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TBF

(31,921 posts)
Tue Nov 4, 2014, 02:30 PM Nov 2014

Education, Inc.

by George Joseph - 11.4.14
George Joseph is a NYC labor and education reporter. He is currently an undergraduate, organizing around campus labor issues and studying to be a high school teacher.

Over the summer, FBI agents stormed nineteen charter schools as part of an ongoing investigation into Concept Charter Schools. They raided the buildings seeking information about companies the prominent Midwestern charter operator had contracted with under the federal E-Rate program.

The federal investigation points to possible corruption at the Gulen charter network, with which Concept is affiliated and which takes its name from the Turkish cleric Fetullah Gulen. And a Jacobin investigation found that malfeasance in the Gulen network, the second largest in the country, is more widespread than previously thought. Federal contracting documents suggest that the conflict-of-interest transactions occurring at Concept are a routine practice at other Gulen-affiliated charter school operators.

The Jacobin probe into Gulen-affiliated operators in Texas, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, and California found that roughly $4 million in E-Rate contract disbursements and $1.7 million in Department of Education Race to the Top grantee awards were given to what appear to be “related parties.” Awarding contracts to firms headed by related parties would seem to violate the FCC’s requirement that the school’s bidding process be “competitive” as well as “open and fair.”

Unlike most charter schools networks, the Gulen charter network has received significant scrutiny in the US press, primarily because of the international profile of its Islamic cleric leader and xenophobic fears of “education jihad.” Such coverage distracts from what appears to be systemic corruption at the public’s expense, a predictable consequence of the US charter school model ...

More here: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/11/education-inc/

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Education, Inc. (Original Post) TBF Nov 2014 OP
Gods alive, I love Jacobin unrepentant progress Nov 2014 #1
I too question the charter school model. redruddyred Nov 2014 #2
1. Gods alive, I love Jacobin
Tue Nov 4, 2014, 02:41 PM
Nov 2014

If it weren't for it, The Baffler, and Dissent, I think I'd go mad. All the other true left intellectual magazines have either been dumbed down, resorted to SEO trolling, or gone "centrist."

 

redruddyred

(1,615 posts)
2. I too question the charter school model.
Tue Nov 4, 2014, 11:24 PM
Nov 2014

I imagine that it's just a secret ploy to take down the unions (most of which are public sector these days).

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