A little bit of balance - Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gülen_movement

To the other side - the politicians and governments of third world countries asking for more Gulan schools. http://gulenschools.org/

In one of the articles - “Four students from the Pinnacle Academy, established by Turkish entrepreneurs in the greater Washington, D.C., area, were at the White House on Monday to present their project, which took first place in the National Engineers Week Future City Competition in the capital’s metropolitan area in February.On Monday President Barack Obama hosted the White House Science Fair to honor the winners of a series of competitions in science, technology, engineering and mathematics…...” 

And in another one - “Education ministers and academics from various countries highlighted the contributions to world peace made by Turkish schools inspired by internationally respected Turkish scholar Fethullah Gülen during a conference held in New York on Monday.

The gathering, featuring attendees from across the world, was titled “The Peacebuilding Through Education International Conference” and was co-hosted by the Fountain Magazine and the New Jersey-based Peace Islands Institute (PII) at the Times Center in New York.”

And more on the Peacebuilding Through Education International Conference - http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/first-peacebuilding-through-education-international-conference-to-be-hosted-in-new-york-city-170978761.html

Check out the names….....the web site - http://www.fountainconferences.org/index.html

And the Fountain Magazine - http://www.fountainmagazine.com/about/thefountain

The Gulan schools certainly have their fans of the wealthy and powerful to the lower income folks. One way of escaping poverty, is to provide a top notched education. One could argue that the Gulan schools are also providing strong character education as well as a quality STEM education.

Turns out that we have Gulan schools in Toronto.  And their kids are setting high standards in awesomeness.  http://nileacademy.ca/plunkett/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Awards2013.pdf

First place at the Brock U. Math competition, a string of medals from U. of Toronto’s Sci-Tech fair, poetry competitions, and so on.  The pictures of the kids matched with the Universities that accepted them is inspiring.

I looked at the EQAO data for this school - 57% of kids report speaking NO English at home. 

That school is not far from North Albion CI, the TDSB high school, where they stream the no-hope third of the class into the ‘applied’ courses, and still only 71% of the remaining grade-9 ‘academic’ class meets minimum standard for Math. http://eqaoweb.eqao.com/eqaoweborgprofile/profile.aspx?_Mident=3446&Lang=E

Parents in the area should be demanding vouchers so that their kid can get a good education too.

Each country sets their own policy. No need for public support of Gulen schools in USA ( or Canada).

So we should give money to every religious cult that wants public money for Islamic education. Good luck with that one in Ontario. Exactly the kind of school that killed John Tory.

The Turks are also antisemetic so they lose the Jewish vote.

I don`t like this blog as I told Malkin this morning.
You never know what`s at the bottom of that fishbowl.

Doug and Jo-Anne highlight some of the issues around these schools. 

But this is a tough neighbourhood, many of the kids have the additional handicap of ESL, and yet they are thriving.  It’s not money.  Glancing at the admissions forms suggests that it costs less to educate a child here than the TDSB’s per-student grant.

But thanks to excellent education, these kids will be our future doctors, lawyers, engineers, scientists, and politicians, literate, numerate, and able to engage in the world.  The neighbourhood kids who count on their fingers won’t ever understand why they were left behind.

We talk about helping all kids reach their full potential, but the TDSB’s adherence to failing curriculum and discredited instructional theories makes it clear that we don’t intend to let them try.

Parents in the area should be demanding vouchers so that their kid can get a good education too.

Same old nonsense on ” miracle schools” endless supply all end up with feet of clay.

1) the Amy Chua immigrant insecurity and drive dissipates in next generation

2) SE and behavioral kids usually pushed or or not allowed in.

Stop looking for miracles Tom they don’t exist.

Our school does “miracles” as well. Test for admission, supervised 24/7 hand in laptop and phone at 10 pm locked up. Supervised homework at school in evening. Hours 9:30-5:30 class size of less than 15 the, only certified teachers ... any idiot can run a Miracle school with a set up like this. I am living proof.

We’re betting they don’t teach social justice insanity either. You know like pink shirt days, transgender book sales at schoolboard conferences, discovery math problems to stop the oilsands and a host of other
meaningless tripe.

Hey Doug, wealthy Chinese parents have deep pockets. Admit it, that some of things that are done, are done to the protect the school from lawsuits. That said, Doug how come you are against testing? 

Miracle schools comes in different sizes and packages. I would suggest, the many homeschools initiated by parents pulled off a few miracles on kids that the public school had written off as not being academic. What was the first thing that parents did? They tested their kids.

Doug, we are in agreement that it isn’t a miracle.  Every kid can succeed.  Just hard work in a structured environment.

The government is paying the TDSB some $12,000 per student to educate kids the other way.  Some parents might prefer it your way. 

Parents in the area should be demanding vouchers so that their kid can get a good education too.

They can demand vouchers until the cows come home. There is no support for it. The population of Ontario is strongly against the it. There is no groundswell or critical mass to support it. It splits conservatives up the middle. The other 2 are 99% against I think.

Doug, I just got off the news pages. Just finished reading an article on inequality. Interesting times we are living in, where the political powers and the social institutes attached to the governments are intent on keeping the status-quo of policies causing the inequalities. The inequalities serves the best interests of governments and by extension the social institutes to served their best interests at the expense of the people they served.

Education vouchers are coming down the pipeline Doug to correct the one inequality that is imposed by the education establishment to keep the education establishment rolling in future profits to correct the skills and knowledge deficits of students in the future. What should be taught and mastered in the elementary grades, are no longer taught or taught poorly. In turn, the parents that have the bigger pocketbooks are turning to private tutors while the parents with the lesser pocketbooks do not have that option. The parents with the lesser pocketbooks are stuck with the local school down the street, and they are quietly steaming…...it is a matter of time when the parents will assert their rights and press for vouchers, and then the right to have the education funding dollars attached to their children, and not as it is now, attached to the local school who only see their children as bums sitting in desks.

Nancy,

Vouchers are not coming to Ontario any time. Not now not ever. Privatizers will be very lucky to hang on to what they have in some provinces.

Where to vouchers begin? In basket case public systems in very poor states or in urban ghettos. People soon notice that as Rick Hess says ” they overpromise and underdeliver.” Where quality public education systems exist there is no demand for vouchers. 

States like Louisiana have desperate people because of poverty, underfunding and carpetbagger snake oil selling voucher advocates.

You see vouchers in Finland? Sweden wishes they had never tried it.

Doug,  vouchers will come because the provincial public education systems are being destroy from within by the public education establishment and their self-serving agendas.

Pity, you don’t see the harm that is being done throughout the K to 12 education system, when only a minority of children are reaching their full academic potential. It starts in the primary grades where 40 % or so are below grade level in some aspects or all aspects of the 3 Rs, by the end of grade 3, and by the end of grade 12, it climbs to 70 % of where students have major knowledge gaps besides not having good skills in the 3 Rs. And then to the students’ surprise, they learned that it will be on their own dime to repair the damage wrought by the public K to 12 system, that claims to have the best education interests of the children they serve.

The 21st century is the biggest threat to the public K to 12, because the K to 12 education establishment no longer have the ability to hide behind the curtains to dodge the inequalities being perpetuated by the K to 12 education establishment.

Nancy vouchers and charters have no effect on that data. They are no better than public schools. Often worse.