Tuesday, May 8, 2012

The Nation’s Largest Charter Chain « Diane Ravitch's blog

The Nation’s Largest Charter Chain « Diane Ravitch's blog:


The Nation’s Largest Charter Chain

Most people think that KIPP is the nation’s largest charter chain, but that’s not correct. KIPP has 109 schools. The Gulen Movement has 135 charter schools.
I mentioned in my last post that the Gulen network is associated with a Turkish imam. One of my Twitter correspondents asked me to explain.
I am attaching two links. One is by Sharon Higgins, an independent researcher who has followed the growth of the Gulen Movement’s charters, the other is a page-one article from the New York Times about the imam Fethullah Gulen; it mentions his charters in passing.
There are legitimate questions to be raised about public dollars funding schools that are tied to a cleric, as well as questions about a charter chain that has close ties with another nation.
Public schools have a civic purpose: they are supposed to


For More Information  

About Gulen charter schools


CHARTER SCHOOL SCANDALS

Be sure to check out two other Great blogs:

About Gulen charter schools

In 1999, members of a cult-like religious group known as the Gulen Movement opened their first charter school in the U.S. Now, for the 2011-2012 school year, 131 charter schools are operating in 26 states as an increasingly well-rooted network which provides the Gulen Movement with daily access to the minds of ~31,000-35,000 students, and yearly access to hundreds of millions of hard-earned tax dollars. How did it come to pass that most Americans are completely unaware of this phenomenon?