Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Getting Help from Overseas in Accusing Gulen and Imaginary Gulen Charter Schools

Once again, Mary and the alike are wrong in presenting the reality and information. She refers to the results of an internationally administered test (PISA) and ridicules the fact that Turkish students are behind their US peers in reading and math, so she asks how bringing Turkish teachers is going to help American kids.

As she is not a researcher, she is not very bright, either. It takes about only five minutes to look at the data presented by PISA reports and figure out that the reality is not so. [http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2011004]

Although American kids' average score is 500 in reading and literacy, the results are very much diverse in terms of race, ethnicity and level of income. Asian and white American kids scored 50-100 points more than their black and Hispanic peers. The difference between the wealthy and the poor is worse, more than 110 (pp. 15-16).

This is the reality in the U.S., this is called the achievement gap educators must be attacking as of last decade. If we compare these results, you could say Asian American kids are living in South Korea, the number one among OECD countries, and African American kids are living in Chile, the bottom of the chart. Unfortunately, such gaps exist in many countries, not necessarily only by race, ethnicity and wealth but other factors as well, though, wealth is considered a common factor.

The PISA reports also compare how 15-year-old kids from different percentiles scored by country. The 5th percentile of kids from Turkey scored 325 in reading while their American peers 339. At the 90th percentile, the scores are 569 and 625 respectively. This means that Turkish kids who scored at the 90th percentile had better average than their Asian American peers in average (541) at all percentiles.

Majority of Turkish teachers at the charter schools managed by Concept Schools -so-called Gulen charter schools- are coming from top universities in Turkey where only kids who perform at the 95th percentile or higher are accepted. The cut-off scores at the state-administered university-entrance exams for these universities fall into the top one percent. Language barriers can be tackled easily but core knowledge in subjects like math and science takes years of quality education and training.

When we look at the demographics at the Concept-managed charter schools -imaginary Gulen charter schools-, maybe we could estimate how students at these schools would perform had they taken the PISA test. The average free and reduced lunch eligibility at Concept-managed schools -so-called Gulen charter schools- is about 75%. The PISA results show that American kids at the 75% of free and reduced-price lunch eligibility received an average score of 446. Since students at Concept-managed schools -what they call Gulen charter schools- outperform their peers in their respective cities at the state-administered tests, it would not be wrong to estimate that they will score around and above 446 and it would not definitely be wrong at all to import teachers from countries overseas or groups with high scoring averages.

I do not think Mary and the alike will follow my advice, but I will share anyways. Let's listen to what the Secretary of Education, Mr. Duncan, tells us today (1/31/2011). Along with other well-known public figures, he points out that only 2% of teachers today are black males and "the nation’s teacher workforce does not reflect the diversity of its student when only one in 50 teachers is a black male. This is a national problem." With more than 70% African American students attending to Concept-managed schools -so-called Gulen charter schools- with 100% college acceptance rate, we have a chance to respond to Mr. Duncan's call and encourage our students to attend to college, and colleges of education in particular.

So, let's use our energy and means to focus on this problem. Let's focus on raising more teachers. Let's focus on closing the achievement gap. Horizon Science Academy Cleveland High School -an imaginary Gulen charter schools- with an excellent record of being a college prep school, has received the National Recognition for nothing but closing the gap.

It takes a village to raise a kid. It would definitely take the whole world to change a generation. At this day and age, the globe has become one giant village.

22 comments:

  1. Correction the Turkish teachers coming to the Gulen Managed Charter schools in the USA are from Gulen owned and managed universities in Turkey.
    We don't need American children "changed" to Turkishness. But Turkey does NEED improvements on their lousy and poor performing schools.
    Turkey is ranked 32 out of 34 OCED international students, stop with the lies and "Turkish scholar" nonsense. The majority (I know several current and ex-Gulen Turkish Teachers) come to America and get a FREE education to advance their degrees so they can ADVANCE the lying agenda of Fethos.
    Did you like the article on PBS that included the Harmony Science Academy and Gulen?
    The question is when are you finally going to admitt to the Ohio tax payers the truth?
    You will not win in America we don't want your brand of education or religion that is centered around Turkish. Even other Muslims don't want you.

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  2. Would you care to elaborate on the criteria of US News and Reports "America's Best High Schools" your school name is not on the list, and what is Distinguished School NASTD?
    Is this more of your false advertising?
    Please quantify and clarify that US NEWS contests are by a letter and e mail campaign and nothing more.

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  3. This is ridiculous. You look at everything through race lenses. Do you ever watch Dr. Oz? Yeah, big surprise! He is Turkish-American. His real name is Mehmet Cengiz Öz or best known as Dr. Oz, is a Turkish-American cardiothoracic surgeon, author, and TV host. There are many more like him in this free country. Educators, scientist, economist,…etc. And Gulen is one of them.

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  4. If you drink any Coca-Cola products, think again because the company chairman is Turkish-American.

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  5. Majority of teachers come from Bogazici, Bilkent, ODTU, Ege and Marmara Universities. All of these are top state-run universities. The universities Gulen group is associated with are fairly new universities. You know this fact and yet you reject to admit it.

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  6. The second comment from the top, check the logos on your right. How can you not see them? Oops, right, you wear horse blinders. Ggot it.

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  7. The first comment looks like coming from Mustafa. Is that you? How are you, man?

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  8. Anyone with a small amount of Education can tell that statistics can be manipulated anyway they like. University in Turkey is so competitive that anyone who attends a puplic university is amongst the top scorers in the nation.The teachers here are by far and large public university graduates and you know it. America is laughing stock of the developed world based on their educational standards.

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  9. Let's be honest! Opening a charter school is not a piece of cake. So many tried and so many failed over the past 10 years of Ohio’s history. Horizon managed to survive and continue to open new schools with a great success. You think this is a monkey business???
    Let’s get back to your case. Being a teacher at a charter school is whole a lot different story. Teaching inner city students is not a job. It is a CALLING. Having only a strong character does not qualify you to be a teacher there, it can just get you through many lemon dances in which you did many at the regular public schools. Did it bell anything?

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  10. Thanks for the tip, we now know to boycott coke products.

    Other famous Turks, The guy who shot the pope, the guy who was havesting organs to sell on the black market,and not to mention Turkish made goods like heroine and hashesh.

    Isnt that where Gulen got most his money? The drug trade?

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  11. There are lots of unrelated comments under this issue. To sum up M.A claimed that Turkish/Turkics American teachers who are working in Horizon School are not qualified enough in academic base. LOL . Just a smart search will lead you to the truth, Bogazici University, METU, Bilkent University, Ege University, Marmara University, Yildiz Technical University etc. are top universities in Turkey. Do you think these are Gulen's universities like his charters? if you have suspect go and search them. In order to keep quality of this comment please do not type any racist comment.

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  12. She exercises an unfiltered comment section freely, though, she blocks every comment on her blogs. That's her way of tolerating different opinion.

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  13. Eight comment from the top. This comment is so insulting and irritating, the guy who left this comment, pretends like as Turkish American teacher, however he/she is not one of them. I know many of the Turkish American teacher and non of them thinks the same way as this guy thinks. What do you mean by Americans need Turkish teachers and both American parents and teachers do not care as much as Turkish teachers care. I believe either M.A or her followers left this comment.

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  14. I agree with the last comment. I am one of the Turkish-American teachers. Neither I nor any other Turkish-American teachers I know think that way. This is also very insulting and irritating to us. We truly believe that we have many parents they really care about their children. That is why they bring their children to Horizons. That is why they support Horizon's mission as much as they can. It seems that eighth comment is exactly what M.A. wanted to hear and most likely left by either her or one of her followers. It is just another trick.

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  15. "Thanks for the tip, we now know to boycott coke products.

    Other famous Turks, The guy who shot the pope, the guy who was havesting organs to sell on the black market,and not to mention Turkish made goods like heroine and hashesh."

    That's cute because we have no drugs or criminals in America. We also have no Organ theft rings. GET YOU HEADS OUT OF THE SAND. I think you need to take a logic class because your reasoning s flawed. You should be embarrassed by you attempt at an argument. Maybe you should have gone to one of these charter schools an gotten an education.

    Isnt that where Gulen got most his money? The drug trade?

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  16. This is so non-sense. Neither crime nor good deed can be restricted to a certain race, nation, etc. How easy to blame an entire nation by pointing at some criminals. Especially somebody like Fethullah Gulen and drugs! Come on! Have a heart and be fair! His entire life is clean and devoted to education and to the good of humanity.

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  17. US is the melting pot. Read some history, do a google search and understand that what makes the US great is the tolerance to every single race, opinion, religion and color.

    Education in the US is suffering. There is almost none public school system rated good. It is a great chance to have devoted teachers no matter where they come from and what their relegion is for these inner city kids.

    The Horizons are the schools giving them a hope, a chance to excel and a better future. These are the type of teachers the state should look into.

    Look around and see where the US youth are in the system of education especially in colleges? Who are working at the research institutes?

    www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/97-746.pdf

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  18. Mary and her lovely husband (!!!!) Emanet,
    I believe you are not alone in this attacking process. Your personal hatred towards a couple of individuals or a group doesn’t mean anything to anybody because what Horizons are doing is very well respected by community whether you accept or not. You will end up going nowhere with these false accusations.

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  19. Someone is boasting a narrative of Gulen charter schools that has nothing got to do with Mr. Gulen. The question is why they are doing this. It should be a new kind of deep American-Turkish cooperation.

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  20. Concept managed schools are very successful schools and as far as I know, concept schools were initiated by Turkish American educators. Who is real American? Mary and her beloved husband Emanet (I do not know whoever they are) are not real Americans since this is a country of immigrants. I do not think they care about America or American kids. Probably, they have nothing to do except attacking charter schools. There are Turkish, Chinese, Indian, Polish, Italian.. teachers in these charter schools. I believe that Concept should open more schools to educate our kids so we do not have illiterate citizens like Mary in future.

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  21. In past years the Cleveland Municipal School District has struggled to come up with enough math, science and special education instructors to fill its classrooms. Cleveland welcomed a group of new hires recruited from INDIA in 1990.There should not be a problem to hire teachers from out of US if they are highly qualified.All efforts are the best interest of our children.

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  22. As a parent of two children, I know that students in Cleveland are getting the best education possible when they attend Concept Schools. Their test scores prove that they are a very well run schools.I fully support these schools.

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Plese let us know what you think about the issue of the charter schools allegedly linked to Fethullah Gulen and thus labelled as Gulen charter schools.