A Teachable Moment

In my unending search to make sense of the contemporary American public education scene, I regularly check in with Valerie Strauss, whose Answer Sheet blog is usually interesting and thought provoking. Her guest blogger today, Sharon Higgins, not only immediately caught my interest, but I still can’t quite believe what I read. If I told you that a secretive Turkish religious sect has used the charter school laws of this country to build a network of 135 schools that promote Turkish culture and the teachings of Fethullah Gulen , a Turkish preacher, you would be convinced that I had absorbed some wildly stupid idea from the New York State Education Department and had finally succumbed, a sort of anaphylactic allergic response to educationist stupidity. But that’s exactly what Higgins says has happened. What other school networks are out there, financed with tax dollars? When you think you’ve heard it all….