CURMUDGUCATION: AL: Why The State Pulled The Plug On A Charter For The First Time

CURMUDGUCATION: AL: Why The State Pulled The Plug On A Charter For The First Time

AL: Why The State Pulled The Plug On A Charter For The First Time

Last week, the Alabama Public [sic] Charter School Commission took an unprecedented action and revoked a charter school's charter before it even managed to open. It's a tangly story, with connections to several charter school issues.

Woodland Prep was supposed to be a hot new charter school, but it came with so much baggage that there is an entire blog following the entire mess. Believe me-- I'm going to give you the broad strokes, but if you want to go down this rabbit hole, it runs deep.

At the center of all of this is Soner Tarim. Tarim has a degree from Texas A&M, is a trained biologist, and if you look at any of his bios, he sounds like a heck of a well-trained guy. He's a certified trainer via Texas Education Agency, and ran Harmony Public [sic] Schools, a Texas chain that likes to make claims like a 100% college acceptance rate. He's even connected to the Pahara Institute, a virtual education outfit connected to the Aspen Institute. Pahara-Aspen is connected to all sorts of cyberschool nonsense, and even has ties to our old friend David Hardy, the TFA-grown superintendent who crashed and burned in Lorain, Ohio. Oh, and he also is studying at Eli Broad's fake school for training superintendents.

On top of all these reform credentials, Tarim has one other important connection, and that's to the Gulen Charter empire. The Gulen chain is infamous and huge--centered around a Turkish political leader-in-exile now located in eastern PA. The chain is charged by, well, many many people of being a device for sucking up US tax dollars and using them to finance Fetulleh Gulen's. Again, there are entire websites devoted to following the many abuses and scandals.

In addition to the huge Harmony chain, Tarim also owns Unity School Services, a company that CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: AL: Why The State Pulled The Plug On A Charter For The First Time