There is a common thread that links the Louisiana Recovery School District (RSD), former RSD Superintendent Paul Vallas, RSD-North Superintendent LaVonne Sheffield, Ph.D., and the Fethullah Gülen network of 155 charter schools scattered throughout 28 states, including at least two in Louisiana.
That common thread is the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Sheffield, who headed the RSD-North from June 2009 to July 2010, was brought to Baton Rouge by Vallas at a salary of $200,000. She previously worked under Vallas as Chief Accountability Officer for the School District of Philadelphia (SDP) from June of 2004 to July 2008.
She was an unsuccessful candidate for the position of superintendent of East Baton Rouge Parish schools in January of 2009 and was hired as superintendent of the Rockford, Illinois, Public School District later in 2009. She resigned in April of this year halfway through her contract.
While working for Vallas in Philadelphia, an audit by the Office of Inspector General (OIG) for the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) determined that nearly $138.4 million in grant funds were either unallowable or inadequately documented. The audit also determined that SDP should return almost $17.7 million in unallowable costs to DOE.
Before that, Sheffield was employed as Chief Academic Officer for the Detroit Public School System from February 2002 to July 2003. While there, she ran up thousands of dollars of charges to her district-issued charge card while on her wedding trip to Las Vegas, records show.
She also worked from December 1993 to May 2000 as Chief of Staff to Cleveland Mayor Michael White and also served as Director of the Department of Port Control and as manager of the $1.4 billion Cleveland Hopkins International Airport expansion project. While there, both she and White were implicated but never charged in an FBI investigation into widespread bribery in the city administration, including the port and airport project.
Both she and Vallas have departed the Louisiana RSD, but the presence of the FBI lingers.
Reports indicate the agency is conducting another investigation, this one into recent revelations about the Abramson Science and Technology Charter School in New Orleans and the Kenilworth Science and Technology Charter School in Baton Rouge.
Both schools were operated by Pelican Education Foundation in New Orleans until Abramson’s charter was revoked last month. Pelican is affiliated with Atlas Texas Construction and Trading of Houston. Atlas also operates 38 charter schools in several Texas cities through Cosmos Foundation under the auspices of Harmony Public Schools.
Atlas and Cosmos are all linked to Fethullah Gülen and his network of schools that operate under such innocuous names as Magnolia, Sweetwater, Pioneer, Horizon, Noble, Dove, Bluebonnet, Beehive, Truebright, and, of course, Pelican and Harmony.
The federal investigation, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer, does not involve links to terrorism, but centers on charges that the organization uses taxpayer money to bring teachers to this country from Turkey and other countries who are members of the religious group and then requires the teachers to kick back up to 60 percent of their salaries to Gülen’s Hizmet movement.
The Gülen-run schools receive taxpayer funding and also receive private financial support, much of it from the Walton Family, owners of Wal-Mart. The Walton Family Foundation, for example, provided $230,000 in funding for Abramson as recently as 2007.
Gülen, who was forced to flee his native Turkey in 1998 after being charged with attempting to overthrow the secular Turkish government, now resides in a mountain fortress in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania.
He was granted a permanent residency visa as an “alien of extraordinary ability” and as “a leader of award-winning schools for underserved children around the world,” according to his attorneys, even though he does not hold a high school diploma. Now, however, in an effort to ward off investigations, he claims that neither he nor his movement have an affiliation with the charter schools.
The investigations of Gülen and his organization, which federal officials have refused to confirm or deny, are being coordinated by prosecutors in Pennsylvania’s Middle district in Scranton, and involve hundreds of Gülen charter school members nationwide.
Ostensibly, that would include the two Pelican-run schools in New Orleans and Baton Rouge.
Gülen sounds like Bobby Jindal’s kind of guy.
Frank
Most politicians in America are losing this group, as being associated with them is like a uncurable cancer. Jean Schmidt (R-Ohio) was ordered by the Ethics Committee to pay back over $500K in legal fees supplied to her by TCA. Every wonder why there is so many gulen charter schools in Ohio? (They are also under Federal Investigation)
http://www.gulenpoliticians.blogpsot.com
http://www.horizonparentstruth.blogspot.com
Sheffield is currently embroiled in a number of lawsuits, one of which is a libel lawsuit brought against her by former East Baton Rouge Parish School Board Member Noel Hammatt, who at the time he was slandered on television by Lavonne Sheffield was in Rockford as a consultant and speaker for several parent and community groups concerned about the damage Sheffield was doing to the school system there. On the same day she was served with the lawsuit by Hammatt she resigned from her position as Superintendent of Schools in Rockford, Illinois.
Louisana certainly wouldn’t be the first state to jump in on the national investigation of money laundering, h1-b visa fraud, and discrimination of American culture and teachers (to name a few of the RICO-racketeering charges).
This group has been kicked out of Russia, Uzbekistan, Moldive, Greece and is currently under investigation in 6 countries as well as about 12 school districts in the USA. They have been denied expansion in: HI, CO, LA, OK, and are currently under investigation in TX, OK, LA and many other states.
Some of their glaring unprofessional practices includes sending local political, academia, and media on their famous FREE trips to Turkey which is then billed to their foundations which are receiving the American educational Tax money intended to be used on the education of American students, these are also the foundations that launder that money to the Gulen Front groups discussed in the NY Times article by Stephanie Saul, which range in multi-million dollar contracts that service the schools owned by members of this group: Construction, Janitorial services, travel Agencies, Food Services, etc. Their Pelican Educational Foundation in LA alone had over $1.7+ million in travel expenses for 2009. Their parent company, Cosmos Foundation out of TX, had over $6 million in travel expenses for the last 3 years.
Ask yourself, do you want a group like this teaching your children? Do your research on the Gulen Movement and it’s leader exiled Imam Fethullah Gulen. Pay particular attention to the Gulen Movement controlling branches of judiciary, police, politics, media, miltary etc, in Turkey and question why 50 Turkish Journalists were arrested for writing “Imam Ordusu” (Imam’s Army) as they open their first Political Science Academy on American soil to reshape the way American children view politics.
http://www.harmonyparenttruth.blogspot.com
http://www.gulencharterschools.weebly.com
http://www.charterschoolscandals.blogspot.com
http://www.gulencharterschoolsUSA.blogspot.com
http://www.gulenschoolsworldwide.blogspot.com
I know much more about Gulen himself then the charter schools. Without any legal evidence, it is easy to blame people if you hate them.
This column is trying to make people think that there is something serious going on.
There can be Turkish American teacher in some schools and it does not make the schools Turkish and Gulen schools.
It does not make the school Indian or Gandhi school if there are Indian Americans working in that school.
So, the question is what is the percentage of Turkish-Americans working in those schools? Is it %70 or %50? If it is 4 teachers out of 25, then so what?
My second question is whether Gulen does something wrong or not? Please look at his works rather than blames without evidences.
This column is doing nothing of the sort. If there is an FBI investigation, then there is an FBI investigation. LouisianaVoice did not initiate the investigation. Insofar as “something serious going on,” do you not feel that teachers leaving a classroom for weeks on end with no supervision for students is “something serious?” Do you not believe that attempted bribery would be classified as “something serious?” Do you think it proper to require that teachers brought here from Turkey kick back 60% of their salaries to Gulen? LouisianaVoice has never once said or implied that these are “Turkish schools,” but we are pretty sure they can safely be called “Gulen schools.” Finally, let us consider your question about the number of Turkish teachers. Even as Turkish teachers are being brought to Abramson and Kenilworth, qualified teachers who are Louisiana citizens and who are well-qualified are being laid off because of budgetary restraints. Now please attempt to justify that.
And by the way, just so you know, we don’t know–or care–how it’s done where you’re from, but the percent sign goes after the number in this country, not before it.
Merhaba Russ;
Your argumentation is poorly written, let me try to help you and your brethren understand why your brand of education will not work in the USA.
1) You state about Indian schools and Indian teachers…There are punjab charter schools (one is opening in Sacramento, CA USA) and many Hebrew based Charter Schools. The problem here is transparency, while these schools are open about their connection to these communities and have no HIDDEN AGENDA. Your schools shamelessly try to conceal the obvious affiliations with Hizmet (Gulen Movement). This is your first mistake. Lying to Americans is not forgiven, especially when it involves their tax money and their children.
2) No one hates the teachers, we hate deception. So where are the over 100+ teachers that Pelican Education Foundation migrated in under the Hb-1 Visas since the opening of the Louisana schools? They are unaccounted for, this is Visa Fraud – especially claiming you cannot find math, technology, ENGLISH teachers in the USA. Are you serious at a time when there is a great number of over qualified American teachers unemployed? Please check out the chart of h1-b Visa Teachers just for Pelican (Louisana) schools alone.
Hopefully you are ready to discuss their current whereabouts with USCIS.
http://www.harmonyparenttruth.blogspot.com
3) So what is the percentage of Turkish teachers that worked at these schools? Can you account for all of the ones you brought in on h1-b Visas? Or are they working for the Gulen Front Groups? or Service groups created to suck money out fo the schools: Janitorial services, catering, construction, etc., You know the jobs and business that you have cut Americans out of.
Lastly Gulen is a self promoting 5th grade educated con man. Your group is creating Interfaith dialog groups which amount no more than a one-sided sales job on your civic society and NO OPPOSITION or truth is allowed or the people will be jailed as the 50 Turkish journalists who dare speak the truth and write Imam Ordusu (Imam’s Army). Your brand of communication is biased and manipultative, but then this is what you are taught at an early age from Hocaefendi’s lighthouses you know nothing else. Stop trying to place Gulen with the likes of Ghandi, Martin Luther King and Mother Teresa. He is none of those things and start discussing the truth and both sides like how your group has systematically oppressed the Alevis and Kurds.
How about the quality of “teachers” they employ. A now former teacher who came from the Catholic school system (and is originally from Illinois) that is under investigation for carnal knowledge of a minor and whose brother is, coincidentally, a registered there as sex offender for a crime committed against a minor. I think the FBI SHOULD be investigating this school!
[…] include importing young Turks and hiring them in favor of local teachers despite glaring differences in qualifications. Like proficiency in English, for one. And then demanding hefty kickbacks […]