A True Sciolist: Donna Garner - 2

By Divya Mangwani
May 30, 2011 - Gulen and Charter Schools

I will continue to give my personal answers to Donna Garner’s groundless claims. In my last article, I briefly mentioned the superficial and mostly wrong perceptions and knowledge coming from Donna Garner, who even lacks the basic information despite continuously labeling some charter schools as “Gulen Charter Schools”. 

Claim: “I received this note from a local pastor:

Hi Donna,

The local Harmony Science Academy is obviously one of these schools.  One of our church families had a daughter there, but the Muslim influence and foundation of beliefs and practices led them to remove her.

Thanks for bringing attention to this.

R.” (Taken from her article on ISD Initiative website)

Answer: What a dubious and obscure claim! First of all, there is no name mentioned here. No name of the pastor or Harmony School, who has 33 campuses in Texas, is given. Why are you scared Ms. Garner? Do you think people will bug the pastor? Or you are just making up stories?

Looks like she is just making up brand-new stories. Secondly, I can also write similar things about any school or any other organization. “Hi Donna… The local elementary school here is one of these schools where you find child abuse. One of our church families had a son there, but the abusive manners of the teachers led me to remove my son.” Looks familiar right? I could have put a famous elementary school name and defamed their name.

Besides, if there were to be such influence, brainwashing or similar practices, some other parents would definitely pull out their kids and that would also hit the local and national headlines. Since it is illegal to teach religion in public schools, any contrary practice will put that school into trouble.

Before making an ambiguous claim, people should think twice, because these kinds of claims, without any backing factual data, could leave a permanent negative spot on the mentioned organizations.

Claim: Students in the Gulen (charter) schools celebrate various Turkish Muslim holidays (taken from her Education News article).

Answer: Superficial claims are abound. This was another one I came up while reading Donna Garner’s stories.

According to my research, there is no such Muslim celebration at Harmony Schools. Moreover, Donna Garner displays her ignorance again. The term “Turkish Muslim holidays”, if two Muslim religious festivals are meant (Eid ul-Fitr and Eid ul-Adha) by this, is something non-existent and somewhat ridiculous concept. Muslims have two major religious holidays and you do not have to bring the adjective “Turkish” in front of the Muslim Holidays. On the other hand, such a celebration requires the witness of a couple of hundred students and some parents, administrators and other community members. At the end of the day, one would leak this “mysterious” and “secret” event to the media, wouldn’t s/he?

All these things point to one fact: Donna Garner is a couple of miles away from the facts. She just makes up the stories and throws mud on people. I would expect her to closely investigate the issue she is working on.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Source : http://gulenandcharterschools.blogspot.com/2011/05/true-sciolist-donna-garner-2.html

A True Sciolist: Donna Garner-1

By Dr. Kurt
May 24, 2011 - Gulen and Charter Schools

The charter school controversy is going on full throttle and some charter schools, infamously called Gulen Charter Schools, have recently become a scapegoat in this process.  After finding some information Peggy Littleton, I have turned my attention to other attackers. Recently, Donna Garner has made some buzz on Harmony Schools in Texas. She has some accusations on so-called Gulen Charter Schools at different internet sources and as a scholar, I made my own investigation with those schools and refuted Garner’s groundless accusations. Her knowledge in those issues is just superficial and she doesn’t even know  he simplest facts on neither charter schools nor Harmony Schools. That is why, henceforth, I will start calling her a sciolist (meaning “a person with superficial knowledge”).

Let us take a look at some of her accusations along with my findings consequent refutations. I will not provide the links for her accusations, but I will give the resources that she “contributes”. I will use claim-answer format to expose her sciolism:

Claim: "I imagine that many of these people (U. S. Congressmen Gene Green, Sheila Jackson Lee, Kofi Annan, Mayor Tom Leppert, Dr. Terri Grier, Texas Railroad Commissioner Elizabeth A. Jones, Bill White, Dr. Akbar S. Ahmed (Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies at American University), and James Baker) help to fund the Turkish charter schools where Islam is the predominant religion." (taken from her article onisdinitiative.org)

Answer: What an imagination (!), I should say. The names are so irrelevant that it is hard to find any logical relationship among each other. Besides, Dr. Grier is the Superintendent of Houston Independent School District (HISD). How come an ISD superintendent helps the funding of a charter school?  That is ridiculous. She has also no proof of such funding other than her wild imagination. Moreover, if a person shows up at the Gulen Institute, does it mean that s/he helps the funding of charter schools? What kind of correlation you establish here? Kofi Annan, former UN Secretary, has nothing to do with charter schools. He works for a Speakers Bureau giving keynote speeches around the world. This is pure ill intention to find such a relationship. I don’t want to go over the names separately, but two examples should suffice.

Claim: How would Turkish teachers (many here on visas) teach our American children about such historical events as the Holocaust? (taken from ramparts360.com) How could those Turkish teachers teach American children about the Constitution, Civil War and American History? (taken from the talk on City on a Hill radio)

Answer: Let me start with a question and a simple stat as an answer that I took from Harmony Schools officials: how many Turkish teachers are there at Harmony Schools teaching Social Studies? ZERO. Ms. Garner is so ignorant that she is not aware of the simple easy facts. Yet, interestingly, she does not bother to ask school officials before she comes up with a conclusion. Please do not worry Ms. Garner. Our American History is told by local American teachers.

Addendum: On the Ghostfighters page, where you can find the same article that I got from ramparts360.com, on top of the headline, this sentence reads: “we are funding charter schools that teach the kids to kill us.” Another bold and reckless claim... Imagine a school where you teach your kids how to kill their parents. None of the students react this! None of the parents, fellow teachers or community members show any reaction to this! Is it possible? If there were such things at these schools, we would have heard this somehow and some way, right? Or at least we would have heard some attempts from elementary and middle school kids (!) to kill their parents. I am ashamed to talk about those baseless claims, but attacking innocent schools with a partisanship attitude is what people like Donna Garner do. I wish we could dwell on more sensible things. By the way, I found that I was not alone. More things could be found on Donna Garner on the internet.

Donna Garner is a rich resource in terms of superficial and false information. She is the embodiment of sciolist approach. I am planning to write more about her false claims and their answers.

Source : http://gulenandcharterschools.blogspot.com/p/donna-garner-true-sciolist-1.html

Charter school eyes second role

By CHARLES LUSSIER
Advocate staff writer
Published: Jun 16, 2011 - Page: 1B

A new career-oriented charter school set to open in August may be joining forces with the Louisiana Department of Education to rescue the troubled Capitol High Academy.

The details are still emerging, but Nancy Roberts, executive director of the nonprofit group behind the new Career Academy, said the two sides plan to meet Thursday. “We’ve agreed in concept to a partnership,” she said.

Dennis Blunt, a member of the board of 100 Black Men of Baton Rouge, which won the charter to take over Capitol High in spring 2008, said 100 Black Men was formally alerted to the proposal late last week and would likely “wholeheartedly” support it.

The East Baton Rouge Parish school system, however, is not yet on board.

School Board President Barbara Freiberg said she’s concerned about having two schools run simultaneously by Career Academy, which the board granted a Type 1 charter to in May 2010.

Landrieu chats with Avoyelles Public Charter School students by videoconference

MANSURA -- It's been a big week for a class of high school students at Avoyelles Public Charter School.

The class returned from a trip to Boston late Tuesday night. On Wednesday morning, they were in a videoconference with U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu.

Avoyelles Public Charter is one of a handful of Louisiana schools that Landrieu is "visiting" as part of National Charter Schools Week. The school in Mansura was founded 11 years ago.

"I'm a very strong supporter of public charter schools," Landrieu said. "It's incredible to think of the opportunity you have there in Avoyelles Parish. It's an opportunity opening up around the state."

"We are very fortunate," said school principal and founder Julie Durand. "It's an honor to be one of only a few schools chosen. I hope they know how special this was."

After some opening remarks and a brief talk with Durand about the school, Landrieu, D-New Orleans, took some questions from the students. The first was a subject of tremendous local interest in Avoyelles Parish -- a proposal to sell or privatize some state prisons, including Avoyelles Correctional Center in Cottonport.

"I am strongly opposed to the governor's plan to privatize prisons, but I don't have a vote in that," Landrieu said.

She said she has seen abuses in privately run prisons and expressed the thoughts of many parish residents -- that private companies are more interested in making money than public safety or rehabilitating

inmates.

The senator urged the students who are close to voting age to write Gov. Bobby Jindal and state legislators to express their opposition.

Landrieu addressed a question about high gas prices by saying America must diversify its vehicle-fuel needs to rely less on foreign oil. She said she supports using electricity and natural gas as alternate fuels, but that it will take time to move them into mass production.

"Even though it was nerve-racking, it was a very good opportunity for us all to experience this," said student Simone Swanier. "I felt lucky."

"It was interesting to hear her side of the story on some issues," said Leslie Saucier.

Other student questions dealt with potential flooding issues in Louisiana and when U.S. forces are expected to pull out of Afghanistan now that Osama bin Laden is dead.

Landrieu had to cut the session short to get to the floor of the Senate, where a bill she sponsored to reauthorize two programs of the Small Business Administration was being debated.

"I thought it was a really good experience to talk to her," said student Haylee Doyle. "She gave us some good answers."

Source : thetowntalk.com

Sixth-grader at Abramson wins state science fair

By Marilyn Stewart
Contributing writer
Thursday, April 21, 2011
nola.com

Twelve-year-old Andre Johnson entered the state science fair for the first time this year and walked away with first place in the junior division. Now his eye is on an international competition this fall in Washington, D.C.
“It took practice, and it was hard work,” Andre said. “I had to believe in myself.”
Andre won the Greater New Orleans Science and Engineering Fair’s junior division before taking top honors in the mathematics category at the recent state Science and Engineering Fair at Louisiana State University. His win marks the 100th science competition award by an Abramson Science and Technology student since the Pelican Foundation Charter School opened four years ago.
The sixth-grader’s victory earns him a chance at an all-expense-paid trip to the Broadcom Math, Applied Science, Technology and Engineering for Rising Stars, or MASTERS, Competition in October. Thirty middle school students from across the nation will be chosen to compete for a $25,000 grand prize for education.
Andre’s experiment involved trial runs of a yellow toy car down an incline. He varied the height of the incline and measured the distance the car traveled off the ramp. In a second set of experiments he added weight by adding pennies, then made a comparison.
“I found out Isaac Newton was right,” he said.
Andre observed that the higher the incline, the greater the distance the car traveled off the ramp. He graphed his results, and in mathematical language, determined “the slope of the line.” The variance in height affected the outcome more than the change in weight, he concluded.
“Science fair is either the best, or one of the best ways, to teach the scientific method,” said Elkhan Akhundov, the school’s science research coordinator.
The scientific method, the organized testing of an idea through experimentation and observation, is the basic method in any research, Akhundov said.
“This introduces students to a simple method for carrying out research,” Akhundov said. “It gives them the blueprint for a path that takes them to a new invention.”
The Pelican Educational Foundation was formed in 2005 with educators from Louisiana State University, Southern University of New Orleans, Southeastern Louisiana University and the LSU Science Center in New Orleans. The foundation operates Abramson Science and Tech, its first school, and Kenilworth Science and Tech in Baton Rouge.
Pelican Foundation schools emphasize the integration of technology and digital arts in education, web-based training and monitoring, and collaboration with university professors and researchers for national and international science competitions. Orhan Kizilkaya, LSU professor with the center for advanced microstructures and devices and the department of physics, is president.
Cuneyt Dokmen, principal, said the science fair is valuable because it connects students to educators and resources at the university level. Partners include the University of New Orleans, LSU, Southern University at New Orleans and Tulane.
“Science fair is a tool,” Dokmen said. “It is additional support in making students aware of college opportunity. It is a tool to keep them academically challenged.”
Abramson graduates its first senior class in May with 27 students. The kindergarten through 12th grade has an enrollment of 550. Saturday school, after school tutoring and additional help on core subjects are standard. Teachers visit with parents in the home.
“We want to challenge students according to their level,” Dokmen said. “These children are smart. If they are already at mastery level, we want them to go for advanced.”
Abramson students took home 19 awards in this year’s city-wide science fair, and earned five of the nine awards offered at a competition this year sponsored by SUNO.
The school is located on the site of the former Marion Abramson Senior High School, 5552 Read Blvd. It is a Type 5 charter school and has open enrollment. Testing is not required for admission.
Andre’s win at the state science fair is another “first” for the school. Abramson came close two years ago when his brother, Michael Barnes, won fourth place in a computer science entry.
“He told me when I won, ‘Good job, little bro,’ ” Andre said. With a grin, he added, “Sometimes, I tease him that I passed him up.”

Source : nola.com

Online charter school starts up in Louisiana

BY JESSICA GOFF
THE DAILY IBERIAN
Monday, April 4, 2011

A new Baton Rouge-based statewide online charter school began accepting applications statewide on Friday.

The school, which is the first of its kind for the state, will be holding information sessions in several Louisiana cities for parents interested in enrolling their students in grades kindergarten through 12 into the program next fall.

The closest session to the Teche area will be held in Lafayette on April 12.he school, Louisiana Connections Academy, was approved by the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education in December and is predicted to enroll 500 students statewide in its first school year.

The school is one of 11 charter schools approved to open in the fall, the state department said.

There are 90 charter schools currently in operation in Louisiana.

The school is operated through the Friends of Louisiana Connections Academy but like all charter schools must demonstrate state-mandated academic performance and accountability requirements to maintain its BESE approved charter status, the department said.

The school advertises itself as “a challenging, K–12 curriculum developed by leading education experts- with instruction from state-certified teachers experienced in online instruction.”

Connections Academy is a national nonprofit company that operates free online public schooling in nearly 20 states.

The program combines learning in a non-traditional out-of-classroom atmosphere with curriculum that includes art, physical education, music, home life, foreign language, technology literacy depending on state issued curriculum.

For more information on the Louisiana Connections Academy visit www.connectionsacademy.com

Source: THE DAILY IBERIAN

The Changing Face of American Education

Posted by Secretary Arne Duncan 
on March 28, 2011

One of the greatest challenges facing our country is the coming retirement of more than 1 million baby-boomer teachers. This challenge has presented us with a once in a lifetime opportunity to help reshape education in America by recruiting and training the next generation of great American teachers.

Teaching is a rewarding and challenging profession where you can make a lasting impact. Teachers have a positive influence on students, schools, and communities, now and into the future. Schools across the nation are in need of a diverse set of talented teachers, especially in our big cities and rural areas, and especially in the areas of Math, Science, Technology, Special Education, and English Language Learning.

That’s why the department launched the TEACH campaign -- a bold new initiative to inspire and empower the most talented and dedicated Americans to become teachers. We know that next to parental support, there is nothing more important to a child’s education than the quality of his or her teachers.

Many of you are already thinking about becoming teachers. The TEACH campaign provides tools at your fingertips to navigate the academic and professional requirements that will credential you to succeed as a teacher in one of our schools. TEACH.gov features an online path to teaching and over 4,000 listed, open teaching positions.

In addition to information on job postings, teacher prep, and financial aid, prospective candidates can watch testimonials from current teachers. Each one was looking for a professionally challenging and financially rewarding career that would allow them to bring their passions, their lives, to work every day.  Go toTEACH.gov and listen to their stories. 

We’re also setting up TEACH Town Hall events around the country to encourage discussions in communities and at colleges for those who are preparing to step into the workforce. Help us spread the word about teaching careers. If you know someone who is considering becoming a teacher, send them to TEACH.gov so they can learn about the resources available for their state and district. Also be sure to let them know that we have an application called Raise Your Hand on Facebook that allows prospective teachers to join a community of teachers across the country and ask about teaching as a career.

Together, we can change the face of American education. We can recruit the next generation of great American teachers.

Arne Duncan is Secretary of Education

Source : The White House Blog