A press release dated June 2, 2016 by Magnolia Schools, highlighted a letter sent to the Turkish Consulate, calling for the Turkish General Consul “To cease its aggressive campaign paid for by the Republic of Turkey to undermine the high-performing schools.”
Magnolia Schools which operates 11 publicly tax funded charter schools in California handed over a letter to the Turkish Consulate in Los Angeles, demanding that the “Turkish government stop spending substantial resources on high-powered lobbyists and lawyers to spread false information about their schools in an attempt to shut them down.”
Further, and according to the press release, the parents are demanding that the Turkish government, “Stop this disgusting campaign against our schools, our students, and our teachers.”
Magnolia claims that the letter was supported by “30 alumni and parent leaders,” which out of 4,500 school parent population, makes the “demand” less than impressive or formidable.
So to put this in perspective, Magnolia Schools is in an uproar because the Republic of Turkey has hired international and American law firms to investigate and expose the Gulen Movement and its involvement in 150 United States’ publicly funded charter schools being run by Gulen-affiliated administrators; an undertaking the United States should have done 15 years ago when these schools first took root in the United States.
Magnolia School’s CEO and Superintendent Caprice Young (who makes close to $250,000 a year) said, “It’s pathetic that American lawyers and lobbyists would take a foreign paycheck, a fat paycheck at that, to falsely undermine US public schools that are doing a great job for its highest-need students.”
Caprice Young’s outrage at US lawyers accepting foreign “paychecks,” is equally incredulous considering that Young is being paid handsomely by the very people that the Turkish government is trying to expose as the fraudsters they surely are. Young’s indignation seemingly vanishes when it comes to cashing in her “fat paycheck,” one that is being underwritten by the Gulenists duplicitous activities at the expense of US tax payers.
Young bemoans the political “strife” between the Gulenists and Turkey, but doesn’t seem remotely concerned about Magnolia’s direct involvement in providing “educational asylum,” to her benefactors, the Gulenists -- effectively placing her, Magnolia’s CEO, directly in the center of this “disgusting campaign,” or more specifically as Young states, “a foreign political proxy war.”
Now Magnolia’s latest reasoning for importing Turkish Gulenist teachers to displace US teachers has gone from “a shortage of highly qualified math and science teachers,” to “hiring teachers who have fled the country (Turkey) due to escape growing extremism.”
Further, the “highly qualified” Turkish teachers “escaping extremism,” rarely – if ever – enter US classrooms with teaching degrees, teaching experience, or proficiency in English language skills, rendering them “highly unqualified,” to teach our “highest need kids.”
Young’s claims that Magnolia’s students are “being used as pawns in a political game taking place 7,000 miles away,” is nothing more than Gulenist hyperbole and grand-standing hysteria. In fact, it’s the US tax payers and its American educators who are being used as Gulenists “pawns” – and not 7,000 miles away -- but instead, right in our own backyard.
If anyone is a “pawn” in this folly, it’s the United States’ tax payers that are unseeingly financing this continuing wide-spread rip-off being perpetrated by the Gulenists and under the pretext of “quality education.”
The United States tax payers and parents that are sending their children to the 150 Gulen affiliated charter schools have every right to know who the people are that are running their schools – and if it takes the Turkish government to do the job and expose the truth -- then so be it.
If the CEO and superintendent of Magnolia Schools cannot control the actions of the Gulenists that employ her, what makes her believe that she can “demand,” that the Turkish government cease its investigation into the United States’ Gulenists?
Young might want to ask Fetullah Gulen how that mind-set worked out for him.
Magnolia Schools which operates 11 publicly tax funded charter schools in California handed over a letter to the Turkish Consulate in Los Angeles, demanding that the “Turkish government stop spending substantial resources on high-powered lobbyists and lawyers to spread false information about their schools in an attempt to shut them down.”
Further, and according to the press release, the parents are demanding that the Turkish government, “Stop this disgusting campaign against our schools, our students, and our teachers.”
Magnolia claims that the letter was supported by “30 alumni and parent leaders,” which out of 4,500 school parent population, makes the “demand” less than impressive or formidable.
So to put this in perspective, Magnolia Schools is in an uproar because the Republic of Turkey has hired international and American law firms to investigate and expose the Gulen Movement and its involvement in 150 United States’ publicly funded charter schools being run by Gulen-affiliated administrators; an undertaking the United States should have done 15 years ago when these schools first took root in the United States.
Magnolia School’s CEO and Superintendent Caprice Young (who makes close to $250,000 a year) said, “It’s pathetic that American lawyers and lobbyists would take a foreign paycheck, a fat paycheck at that, to falsely undermine US public schools that are doing a great job for its highest-need students.”
Caprice Young’s outrage at US lawyers accepting foreign “paychecks,” is equally incredulous considering that Young is being paid handsomely by the very people that the Turkish government is trying to expose as the fraudsters they surely are. Young’s indignation seemingly vanishes when it comes to cashing in her “fat paycheck,” one that is being underwritten by the Gulenists duplicitous activities at the expense of US tax payers.
Young bemoans the political “strife” between the Gulenists and Turkey, but doesn’t seem remotely concerned about Magnolia’s direct involvement in providing “educational asylum,” to her benefactors, the Gulenists -- effectively placing her, Magnolia’s CEO, directly in the center of this “disgusting campaign,” or more specifically as Young states, “a foreign political proxy war.”
Now Magnolia’s latest reasoning for importing Turkish Gulenist teachers to displace US teachers has gone from “a shortage of highly qualified math and science teachers,” to “hiring teachers who have fled the country (Turkey) due to escape growing extremism.”
Further, the “highly qualified” Turkish teachers “escaping extremism,” rarely – if ever – enter US classrooms with teaching degrees, teaching experience, or proficiency in English language skills, rendering them “highly unqualified,” to teach our “highest need kids.”
Young’s claims that Magnolia’s students are “being used as pawns in a political game taking place 7,000 miles away,” is nothing more than Gulenist hyperbole and grand-standing hysteria. In fact, it’s the US tax payers and its American educators who are being used as Gulenists “pawns” – and not 7,000 miles away -- but instead, right in our own backyard.
If anyone is a “pawn” in this folly, it’s the United States’ tax payers that are unseeingly financing this continuing wide-spread rip-off being perpetrated by the Gulenists and under the pretext of “quality education.”
The United States tax payers and parents that are sending their children to the 150 Gulen affiliated charter schools have every right to know who the people are that are running their schools – and if it takes the Turkish government to do the job and expose the truth -- then so be it.
If the CEO and superintendent of Magnolia Schools cannot control the actions of the Gulenists that employ her, what makes her believe that she can “demand,” that the Turkish government cease its investigation into the United States’ Gulenists?
Young might want to ask Fetullah Gulen how that mind-set worked out for him.