By Vakkas Dogantekin</p> <p>ANKARA (AA) – A veteran U.S. education leader has blasted a for-profit school project run by the FETO terror group in the rural south.</p> <p>After its 2016 attempted coup in Turkey was defeated, the Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO) has depended more heavily on its for-profit schools worldwide, even as the media and education professionals have sharply questioned the schools’ purposes and finances.</p> <p>Commenting on a new FETO school in Alabama, Diane Ravitch, a former U.S. assistant secretary of education, said: "The Gulenists must think that people in Alabama are easy marks. They proposed to open a charter school in a rural county with good schools that didn’t want a charter school."</p> <p>"Everyone warned Alabama officials to reject the proposal, even the National Association of Charter School Authorizers," Ravitch, now a professor of education at New York University, wrote on her blog late Friday.</p> <p>Under the heading “Alabama: Why Did a Rural County Get a Gulen Charter with a Pricey CEO?” Ravitch also questioned the high salaries of the Gulen-affiliated administration at the Woodland Prep charter school, located in a poverty-stricken area. </p> <p>She wrote that the school’s head “will have a base salary of $300,000 in one of the poorest states in the nation.”</p> <p>Raising further questions about the school, Ravitch quoted in a report by the Alabama Political Reporter website: “Its land is owned by a shady Utah holding company. Its building is owned by a for-profit Arizona company. It will be managed by a for-profit Texas company that doesn’t employ a single Alabamian. … Its application was rejected by the National Association of Charter School Authorizers, which Alabama pays a hefty sum to review and approve charter applications.
“Woodland also is not welcome in Washington County, where residents turned up at a 10-1 ratio to speak out against it last year during community meetings.”
Ravitch, the author of many books on education, is a strong advocate of the public school system and a vocal critic of the Gulen charter schools in the U.S.
FETO and its U.S.-based leader, Fetullah Gulen, orchestrated the July 15, 2016 defeated coup which left 251 people martyred and nearly 2,200 injured in Turkey.
FETO has a considerable presence outside Turkey, including private schools that serve as a revenue stream for the terror group. FETO runs some 150 charter schools in several states of the U.S.
