Sharon Higgins has been researching the Gulenist movement for seven years and runs a blog about the research she has found. I had the chance to speak with her and to discuss why she feels these schools are influenced by Gulen, particularly in reference to the Coral Academy schools in Reno and Las Vegas.
Higgins began by saying, “They never admit affiliation.” She believed that the schools benefitted most by being subtle and the Gulenists were “a community and everyone else was an outsider.” She explained that a reason for their quiet nature is due to the fear that comes with being an Islamist in Turkey, as she made reference to Joshua Hendrick’s book Gülen.
Higgins said that, “Typically all (Gulenist) charter schools are founded by Turkish men.” She went on to explain the school board, which is contains mostly Turkish members, and “always” one American parent, who doesn’t know what is happening.
These schools are generally science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) schools. Higgins explained that this is due to the ideology of Fethullah Gulen. Gulen believed that through science and math, one can be closer with God. Therefore these schools emphasize those subjects.
Higgins also discussed ways that the schools influence the students. She discussed that their curriculum involved Turkish language classes and Turkish history classes. She also stated that many of these schools would get the textbooks for these classes from a Turkish publishing company in New Jersey.
She said that since these schools are charter schools, they receive some federal funding, which means the American taxpaying dollars are being pushed into these schools that are pushing their own agenda. Higgins recently posted a statistic that said that Nevada used roughly twenty million dollars of U.S. taxpayer money on schools such as the Coral Academies.
For Sharon Higgins blog: http://charterschoolscandals.blogspot.com/