Gulen charter school timeline
The largest charter school chain in the U.S. is run by the members of the Gulen movement, a controversial, secretive, religious, and highly nationalistic group out of Turkey that is operating in a manner with no exact precedent. The "movement" simultaneously promotes Islam, Turkey, and GM-affiliated Turkish businesses as it pursues a strategic, power-accumulating geopolitical agenda. To accomplish its goals, the movement conducts a range of activities associated with its schools, interfaith dialog and Turkish culture-promoting organizations, media outlets, and business organizations. Members of the Gulen movement make up only a small portion of the Turkish people, but the group is very powerful there, as well as abroad, because of its unified, tight-knit, and ambitious nature.
The Gulen movement has been engaging in an aggressive school and organizational global expansion for two decades and opened their first charter school in Ohio in 1999. Today the Gulen charter school network in the U.S. consists of 134 schools in 26 states enrolling approximately 35,000 students. In comparison, the well-known non-profit Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) operates 109 schools in 20 states, and the large for-profit Imagine Schools company operates 75schools in 12 states.
Gulen charter schools are founded and controlled (finances, hiring and firing, marketing and
