"A child's learning is the function more of the characteristics of his classmates than those of the teacher." James Coleman, 1972

Wednesday, June 02, 2010

Public Charter School Dollars and Turkish Political Conversions

Did you think KIPP was the largest charter chain in the U.S. with its 82 schools?  Think again.  It seems that charter schools are not just for corporate indoctrination and happiness training of poor children, anymore. 

Sharon Higgins has been doing some digging on a confederation of charters in a bunch of states that are making test score headlines while doing political conversion work among tens of thousands of schoolchildren.  Read Sharon's piece.  Any reporters out there at the EWA interested in something other than press releases from Arne Duncan?  A clip:
. . . .From an article in The Irish Times (January 2010) about Gülen schools in Ethiopia which quotes Hakan Yavuz, a Turkish professor who co-edited a book on the Gulen phenomenon and describes the movement as the "most powerful force in Turkey." He says its main goal has been the "Islamisation" of Turkish society:
Yavuz argues that there is a wider agenda as manifested by its increasingly global reach.

"The movement, which is rooted in selective vision of the glorious Ottoman past, has its own imperial vision of turning Turkey into a global power," he says.
This piece from the official Web site talks about the progress of the movement and concludes:
At that point, it should be noted that, the history of the movement in Europe and in Muslim World is quite short, but as a beginning, they have a good start in the Netherlands with almost all sorts of institutions and activities, in the United States with a striking rise in the amount of state-financed charter schools and in Kurdish controlled Northern Iraq with seven schools and despite a pretty slippery ground.
Yup, the official organization writes about there being a "movement" on behalf of another nation, and that American charter schools can be used as a vehicle for furthering its cause. . . .

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