by MerryLynn Gerstenschlager, the former vice-president and education liaison for Texas Eagle Forum, a 14-year Republican precinct chairman, and 2018 member of the Texas Republican State Platform Committee.
The Harmony Public Schools are taxpayer-funded charter schools in Texas. In 2011, a Texas legislator filed a bill that would allow charter operators to use the Permanent School Fund to guarantee school construction bonds. At the time, existing law only allowed traditional public schools to use the PSF to guarantee school construction bonds. The PSF also provides student textbooks. At the time, the PSF was worth $25 billion. Today, it is worth $47 billion.
Also in 2011, the Texas Senate passed a resolution honoring Fethullah Gulen, the controversial Turkish imam who founded the Gulen Movement and who lives in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania. The Gulen Movement is known as Hizmet, which means “service.” Followers are required to give forty percent of their wages to the Gulen Movement for Hizmet. Gulen fled Turkey in the late 1990s when he was accused of trying to return Turkey to an Islamic caliphate. Several other states passed almost identical resolutions honoring Gulen.
Fethullah Gulen is the same Gulen who has since been accused of instigating the failed coup in Turkey in 2016. He is the same Gulen who Turkish president Recep Erdogan has demanded the U.S. extradite to Turkey to stand trial for the coup. He is the same Gulen who Lt. General Michael Flynn has been accused of allegedly plotting to kidnap to return to Turkey to stand trial.
Back in 2011, the Harmony Public Schools, which then had 35 campuses, lobbied hard to pass the PSF construction bond guarantee bill. Another Turkish man, Dr. Soner Tarim founded the HPS in 2000.
Peyton Wolcott joined me in creating an awareness of HPS. Our main concern was that Texas law does not require charter operators to be American citizens, which is required of our local elected school board trustees. Also, since charter school operators are appointed, rather than elected like local school board trustees, there is NO accountability to the taxpayers. Our attempts to pass a law requiring charter operators to be American citizens failed, as well as our attempts to pass a law requiring ALL school check registers be placed online.
There are 26 other states with taxpayer-paid and Turkish-run charter schools. In 2014, the FBI raided 19 Turkish-run charter schools in Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. Turkish-run American charter schools are known to use the H1-B Visa program for importing Turkish teachers to work in these schools. Today, there are about 160 Turkish-run charter schools in America. Operators deny that they are affiliated. These Gulen-style schools exist in many other countries. Russia has outlawed them. Of course, Gulen always denies that the schools are affiliated with him. Gulen is reported to be worth $25 billion; yet how can that be possible when all he does is broadcast sermons and write books? Could it have anything to do with Hizmet?
Four common threads tie the schools together. Gulen schools stress Turkish culture, teach Turkish song and dance, offer Turkish cooking classes, and offer Turkish language courses. I have always wondered if these schools also teach their students about the abuse of rights, particularly women’s rights, in Turkey?
Where will an impressionable child’s loyalty lie after being immersed in Turkish culture for his years spent at a Turkish-run charter school? Fethullah Gulen has a great deal of influence among his millions of followers throughout the world. How much influence does he have over thousands of American school children right here in his own backyard?
Mark Hall, an Austin, Texas attorney and filmmaker, investigated the Harmony Schools for five years. He interviewed former Harmony teachers, former Harmony students, Harmony school construction contractors, and Turkish journalists who had been persecuted for exposing the Gulen movement. He documented how the FBI had raided one of these schools in Louisiana. More information about Mark Hall’s film, Killing Ed, can be found at www.killinged.com.
Peyton Wolcott and I pored over campaign finance reports and publicized that several legislators had taken free trips to Turkey. The Austin American Statesman ran a front-page article about the free trips. The New York Times wrote a June 6, 2011 article about Gulen’s ties to HPS. CBS “60 Minutes” featured a program on Gulen; CBS reporter Leslie Stahl was granted entry to Gulen’s home, but he refused to speak with her.
In 2011, Peyton Wolcott discovered a video at a Houston-area HPS website. The film was titled A Changed Muslim. Some Harmony Students who were members of the school’s Muslim Students Association had made the film and entered it in a contest held by the Muslim Interscholastic Tournament. After Wolcott posted the film at her website, along with some storyboards she had created from screenshots from the film, it was immediately removed from YouTube. MSA was founded by the Muslim Brotherhood in 1963 at the University of Illinois at Urbana. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) has introduced legislation to declare the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization, but the bill has yet to pass. The MSA has over 700 chapters in American universities and high schools.
Various news articles report that Soner Tarim denies that the HPS are related to Fethullah Gulen. Dr. Tarim is on record saying that he has only been “inspired” by Gulen. Dr. Tarim, who came to America as a graduate student and later became an American citizen, recently told the Texas Education Agency while applying for a brand new charter school chain, the Royal Charter Schools, that he “cannot go back to Turkey.” Can he not go back to Turkey because of his close ties to Gulen?
The charter school PSF construction bond guarantee passed the Texas legislature in 2011 and charter schools rapidly began to construct new school buildings. Today, the Harmony Public Schools boast 57 campuses with an enrollment of over 35,000 students.
Dr. Tarim left HPS in 2017 and since then, he has worked to establish charter schools in other states. His Lead Academy charter school in Alabama has met great public pushback. He also encountered public pushback in Washington County, Alabama where he recently opened another charter school called Woodland Prep. Dr. Tarim also has charters in Nevada called Nevada Strong. You can learn more about what’s happening in Alabama from Larry Lee’s newsletter available at larryeducation.com.
In June 2019, Soner Tarim appeared before the Texas State Board of Education to apply to open his new Royal Charter School chain in Texas.
Two Alabama teachers traveled to Texas to testify against the Royal Charter Schools. Mark Hall provided facts he learned while filming Killing Ed. My testimony referenced a recent HPS graduation in Sugar Land, Texas where a HPS graduate held up a large Palestinian flag while seated on the stage. No American flags or Texas flags were displayed. Peyton Wolcott cautioned about financial transparency. SBOE member Pat Hardy commented to Soner Tarim that schools that were awarded federal Race To The Top-D Funds required implementation of the Common Core Standards. Miss Hardy also mentioned that the HPS had been awarded RTTT-D funds. Dr. Tarim’s response failed to address Miss Hardy’s comments. Note that Common Core has been outlawed in Texas.
John Guandolo of Understanding the Threat, a national security consulting company with an expertise in the Islamic movement in the United States, sent a letter to the SBOE regarding the Royal Charter application. Guandolo advised the SBOE about investigations surrounding the Gulen network and the 2012 misuse of funds by the Harmony Public Schools. Learn more at understandingthethreat.com
Ultimately, the Texas SBOE vetoed Soner Tarim’s Royal Charter School application. But, like whack-a-mole, Gulen-style schools will be back — either in Texas or your state.
Only American citizens should be allowed to open charter schools. We must also require financial transparency of our taxpayer money by requiring that school check registers be placed online.