Here is the documentation to show that the Harmony Science Academies in Texas are directly tied to the Gulen Movement. We always need to bear in mind that Fethullah Gulen is an Islamist imam:
1. Guidestar -- Cosmos Foundation, Texas (a.k.a., Harmony Public Schools -- http://www2.guidestar.org/organizations/76-0615245/cosmos-foundation.aspx )
Cosmos Foundation is the management company for Harmony Science Academies, and the CFO of Cosmos is Umit Pecen; he attends the funding board meetings with Sonar Tarim.
(Please see http://harmonyparenttruth.blogspot.com/2011/01/harmony-science-academy-charter-school_18.html to learn more about Umit Pecen.)
(Please go to http://www.chroniclewatch.com/2010/06/21/islamic-movement-engulfs-lone-star-state/ to learn more about Sonar Tarim.)
2. Oct. 7, 2010 -- Dr. Helen Rose Ebaugh -- “Mapping the Gulen Movement” -- Professor of Sociology, University of Houston -- Please slide the marker to 11:52 where Dr. Ebaugh says there are 25 Gulen charter schools in Texas (a.k.a., Cosmos Foundation -- Harmony Science Academies). If these are not the Harmony Science Academies, to what other schools is she referring? Obviously she means the Harmony Science Academies and that they are Gulen schools.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJmldzfD884&feature=related
In Dr. Ebaugh’s remarks, she stated that she had traveled to Turkey to study the Gulen Movement; and she learned that after Gulen investors put up the capital for the Gulen schools for a couple of years, the schools operate on their own.
This should be the same model used in the United States. If individual citizens want to put up the money for the Harmony Science Academies to get them started, that would be a matter to be decided in the private sector; but we taxpayers should not have our tax dollars used to pay for any schools that are tied to the Muslim movement.
3. PBS, “The Gulen Movement,” Jan. 25, 2011: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/episodes/january-21-2011/gulen-movement/7949/
Excerpts from this website:
SEVERSON: Gülen-inspired volunteers from Turkey bring Turkish language and culture with them. In Houston they sponsor a Turkish Olympiad where American students compete in Turkish dance and song. The winners compete in an annual competition in Ankara, Turkey. There are more than a 1000 Gülen-inspired schools and universities in over 100 countries...
SEVERSON: In Texas there are 33 nationally recognized public charter schools with over 16,000 students grades K through 12. They’re called Harmony schools, and the Turkish superintendent insists they are strictly secular and in no way connected to Gülen. [As shown in Points #1 and #2, the Harmony Science Academies most certainly are Gulen schools. -- Donna Garner] Professor Ebaugh says there’s a reason for this kind of sensitivity. [Dr. Ebaugh has stated publicly that she believes the Gulen charter schools in the United States should be more forthcoming about their links to him and to Turkey because she does not believe they have anything to hide. -- Donna Garner]
(4) Students in the Gulen schools celebrate various Turkish Muslim holidays, and students frequently win trips to Turkey.
