“Texas Legislature To Launch Investigation Of Charter Schools.” CBS Dallas / Fort Worth 29 Jun 2011
The Texas Legislature ordered an investigation on Tuesday of the largest charter school network in the state after news organizations reported potential ties to a Muslim organization and misuse of public funds.
These concerns about Houston based-Harmony Public Schools helped lead to the initial defeat of Senate Bill 1, which had to pass before the budget could be balanced, because of provisions that provided guarantees for charter school bonds.
“We were uncomfortable voting for that bill unless we were sure that those funds were being properly spent,” said Rep. Phil King (R – Weatherford). The bill allowed charter schools to achieve AAA bond ratings, which decreases the cost of insurance rates and issuance costs.
King said a caucus after the bill’s defeat brought out these concerns, and he suggested an investigation into the charter school network as a stipulation of passing the funding. This guarantee led to the passage of the bill on the second vote.
The concerns stemmed from a New York Times article published earlier this month [see below] that drew a connection between Harmony and Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish preacher of moderate Islam who has built up a worldwide network of followers.
The article also insinuated the school gave preference to Turkish-run companies when choosing building contractors and food suppliers when cheaper options were available, as well as hired international teachers, specifically from Turkey, who might not have been qualified.
“These are serious allegations,” King said. “As public officials, it is our duty to look into them.”...
Jennifer Sarver of Burson-Marsteller, the public relations firm representing Harmony, said the New York Times article that prompted this investigation was inaccurate and “full of bias.”...
When CBSDFW.com contacted [NY Times reporter Stephanie] Saul, she rejected charge of bias and said the story was “100 percent accurate.”
“I think that the report stands on its own,” Saul said. “The story lays out a number of details about their construction arrangements and if the reader takes away from it that they feel it’s improper, then that’s how the reader interprets the story.”...
Sarver denied any connections with the Gulen organization, and said the only interest in hiring contractors to build schools was the speed at which it could get done...
While Duckett echoed Sarver’s feelings that the article and the investigation were unfair, King said the Legislature’s decision did not reflect feelings of bias within the House or Senate.
“This investigation is absolutely not any type of witch hunt,” he said, “it’s just an effort to make sure public dollars are being used appropriately.”...
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“Charter Schools Tied to Turkey Grow in Texas.” New York Times 6 June 2011
TDM Contracting was only a month old when it won its first job, an $8.2 million contract to build the Harmony School of Innovation, a publicly financed charter school that opened last fall in San Antonio.
It was one of six big charter school contracts TDM and another upstart company have shared since January 2009, a total of $50 million in construction business. Other companies scrambling for work in a poor economy wondered: How had they qualified for such big jobs so fast?
The secret lay in the meteoric rise and financial clout of the Cosmos Foundation, a charter school operator founded a decade ago by a group of professors and businessmen from Turkey. Operating under the name Harmony Schools, Cosmos has moved quickly to become the largest charter school operator in Texas, with 33 schools receiving more than $100 million a year in taxpayer funds.
While educating schoolchildren across Texas, the group has also nurtured a close-knit network of businesses and organizations run by Turkish immigrants. The businesses include not just big contractors like TDM but also a growing assemblage of smaller vendors selling school lunches, uniforms, after-school programs, Web design, teacher training and even special education assessments.
Some of the schools’ operators and founders, and many of their suppliers, are followers of Fethullah Gulen, a charismatic Turkish preacher of a moderate brand of Islam whose devotees have built a worldwide religious, social and nationalistic movement in his name. Gulen followers have been involved in starting similar schools around the country — there are about 120 in all, mostly in urban centers in 25 states, one of the largest collections of charter schools in America...
But an examination by The New York Times of the Harmony Schools in Texas casts light on a different area: the way they spend public money. And it raises questions about whether, ultimately, the schools are using taxpayer dollars to benefit the Gulen movement — by giving business to Gulen followers, or through financial arrangements with local foundations that promote Gulen teachings and Turkish culture...
Harmony’s history underscores the vast latitude that many charter school systems have been granted to spend public funds. While the degree of oversight varies widely from state to state, the rush to approve charter schools has meant that some barely monitor charter school operations.
In Washington, concern is growing. A number of charter schools across the country have been accused of a range of improprieties in recent years, from self-dealing on contracts to grade-changing schemes and inflating attendance records to increase financing...
TDM, builder of the new San Antonio school, is one of several companies that stand out — for the size of their contracts, their seemingly overnight success or both. One of TDM’s owners, records and interviews show, is Kemal Oksuz, president of the Turquoise Council for Americans and Eurasians, an umbrella group over several foundations established by Gulen followers. Since TDM was formed in November 2009, its work has involved only Harmony Schools and a job at the Turquoise Council headquarters, according to a company accountant...
Last year, local contractors questioned the fairness of bidding on two Harmony renovation jobs in the Austin area. On one job, in the suburb of Pflugerville, the low bidder, at $1.17 million, was a well-known Texas company, Harvey-Cleary. The job went to Atlas Texas Construction and Trading, even though its bid was several hundred thousand dollars higher. Atlas, with offices in Texas and Turkey, shows up on a list of Gulen-affiliated companies in a 2006 cable from the American Consul General in Istanbul, Deborah K. Jones, that was released by WikiLeaks...
Many of the furnishings are imported from Turkey — at a San Antonio school, the entryway features a turquoise arch, and the lobby ceiling is decorated with images of the sun and a star and crescent moon. Harmony advertises that its teachers “are recruited from around the world,” but most of its foreign teachers are Turkish men, and all but a handful of the 33 principals are men from Turkey. In addition to the standard foreign languages, the schools offer instruction in Turkish. They encourage students and teachers, even parents, to join subsidized trips to Turkey...
Around the country, the most persistent controversy involving the schools — and the one most covered in the news — centers on the hundreds of Turkish teachers and administrators working on special visas.
The schools say they bring in foreign teachers because of a shortage of Americans qualified to teach math and science. Of the 1,500 employees at the Texas Harmony schools this year, Dr. Tarim said, 292 were on the special “H-1B” visas, meant for highly skilled foreign workers who fill a need unmet by the American workforce.
But some teachers and their unions, as well as immigration experts, have questioned how earnestly the schools worked to recruit American workers. They say loopholes have made it easy to bring in workers with relatively ordinary skills who substitute for American workers.
“I think they have a preference for these H-1B workers,” said Dr. Ronil Hira, a professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology who has studied the visa program. “It may be a preference for a variety of reasons — lower wages or a network where they’ve got family or friends and connections and this is a stepping stone for them to get a green card.”
The American jobs, often offered to educators at Gulen schools around the world or graduates of Gulen universities, also provide a way for the movement to expand its ranks in this country, Dr. Yavuz said...
* Re Harmony's response to the article: http://perimeterprimate.blogspot.com/2011/06/new-york-times-vs-harmony-public.html
For more information about the Gulen movement and Cosmos Foundation's schools, read these entries posted by C.A.S.I.L.I.P.S.:
- Charter schools offer numerous business opportunities
- Does Harmony Science Academy have a connection to Fethullah Gulen? Two Turkish journalists weigh in.
- Harmony Schools: Fact-Checking
- Harmony Science Academy, Cosmos Foundation: Evidence of Affiliation with the Gulen Movement
- How the Harmony schools serve the Gulen Movement
- Importing English teachers from Turkey
- ISWEEEP - Evidence of affiliation with the Gulen Movement (ISWEEEP is an annual "international" science fair in Houston Texas, sponsored and run by the Cosmos Foundation, and for students attending Gulen schools)
- Winning over Texas politicians
