Despite good schools, north Fulton parents line up for new math and science charter school

Why? Cool, “cachet” name. Exclusivity. Important focus. And a smaller sized school. So, without any street cred built up yet, parents are lined up.

Heck, for my 3 kids, I would have tried to get them in, due to their interests from an early age.

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Gosh, I can’t imagine having a good zone school (particularly for elementary school) and voluntarily driving my children to another school. And then, spending the next 10 years driving them around everytime they wanted to visit a school friend, because that friend did not live in the neighborhood.

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“It is interesting to see families flock to a new start-up charter when they have successful elementary schools in their neighborhoods.”

I pulled my son out of his high performing elementary school last year and we home schooled. The teacher had to teach three different math levels grouped by table. In his class, my son was one of only two working on the accelerated level. Guess how much attention he received? This of course was not the teachers fault.

When my other son (also in Fulton, but a long time ago) was in elementary school, they moved the kids around for math and reading and had whole classes at each level. Worked so much better!

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What’s especially interesting to me is the 4+ million dollars that were set aside for opening this charter elementary school in the same year that Fulton had it’s elementary music program cut county wide. The music program, which had been in existence for decades, cost just a little less to benefit students all over Fulton. I understand the political (Which is to say, financial) pull of the charter advocates, but in a year with a historic revenue shortfall I was shocked that this charter made it through.

Fortunately the other charter that sought approval for this year did not make it.

I’ve spoken to some parents who are applying, including two high acheiving students from my daughter’s class, and I understand their desire for a selective school. I also believe this charter’s higher grade branch, unlike most charter schools around the country, actually does outperform our local schools. Also it’s great PR for our county… and yet, thousands of students lost out on very important programs (1-3rd grade parapros, guidance counselors, foreign language parent liaisons) in Fulton this year while just a few dozen are going to benefit from this charter. I have grave concerns about where this all is going to end up, about how much money will be wrung out of the larger system for the benefit of the few.

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How are the students chosen, BTW, and what requirements are there for the children and parents?

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Ros Dalton is right on in the assessment of programs for the few, versus good programs cut that would have so positively impacted the many. The comments about snobbish exclusivity are also correct. The reason that the high school has fewer students? They drop out of the charters and go back to their home schools to get the music, art, and many other programs that aren’t offered at the Math & Science charters. I personally know a lot of middle school students who went back to their home schools for the band and orchestra programs that are only after school at the charter. When I think about all of those elementary instrumental music programs, I could just cry for those county wide young students.

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This school and its affiliates are members of the network of U.S. charter schools (over 100) run by followers of the Gulen Movement. Gulen is a Turkish religious leader (Islam). The Georgia schools are operated by the Grace Institute for Educational Research and Resources, Inc. which also operates five charter schools in Florida.

One of the characteristics of these schools is that the founders and school site administrators are 99% Turkish or Turkic individuals. Another feature (which is never mentioned on their charter school petitions) is the encouragement of student participation in Turkish cultural activities such as Turkish clubs, travel to Turkey (frequently referred to as a “Europe” or “international” trip), and class trips to Turkish festivals, as well as elaborately costumed student participation in regional Turkish Olympiads.

The Istanbul Center hosts the Atlanta Turkish Festival where students from these charter schools participate. You can see American students celebrating the glory of Turkey by doing a YouTube search for “southeast turkish olympiads.” Naturally, the known Gulenist media outlets, Ebru TV and Zaman cover the event. Google “Istanbul Center” + gulen.

For a list of the U.S. charter schools, google “gulen school network update.”

To read about Gulen’s international movement of schools as a way to influence future generations, google “gulen schools here and abroad.”

These are things your community should know.

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Perhaps the reason for parents to line up for the new school is one word:SUCCESS.
For the second year in a row, FSA Charter MS received the highest score in ALL subject areas among ALLl Fulton County Middle Schools!

See yourself at:
http://fultonscience.org/Files/Achievements/2009-2010/ITBS_2009.pdf

https://portal.fultonschools.org/departments/Org_Advancement/Assessment_Accountability/Documents/Test_Scores/ITBS-2009.pdf

https://portal.fultonschools.org/departments/Org_Advancement/Assessment_Accountability/Documents/Test_Scores/ITBS-2008.pdf

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I think I have a clue about the popularity of the math/science charter school. I’m a retired teacher (N Fulton schools) and keep up with hundreds of my former students on Facebook. Most are in age bracket 21-30. I’ve noticed a hard divide being created in these young adults from upper middle-class families. Those with college degrees in math or hard science are prospering. The others are not. I think that parents are hoping to get a “leg-up.” Don’t think it will work unless the child has the aptitude. North Fulton teahes math/science well. Most students just don’t have math minds beyond a certain level. Family money and connections don’t help in these fields.

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My son is going to attend this school. He was not getting challenged in Math, despite in being in advanced math. The choices for Math in the public schools is either regular or advanced, which means the same curriculum, but a little more work or word problems. The other option , accelerated Math is a far reach for most kids, since its essentially skipping a grade. My other reason for sending him to the new elementary school is that our feeder middle school is one of the worse in N Fulton, basically not even making AYP last year on first try. I heard there is a new principal for that school that is going to turn things around, but in the meantime, I want to guarantee that my son gets into FSA. From what I understand all kids who are in Sunshine automatically get into FSA. FSA is the top middle school in the county, with extremely high CRCT ratings.
I wait to see how this school will turn out. My son is very excited to be attending. Also, the after school programs are substatially more than what my current public school offers.

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@ HS Teacher: Part of the affordability will likely come from a combination of slightly lower pay scale for teachers (who will submit to it because of the flexibility the academic environment allows them), more efficient use of resources (i.e most of the central office overhead expense goes away) and 3rd party financial support ( think someone in the blog indicated that this institution was supported by a greater cultural collective)

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To Ros Dalton. I don’t know where you got your information that 4+ million dollars were set aside for the opening of the new Fulton Sunshine Academy. There is no such cost being paid by Fulton County. This and other charter schools are required to provide and PAY for their own facilities. Fulton County Schools provide no assistance with any start-up costs. The school WILL receive a $400,000 implementation grant from the federal DOE which will be passed through the Georgia DOE. So if 4 million has been set aside for the school, it is from private sources–not your taxes.

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Public charter schools are open to any student living in Fulton County. Students are selected randomly through a lottery system, and the school has no real influence in what students come to their school. I don’t understand why it is important to know the background of an administration’s ethnic background when they are providing your child with the best education possible. If it’s not for you, then don’t send your children there.

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Pandoora,

No one forces you to send your kid(s) to this school. If there is any problem with the founders and the legal foreign teachers of FSA, our country has the top police officers, prosecutors and FBI personnel capable of taking care of them. You are completely out of line by creating an atmosphere that may confuse parents’ minds. This is a country believes in the freedom of choice. If people are happy with education of FSA or the other charters, how dare you spend your hours in front of your computer and tell goofy stories about charter schools created by your xenophobic mind. You dedicate yourself to find stories in different online blogs and manipulate the articles or blogs. Keep your hands off of that keyboard of yours. Do something valuable for yourself. Surf the web and visit the bigoted and intolerant and parochial web sites. Why don’t you do that?

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@john konop, maybe you don’t know, but all public and charter,schools are required to teach the Georgia Performance Standards. All 1st-8th and 9th-10th graders have to take the same CRCT and EOCT tests, respectively. Only private schools can do what they want to do.

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It isn’t about weather or not we choose to send our kids at a school like this one. It is the very fact that our tax dollars are paying for it. You don’t have a choice. This is a gulen school and an Islamic Cult. Have you ever seen a cultist anything end well in this country? The point is charter schools are unaccontable for there actions. I am sure also if you look at the enrollment forms on this school you have questions like, has your child ever been expelled? Has your child ever had exsessive absents? Has your child ever had diciplinary problems? These questions are there to screen out potentiol problems for the school and to cream the good students. A charter school is a public school and these questions are discriminary. I would also like to point the schools business model is sexist and racist. Do you see any women are Americans on the board of directors? Do you see any from the Vice principal on up? That is an Islamic custom. Lets look at the Turkish Olympiads. You tube the videos. Children singing and dancing and waving the ISlamic flag of Turkey. They may teach Islam directly to the students, but it is Islamic in the intentions. Your taxes are paying for this. Do some research on this and just pull your kids away ASAP!! There is no evidence your child is getting a better education at these schools. If you really don’t beleive me go to a school board meeting. As a woman and an American you voice and vote will be drowned out. Turkish men 3 to one they already decided the vote before you walk in the door. Its ran there way and not yours in those meetings. I have heard this from different parts of the country. Parents and teachers are starting to speak out. All I ask to be fare; take your time and read up and read comments left by others. There is deffinatly funny business going on between these schools and Turkish non profits. Connect the dots and the money going in and out still doesn’t add up.

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I understand how this Gulen charter school business can get your head spinning, as I experienced that myself when it first came on my radar. Separating what is real from some xenophopic or Islamophobic suspicion is absolutely essential. Here are two additional articles for you:

“Fetullah Gulen’s Grand Ambition,” Middle East Quarterly, Winter 2009 @ http://www.meforum.org/2045/fethullah-gulens-grand-ambition

and http://www.meforum.org/2628/islamist-gulen-movement-charter-schools

At any rate, until this is all made transparent and is publicly debated, tax dollars intended for the education of American children should not be paying for any school that might be connected to this mess.

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@Tony The information was presented to us in a BOE community meeting. The $4.5 million is listed as “Charter startup” and there’s another $2.1 million set aside for other Charter costs which may or may not be related to the new elementary. I still have a hard copy of the sheet. I searched the BoardDocs area of the Fulton Co. site but I was unable to find an e-copy to show you, I did however find the document showing that Fulton gets $800,000 dollars in grant money for Charter schools. That is obviously not sufficient to run the Charters already present in Fulton, and there are definitely no ‘private sources’ selflessly donating millions of dollars out of the charity of their hearts.

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Abby;
I challenge you to look beyond the predictable Gulen Schools media and Public relations marketing. They ALL boast of having high scores and none are subtantiated. Managing Charter schools is a PRIVATE business, this is a sales job. Take nothing the schools tell you as the truth. this comes from many ex-Gulen teachers.
1) Tests are all taught, the comprehensive part of learning is sorely lacking with charter schools and gulen school. ask them to take a spontenous unprepared test especially an essay test- NO MULTIPLE CHOICE.
2) The Turkish teachers review the tests beforehand and understand that STATE funding is on the line with the type of numbers they report. Also enrollment is a factor 200 students the school breaks even, as this is based on the per student per year reimbursement from the state. The average amount reimbursed from the state is $5,500 per child. Enrollment increases when you advertise your school as the “the best” which is a common thread among all charter schools as well as the Gulen schools.
3) the other local tests are from Gulen sponsored contests: Science Olympiad, Math Matters and more, the results are hardly unbiased.
4) Look at how much money is spent on extracurricular activities, “other expenses” Public Relations and media expense vs what is spent on the educational needs of the student. One Gulen School district had over $600K in extra expenses (those trips to Turkey and the Turkish olympiads are expensive) and a mere $130K on school supplies.
5) Do you really trust the opinion of an undocumented, unproven and imported un-credentialed teacher from Turkey?

Managing Charter Schools is a business, it is the same as Gulen’s other businesses ERBU TV, Zaman, Fountain, etc., He has an estimated worth of $25 Billion. Do you REALLY think a controversial Islamic Imman that was booted out of Turkey gives a Rats A** about American children?
The notion is too funny to think about.

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As far as the suggestion that “most of the central office overhead expense goes away,” this results from a major misunderstanding of how Gulen charter schools operate. Overhead is the entire point – it’s the way to siphon money from the schools to Gulen’s other organizations. Concept Schools, which runs the network of Gulen charters centered in Ohio (Horizon Science Academy) and extending into neighboring states, gets 10% of the total funds the school receives from the government. It is written in their management contract which is accessible online. The Gulen charter schools in western states are paying the Accord Institute membership fees (I’ve seen figures of $170/student) and that’s in addition to the fees they pay their central district office. What they get in return is services such as teacher evaluations. Yes, the schools located in Nevada, Utah and Arizona get their teachers evaluated by Accord in California and Accord gets paid for that. Here in Georgia the umbrella organization is Grace Schools (also managing Florida schools), and you can be sure they get their cut. Parents should ask how much, and what exactly Grace does in return for the school.

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Joleen, that’s correct. I was the one who wrote that comment on Tuscon Weekly and I’m not hiding that I’ve been closely following Gulen Movement’s activities like you do. But it’s more amazing that you found that article which was written almost 6 months ago, (I don’t even remember) and not just found it but found my comment and now you bring it up. Impressive follow up!!! That obviously shows that you and your bunch of Gulen hater groupies are doing nothing but manipulating, even archiving these articles pop up on different blogs.

Yes, this is a country believes in freedom of choice and belief. That’s why I ask you a simple question: If you really believe in the manipulation of Gulen Movement on the public education system, why don’t you open a lawsuit against these schools? It’s so simple. You and your friends claim a lot of detailed information and a bunch of parents who send their kids to those schools are confused and misguided by your comments. Simply open a lawsuit against them, if you believe that your tax dollars were abused by some foreigners. If you are right, they’ll be kicked out or their operations will be banned. If they are right you and your patriot friends need to stop blaming people who are doing something valuable for our nation’s future…

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Hakan/Gitano: These schools have been keeping a secret (readers may be interested Fetullah Gulen’s teachings on keeping secrets: http://www.fgulen.org/pearls-of-wisdom/639-keeping-secrets.html).

Now that the secret is starting to get out, I am hoping that attorneys for the U.S. Department of Education will catch on and challenge the Gulen charter school network; they’ve been engaging in misrepresentation in order to access federal funds. At the very least, I am hoping that, as they become more fully informed, school boards and other authorizing agencies will think twice about approving future charter school applications. And of course, this information should be disclosed to local communities, and especially parents who are thinking of sending their kids to the schools. They might not feel confident about doing so, once they know the secret.

If these schools weren’t using public money, I wouldn’t have much of an issue with them. If parents want their kids to be indoctrinated about the glory of Turkey, I believe they should pay for it themselves — not with my tax dollars.

Hakan/Gitano, I presume you pay U.S. tax dollars, too. I doubt you would want to pay for my sons’ education/indoctrination at a school operated by a set of secretive Scientologists, Moonies, or members of the Falun Gong — even if my sons were being taught math at the same time.

As far as aliases go, I am a private individual who is not funded by, nor affiliated with, any organization; I happen to have stumbled upon all of this, and became fascinated and started investigating. It took time, but the information is all out there; it just needed to be tied together. You, on the other hand, are working for an extremely well-funded organization which is highly connected to other organizations all across the U.S. via a mutual devotion to Fetullah Gulen. That is the reason you feel the need to track down any negative comments about the schools and then defend them; that is the reason you are attacking and challenging me.

Now that that has been exposed, I have a few questions you might now be willing to answer:

1. Can you point to the articles have I “manipulated”?
2. Since you are the Turkish expert between us, and are most certainly informed about the role Gulen has played in the shift of a secular Turkey toward a more Islamic state, could you tell me what the members of the Hizmet Movement thought they could accomplish by operating so many U.S. charter schools? Is it just about getting more of their associates into the U.S. on H1B visas? Or is it about helping US kids develop warm and cozy feelings about Turkey?
3. Why is it a negative for you that US taxpayers and citizens are informed about these things?
4. How is it that people becoming informed is the same as them getting “confused”?

As far as clarity with the Gulen Movement goes, I go by the wisdom in this English proverb: BETTER SAFE THAN SORRY.

P.S.: This conversation is making me hungry. Since I love any type of Middle Eastern food, I think I’ll head for my local Turkish restaurant this weekend.

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Hakan/Gitano: Yes, I’m noticing that you are deflecting my requests to answer a few easy follow-up questions. #1, 3, and 4 were very simple and direct. But no matter…I am perfectly aware this is your way. It’s the technique of deflection.

I do believe you when you say you aren’t the spokesman for the schools in Atlanta. But anyone reading this should be wondering why a person in Chicago is spending so much energy defending a start-up charter school in Atlanta, when they claim they “don’t event know those people who run these schools.”

And back in January you were following reader comments to an article about community concerns over Tucson’s Sonoran Science Academy charter school (http://www.tucsonweekly.com/tucson/hidden-agenda/Content?oid=1694764). People would wonder why a person in Chicago would be defending the principal of the a charter school in Tucson. Obviously you have an unusually strong interest in defending schools that are nowhere near where you live, as well as people you know nothing about. It’s strikingly odd.

In your comment to the Tucson piece, you say you are “…someone who closely follows the activities of the Gulen Movement, I find nothing to worry about these people.”

You are apparently following “the activities of the Gulen Movement” by monitoring how local residents react when they realize that people involved with the Movement are operating their local charter schools. Thank you for your help with assisting me with presenting the connection between these charter schools and the Gulen Movement to the readers here!

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Partners? Let me think…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYrLBmxvJNs

You guys are so funny.

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