Gulen operated charter school Indiana Math and Science Academy latest FBI raid under sealed search and seizure

Federal agents collected documents from the Indiana Math and Science Academy on Wednesday afternoon under a court-ordered search warrant.

The search warrant was issued by a federal court in Ohio as part of a "white-collar" investigation being conducted by the Cleveland office of the FBI, the U.S. Department of Education and the Federal Communications Commission, according to FBI spokeswoman Vicki Anderson. She could not divulge any other details about the investigation.

Indiana Math and Science Academy is managed by Concept Schools Inc., an Illinois-based organization that manages 30 charter schools. Nine of those schools are in the Cleveland-Dayton area of Ohio.

Concept Schools operates three charter schools in Indianapolis, with combined enrollment of nearly 1,400. The school that was searched in Indianapolis is located at 7435 N. Keystone Ave. It enrolled 591 students in the most recent school year, which concluded last month.

Katherine Beckwith, a spokeswoman for the school, said in a prepared statement that the documents were part of an audit the U.S. Department of Education was conducting of the federal “e-rate” grant program.

The e-rate program provides money to help K-12 schools pay between 20 percent and 90 percent of the cost of phone and Internet service. Participating schools must conduct a competitive bidding process to select the most cost-effective providers of phone and Internet services, according to the U.S. Department of Education, which administers the grant program.

"Earlier this week we were asked to provide information to U.S. Department of Education officials as part of a larger federal audit of e-rate technology grants,” Beckwith said in a statement. “Those officials indicated they are auditing the funds dispersed to various schools to verify that work paid for with e-rate grants was completed as reported. We were happy to provide them with records and supporting materials detailing how e-rate grants were spent at our IMSA North school, so that they can successfully complete their audit."

http://www.ibj.com/federal-agents-seize-documents-at-charter-school/PARAMS/article/48023

 

http://www.theindychannel.com/news/local-news/fbi-investigates-local-charter-school

 

Horizon Science Academy downtown Toledo, OH has closed

Toledo school has announced it will close its doors for good at the end of the current school year.
Horizon Science Academy Toledo Downtown has decided to voluntarily close its 425 Jefferson Avenue facility in June.
The public charter school's board of directors made the decision after considering the best interests of students and parents and the desire to educate students in the best possible facilities.
Administrators feel the current downtown location does not allow them to adequately fulfill their promise to parents and students. TARTA no longer stops directly across the street from the school, posing a problem for students traveling to and from the facility.
The K-8 students will be given the option to transfer to one of Horizon's two other locations: Horizon Science Academy Springfield and Horizon Science Academy Toledo.
"Both locations are housed in exceptionally well-equipped facilities that contain the state-of-the-art science laboratories, regulation-size gymnasiums, outdoor play spaces, and technology-rich computer labs that the administrators feel their students rightfully deserve," according to a statement from the school.
HSA Toledo Downtown opened in 2010. During the 2013-2014 school year, the location served 275 K-8 students.

http://www.northwestohio.com/news/story.aspx?id=1049820#.U4uT-OkU_mR

Are Madigan-Linked Charter Schools Fueling Turkeys Corruption Scandal? - Gapers Block Mechanics | Chicago

Are Madigan-Linked Charter Schools Fueling Turkeys Corruption Scandal? - Gapers Block Mechanics | Chicago

Horizon Science Academies part of Gulen Concept Schools are racist against African Americans

In this tweet CEO of Concept Schools Salim Ucan refers to African American Children as "AA Kids"

Here the Concept Schools boasts about the Turkish Olympiads and takes a photo of their rehearsals African American Girls in Turkish Costumes.  Why are they not allowing a show case of African American culture.

Gulen Charter Schools in Illinois effected by new law to abolish state charter school commission

State Senator Kimberly Lightford

http://politics.suntimes.com/article/springfield/senate-votes-abolish-state-charter-school-commission/fri-05232014-946pm

PRINGFIELD — Reigniting a debate over the reach of charter schools, the Senate moved Friday to abolish a controversial state panel empowered to resurrect charter-school applications that had been rejected earlier by local school systems.

The measure sponsored by Sen. Kimberly Lightford, D-Maywood, passed the Senate 34-22 and now goes back to the House for possible action next week.

Her plan would abolish the State Charter School Commission, which Lightford said had become politicized in its primary function of deciding whether to overturn decisions by school boards that had rejected charter-school applications.

Under the legislation, that panel’s authority would shift to a newly created board to be impaneled by state schools Supt. Christopher Koch, with final decisions on rejected charter-school applications resting with the State Board of Education.

Lightford accused the commission of having worked with rejected applicants to strengthen their applications and thus help them open, which she maintained was not the purpose of the panel.

“We don’t need a charter school commission that’s trying to encourage more charter school applicants who have bad applications,” Lightford told her colleagues.

“You don’t want a bad school coming to your district. You don’t. If they don’t qualify, then you don’t want them in your school district. It’s unfair the city of Chicago is getting flooded with all these charter schools that aren’t performing,” Lightford said.

Lawmakers and Gov. Pat Quinn created the state charter commission in 2011. It was given the power to override local schools officials who reject applications for new charter schools and force taxpayers to fund charters that it allows to open. 

The commission exercised that power for the first time last year, clearing Des Plaines-based Concept Schools to open two new charter campuses that Chicago Public Schools officials had rejected.

The Sun-Times reported in December that Turkish-American nonprofit groups with ties to Concept Schools have hosted House Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago) and many other Illinois lawmakers on trips to Turkey in recent years. 

And records show the state charter commission’s Springfield lobbyist is Liz Brown-Reeves  —  a former Madigan aide who accompanied lawmakers on their trip to Turkey in 2012.

A Madigan spokesman said in December that the speaker did not see any need to scrap the commission.  But Madigan abstained when the House voted 78-33 on an earlier version of the legislation in March. 

The proposal would put the commission out of business on July 1.

Since it came into being, the commission has received most of its funding from private organizations that frequently and heavily contribute to the charter-school cause. That included $200,000 from the Walton Family Foundation, linked to the founders of Wal-Mart. 

But many labor leaders and local school district officials have not been fans of the commission.

At the January meeting of the Chicago Board of Education, Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis said of the commission: “I will sit on that table with you, begging and screaming to get rid of that law. I bet you if we worked on that together, Springfield would respond.”

School Board President David Vitale replied, “Let’s join hands.”

A school district in Gurnee sued last week to reverse the commission’s recent decision to re-authorize the Prairie Crossing Charter School. Schools officials there alleged that the commission-approved charter campus siphons funding intended for the district’s “at risk” students to serve middle-class white or Asian children.

 

Gulen Schools Need Investigation

Here is an article that appeared in the Ohio papers regarding the Gulen operated Horizon Science Academys.  Their report card is at the bottom of the article and they should get an F.  below average

http://www.athensohiotoday.com/blogs/guido_stempel_iii/gulen-schools-need-investigated/article_94db8180-a2c7-54b7-9559-0980118434f6.html

Gulen schools need investigated

By Guido H. Stempel III | Posted: Friday, April 25, 2014 5:26 pm

We expect charter schools to be different, but to say the Gulen Charter Schools are different is a considerable understatement.

There are 19 in Ohio, and they are owned by Fethullah Gulen, a moderate Islamic cleric from Turkey.

Gulen has been a political activist, but he is out of favor with the present regime in Turkey. He now resides in a rural community in eastern Pennsylvania. U.S. immigration officials tried to deport him a few years ago, but in 2008 he applied for and received a green card. So we have 19 schools in Ohio run by an immigrant who does not reside in Ohio. The schools are in Cincinnati, Columbus, Cleveland, Dayton, Toledo and Youngstown.

Most of the Gulen schools in Ohio go by the impressive sounding name Horizon Science Academy. Their web sites are impressive.

Ohio was the first state that Gulen started schools in, back in 1999, but he now has 139 schools in 26 states as well as schools in a number of other countries. His schools have been investigated by the FBI and the U.S. Department of Education.

Most administrators and many of the teachers are Turkish, and there is some suspicion that there have been violations of U.S. immigration laws. The Turkish employees are expected to pay 40 percent of their salaries back into the Gulen organization.

Because the Ohio legislature allows charter schools to operate in secret, it is difficult to assess what the Gulen Charter schools are doing.

Is there a religious slant to the curriculum? When they apply to operate in Ohio, they say there isn’t, but what they say and what they do may not be the same, and there is little oversight of these schools by the Ohio Department of Education. Some observers feel the Gulen operation is a religious cult.

How much of Ohio taxpayers money do they get? It’s not public information, so we can only guess. I will open the guessing at $25 million, but it could be twice that.

You cannot find out who their board members are or when they meet. You also cannot find out how they spend the money. Some Gulen schools in other states are suspected of favoring Turkish vendors and not following normal bidding procedures.

There is one piece of public information — how they do on the state proficiency tests. The Department of Education reports an overall figure that includes math scores, science scores and progress toward graduation. The figures are rather conclusive. Seventeen of the 19 Gulen schools get an F. One gets an A and one gets a B.

I find it difficult to understand why the Department of Education and the Legislature are not investigating the Gulen schools. Of course, the Legislature has given charter schools special status. They are not examined as closely as public schools, and the regulations are so broad that it is difficult to prove that a charter school is doing anything wrong.

Yet here we have group of schools owned and operated by someone who is not a citizen. They get millions of tax dollars and perform poorly. There is a religious connection that is unusual, if not unique. It is time to start asking some hard questions.

* * *

Guido H. Stempel III is a distinguished professor emeritus in the E. W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University.
Ohio School report cards- Horizon Science Academys get an F

 

Turkish Olympiad-A Gulen "show": Turkish Olympiads a danger to attendees, students ...

Turkish Olympiad-A Gulen "show": Turkish Olympiads a danger to attendees, students ...: Foreign Minister Davutoğlu is seen with government officials and foreign children during the closing ceremony of the Eighth Turkish Oly...