Update on this story:
The federal agents raided 19 Concept Schools, and not just the lone one reported in the news (Indiana Math and Science Academy). The raids were completed in Indiana, Illinois, and Ohio. It will be of great interest to see how this story unfolds as the boxes of evidence are sifted through. It might just be a propitious time for some of the Gulenists to buy one-way tickets back to Turkey...
The feds went marching into the Indiana Math and Science Academy North in Indianapolis, seizing boxes of documents as part of a multi-state investigation into alleged “white collar crimes,” that the boys may have been involved in. In particular, it is alleged that the boys may have been dancing foot loose and fancy free with federal e-rate technology grants – but then again, at this point it is just “speculation.”
Kudos to the feds, but it’s just not enough. The boys at Concept Schools have been committing immigration and labor fraud from its inception; lying to the Department of Labor about not being able to fill administrative, math, science, and of course – Turkish language instructor positions (we will give them that one, considering that Turkish is not exactly a core class), in order to bring their Turkish Gulenists buddies over to fill positions that should have been filled by qualified American teachers and administrators.
And let’s not forget their other nefarious activities like Green Card fraud in which the fraudsters are once again playing the “Oh! Golly Gee federal government, we simply cannot find a qualified American so we really need a green card so that we can stay and pretend that we can help out those poor unqualified Americans.” These scammers pretend to interview qualified candidates as part of their horse and pony show, knowing full well that the qualified Americans will never get a shot at the “advertised” jobs.
Of course there’s the other great money making scam that the boys have going – the extortion agenda in which they make the Gulenists’ employees fork over up to 40% of their salaries in the name of the Tuzuk (it’s kind of an ongoing Gulen fund-raiser using American tax dollars).
But one of my all time favorites is the ongoing discriminatory practices that are lobbied against American teachers and educators. By hand-picking their fellow Gulenists and placing them in the top level administrative positions (despite having a bevy of qualified American applicants to choose from), they have systematically discriminated against American women (gender discrimination), and a great majority of applicants over the age of 40 (age discrimination). Their discriminatory practices also encompass religion (the Gulenists are Muslim), and nationality (the majority of the Gulenists are from Turkey and neighboring Turkish countries).
Again, am I the only one that sees the supreme irony in the fact that United States’ taxpayers are paying for foreign workers to come to the United States to take our jobs, and then discriminate against us using our money, all the while funneling funds back to their leader, Gulen? (Hmmm --- that might just be another criminal activity – money laundering).
So despite its’ minor progress in investigating this group of criminals, there is still far more that needs to be accomplished before the American people can feel satisfied that there education funds are indeed being used to educate their children without expensing the very people that subsidize this folly (and that would be us).
So keep on – keep on…
As a side note, there’s more incongruity in the fact that the Department of Education is taking the lead on this investigation and yet it was the Dept. of Ed. that awarded the Texas Gulenist schools over 30 million bucks in federal grants.
Below are some news articles regarding the IM&S Academy North’s investigation:
http://www.ibj.com/federal-agents-seize-documents-at-charter-school/PARAMS/article/48023
Federal agents collected documents from the Indiana Math and Science Academy on Wednesday afternoon under a court-ordered search warrant.
The search warrant was issued by a federal court in Ohio as part of a "white-collar" investigation being conducted by the Cleveland office of the FBI, the U.S. Department of Education and the Federal Communications Commission, according to FBI spokeswoman Vicki Anderson. She could not divulge any other details about the investigation.
Indiana Math and Science Academy is managed by Concept Schools Inc., an Illinois-based organization that manages 30 charter schools. Nine of those schools are in the Cleveland-Dayton area of Ohio.
Concept Schools operates three charter schools in Indianapolis, with combined enrollment of nearly 1,400. The school that was searched in Indianapolis is located at 7435 N. Keystone Ave. It enrolled 591 students in the most recent school year, which concluded last month.
Katherine Beckwith, a spokeswoman for the school, said in a prepared statement that the documents were part of an audit the U.S. Department of Education was conducting of the federal “e-rate” grant program.
The e-rate program provides money to help K-12 schools pay between 20 percent and 90 percent of the cost of phone and Internet service. Participating schools must conduct a competitive bidding process to select the most cost-effective providers of phone and Internet services, according to the U.S. Department of Education, which administers the grant program.
"Earlier this week we were asked to provide information to U.S. Department of Education officials as part of a larger federal audit of e-rate technology grants,” Beckwith said in a statement. “Those officials indicated they are auditing the funds dispersed to various schools to verify that work paid for with e-rate grants was completed as reported. We were happy to provide them with records and supporting materials detailing how e-rate grants were spent at our IMSA North school, so that they can successfully complete their audit."
http://advanceindiana.blogspot.com/2014/06/feds-investigating-indiana-math-science.html
Thursday, June 05, 2014
Feds Investigating Indiana Math & Science Academy
Agents for the FBI, U.S. Department of Education and the FCC raided the Indiana Math & Science Academy's north campus in Indianapolis yesterday afternoon according to WRTV. Investigators hauled away boxes of documents according to the report. Katherine Beckwith, a spokesperson for the school, released a statement indicating that the investigation pertained to an ongoing audit of the school's use of e-rate technology grants:
Earlier this week we were asked to provide information to U.S. Department of Education officials as part of a larger federal audit of e-rate technology grants. Those officials indicated they are auditing the funds dispersed to various schools to verify that work paid for with e-rate grants was completed as reported. We were happy to provide them with records and supporting materials detailing how e-rate grants were spent at our IMSA North school, so that they can successfully complete their audit.
The e-rate technology grants allow qualified schools to obtain discounted telecommunications, Internet and internal network services. The grants in question are funded by universal service fees all telecommunications users pay for their telephone service. The federal government has conducted a number of investigations across the country in recent years involving fraud with the grant program. In some cases, the money is misused to buy computer equipment.
Two years ago, the former owner of two technology companies in Illinois was sentenced to prison for 30 months after she was found guilty of providing bribes and kickbacks to several school officials and employees responsible for procuring bids for Internet access services under the federal E-Rate program. The fraud involved schools in several states, including Arkansas, Florida, Illinois and Louisiana. The Justice Department found that, in return for the bribes and kickbacks, school employees ceded control of the E-Rate competitive bidding process to Gloria Harper, the former co-owner of Global Networking Technologies and former owner of Computer Training Associates, allowing her to ensure E-Rate contracts at the affected schools were awarded to her companies.
The Indiana Math & Science Academy's schools in Indianapolis are charter schools authorized by the Indianapolis Mayor's office and backed by the Gulen Movement, which was founded by a controversial Turkish Islamic cleric, Fethulla Gulen, and which has been responsible for establishing charter schools all over the United States. The school is managed by Concept Schools, Inc., a Chicago-based not-for profit company affiliated with the Gulen Movement, which was established for the purpose of managing and providing consulting services to affiliated charter schools. The Math & Science Academy's board of directors, according to the school's website, includes: Kent Millard, retired pastor of St. Lukes; Bilal Eksili, executive director of the Gulen-affiliated Niagara Foundation; Pat Bacon, HR director for DePauw University; Brenda Shaheed, Vice President of Student Affairs at Martin University; Nancy Spohn of Spohn Associates; Robert French of First Construction Consulting; and Murat Dundar, a computer science professor at IUPUI.
The federal agents raided 19 Concept Schools, and not just the lone one reported in the news (Indiana Math and Science Academy). The raids were completed in Indiana, Illinois, and Ohio. It will be of great interest to see how this story unfolds as the boxes of evidence are sifted through. It might just be a propitious time for some of the Gulenists to buy one-way tickets back to Turkey...
The feds went marching into the Indiana Math and Science Academy North in Indianapolis, seizing boxes of documents as part of a multi-state investigation into alleged “white collar crimes,” that the boys may have been involved in. In particular, it is alleged that the boys may have been dancing foot loose and fancy free with federal e-rate technology grants – but then again, at this point it is just “speculation.”
Kudos to the feds, but it’s just not enough. The boys at Concept Schools have been committing immigration and labor fraud from its inception; lying to the Department of Labor about not being able to fill administrative, math, science, and of course – Turkish language instructor positions (we will give them that one, considering that Turkish is not exactly a core class), in order to bring their Turkish Gulenists buddies over to fill positions that should have been filled by qualified American teachers and administrators.
And let’s not forget their other nefarious activities like Green Card fraud in which the fraudsters are once again playing the “Oh! Golly Gee federal government, we simply cannot find a qualified American so we really need a green card so that we can stay and pretend that we can help out those poor unqualified Americans.” These scammers pretend to interview qualified candidates as part of their horse and pony show, knowing full well that the qualified Americans will never get a shot at the “advertised” jobs.
Of course there’s the other great money making scam that the boys have going – the extortion agenda in which they make the Gulenists’ employees fork over up to 40% of their salaries in the name of the Tuzuk (it’s kind of an ongoing Gulen fund-raiser using American tax dollars).
But one of my all time favorites is the ongoing discriminatory practices that are lobbied against American teachers and educators. By hand-picking their fellow Gulenists and placing them in the top level administrative positions (despite having a bevy of qualified American applicants to choose from), they have systematically discriminated against American women (gender discrimination), and a great majority of applicants over the age of 40 (age discrimination). Their discriminatory practices also encompass religion (the Gulenists are Muslim), and nationality (the majority of the Gulenists are from Turkey and neighboring Turkish countries).
Again, am I the only one that sees the supreme irony in the fact that United States’ taxpayers are paying for foreign workers to come to the United States to take our jobs, and then discriminate against us using our money, all the while funneling funds back to their leader, Gulen? (Hmmm --- that might just be another criminal activity – money laundering).
So despite its’ minor progress in investigating this group of criminals, there is still far more that needs to be accomplished before the American people can feel satisfied that there education funds are indeed being used to educate their children without expensing the very people that subsidize this folly (and that would be us).
So keep on – keep on…
As a side note, there’s more incongruity in the fact that the Department of Education is taking the lead on this investigation and yet it was the Dept. of Ed. that awarded the Texas Gulenist schools over 30 million bucks in federal grants.
Below are some news articles regarding the IM&S Academy North’s investigation:
http://www.ibj.com/federal-agents-seize-documents-at-charter-school/PARAMS/article/48023
Federal agents collected documents from the Indiana Math and Science Academy on Wednesday afternoon under a court-ordered search warrant.
The search warrant was issued by a federal court in Ohio as part of a "white-collar" investigation being conducted by the Cleveland office of the FBI, the U.S. Department of Education and the Federal Communications Commission, according to FBI spokeswoman Vicki Anderson. She could not divulge any other details about the investigation.
Indiana Math and Science Academy is managed by Concept Schools Inc., an Illinois-based organization that manages 30 charter schools. Nine of those schools are in the Cleveland-Dayton area of Ohio.
Concept Schools operates three charter schools in Indianapolis, with combined enrollment of nearly 1,400. The school that was searched in Indianapolis is located at 7435 N. Keystone Ave. It enrolled 591 students in the most recent school year, which concluded last month.
Katherine Beckwith, a spokeswoman for the school, said in a prepared statement that the documents were part of an audit the U.S. Department of Education was conducting of the federal “e-rate” grant program.
The e-rate program provides money to help K-12 schools pay between 20 percent and 90 percent of the cost of phone and Internet service. Participating schools must conduct a competitive bidding process to select the most cost-effective providers of phone and Internet services, according to the U.S. Department of Education, which administers the grant program.
"Earlier this week we were asked to provide information to U.S. Department of Education officials as part of a larger federal audit of e-rate technology grants,” Beckwith said in a statement. “Those officials indicated they are auditing the funds dispersed to various schools to verify that work paid for with e-rate grants was completed as reported. We were happy to provide them with records and supporting materials detailing how e-rate grants were spent at our IMSA North school, so that they can successfully complete their audit."
http://advanceindiana.blogspot.com/2014/06/feds-investigating-indiana-math-science.html
Thursday, June 05, 2014
Feds Investigating Indiana Math & Science Academy
Agents for the FBI, U.S. Department of Education and the FCC raided the Indiana Math & Science Academy's north campus in Indianapolis yesterday afternoon according to WRTV. Investigators hauled away boxes of documents according to the report. Katherine Beckwith, a spokesperson for the school, released a statement indicating that the investigation pertained to an ongoing audit of the school's use of e-rate technology grants:
Earlier this week we were asked to provide information to U.S. Department of Education officials as part of a larger federal audit of e-rate technology grants. Those officials indicated they are auditing the funds dispersed to various schools to verify that work paid for with e-rate grants was completed as reported. We were happy to provide them with records and supporting materials detailing how e-rate grants were spent at our IMSA North school, so that they can successfully complete their audit.
The e-rate technology grants allow qualified schools to obtain discounted telecommunications, Internet and internal network services. The grants in question are funded by universal service fees all telecommunications users pay for their telephone service. The federal government has conducted a number of investigations across the country in recent years involving fraud with the grant program. In some cases, the money is misused to buy computer equipment.
Two years ago, the former owner of two technology companies in Illinois was sentenced to prison for 30 months after she was found guilty of providing bribes and kickbacks to several school officials and employees responsible for procuring bids for Internet access services under the federal E-Rate program. The fraud involved schools in several states, including Arkansas, Florida, Illinois and Louisiana. The Justice Department found that, in return for the bribes and kickbacks, school employees ceded control of the E-Rate competitive bidding process to Gloria Harper, the former co-owner of Global Networking Technologies and former owner of Computer Training Associates, allowing her to ensure E-Rate contracts at the affected schools were awarded to her companies.
The Indiana Math & Science Academy's schools in Indianapolis are charter schools authorized by the Indianapolis Mayor's office and backed by the Gulen Movement, which was founded by a controversial Turkish Islamic cleric, Fethulla Gulen, and which has been responsible for establishing charter schools all over the United States. The school is managed by Concept Schools, Inc., a Chicago-based not-for profit company affiliated with the Gulen Movement, which was established for the purpose of managing and providing consulting services to affiliated charter schools. The Math & Science Academy's board of directors, according to the school's website, includes: Kent Millard, retired pastor of St. Lukes; Bilal Eksili, executive director of the Gulen-affiliated Niagara Foundation; Pat Bacon, HR director for DePauw University; Brenda Shaheed, Vice President of Student Affairs at Martin University; Nancy Spohn of Spohn Associates; Robert French of First Construction Consulting; and Murat Dundar, a computer science professor at IUPUI.
