July 16 to submit their paperwork to the school. After this date, any open spots will be filled by starting at the top of the waiting list, Tarim said.
About 150 people attended the charter school lottery, which was held in a lecture hall at University of Texas of the Permian Basin.
Harmony principal Hasan Sazci looked giddy with delight as he surveyed possible Harmony students.
“It’s so exciting. These are the children who are going to make up our school,” Sazci said, with wide, open smile.
Parent Anna De La Cruz was one of the first to apply for a place at the charter school and she said she was excited to know her son would be going to school there.
“I think it’s going to be a great experience for him. It’ll be more entertaining, more involved and more challenging. It was just something new so we thought we’d try it,” De La Cruz said.
BY DIANNA WRAY
Odessa American
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)