Gulen Schools are like a Virus Replication.

It is very difficult to comprehend their goals until you realize one very simple point, noted by Aydin Ozipek in his 2009 thesis. Ozipek went to a Gulen high school in Turkey, and then attended Fatih University, which is also run by the Gulen Movement. He had plenty of chances to observe the GM up close.
Ozipek wrote:
“I conclude that the primary objective of the Gulen Movement is to increase its share of power.”
This is why the Gulen Movement constantly mutates – just as a virus does under hostile conditions – and this continual process of adaptation and re-invention makes it indeed difficult to pin down. The GM doesn’t really stand for anything; it claims to promote education and to be a “civil society” movement, yet it doesn’t have any genuine commitment to either education or society (other than its own society-within-a-society.)
In Turkmenistan, the GM was quite willing to be complicit as the dictatorship of Saparmurat Niyazov utterly destroyed public education. A high-level Gulenist translated the onerous book Ruhnama, Niyazov’s incoherent treatise which replaced all other textbooks in Turkmenistan’s schools. All this was fine by them, as long as the GM could build their own elite schools and get business connections in Turkmenistan.
It is no different here in the US. Gulenists don’t leave their history and methodology behind when they come to our country. Here, they have played all sorts of manipulation games to convince everyone their schools are “excelling” while gleefully repeating the mantra about “our failing public schools.” Just to give one example, the Harmony schools in Texas require (yes, *require*) proof of acceptance to a college to graduate from high school. This is explicitly stated in school documents. Yet in their promotional material and applications for new charters, they boast that their “100% college acceptance rate” speaks to their proven educational model. When college acceptance is required to graduate, “100% college acceptance” becomes a tautology – yet this clever trick has fooled numerous people, including journalists.
It’s all about acquisition of power, which of course involves money too, siphoned off the schools in various ways, and recruitment of sympathizers by whatever means. Politicians can be won over with money, naive but well-meaning citizens can be won over with Turkey trips, and students are purposefully befriended by teachers who (parents are in awe of their amazing dedication!) try to spend as much time with them as possible in extracurricular activities. Guess why.
To add to the confusion, many individuals have leaped to the conclusion that religious indoctrination is taking place in the schools, despite the complete lack of evidence. It is not the point at all. The teachers befriend carefully selected students (preferably the highest-performing ones) without any sort of preaching. It isn’t necessary for the plan. Once firmly ensconced in the Gulenist web, the students will serve the movement by speaking and writing favorably of their school, defending the GM (“I know these people very well and they are the finest and most dedicated educators…….the accusations are absurd…..”) and helping the GM to build more schools, get more money, plant more people in influential positions, build more schools, get more money, plant more people in influential positions, build more schools,….etc.
Just think of it as a virus that never stops replicating and has endless capacity to mutate