Research Tools for Parents and Teachers
We strongly encourage parents and teachers with questions or concerns about the Gulen charter schools in their area to do their own research. Here are some resources which may prove useful. (See also our pages on how to access school report cards, and on charter school law by state.)
School data
The National Center for Education Statistics has a searchable database of school information which can be accessed by clicking here and entering the school name (the city and/or state can also be specified). Be sure to check the box on the right which says "Public schools." This website gives basic demographic data, and enrollment broken down by grade for individual schools. The data are generally about 2 years behind, however. State school report cards tend to be only 1 year behind.
Visas
Gulen charter schools and their charter holder corporations file a remarkably large number of visa applications. To access the best website for H1B visa data, click here. This is the official site that the Department of Labor will refer you to. There are other commercial sites such as myvisajobs.com, etc, but we recommend this one. Enter an employer name in the box, and you can find all the H1B visas for each year from 2001 to 2008.
Non-profit data
Gulen charter schools are either non-profit corporations themselves or, more commonly, are under a non-profit charter holder corporation. Non-profits can be researched at the websites of the National Center for Charitable Statistics, Guidestar, and the Foundation Center. Just enter the name, for example "Cosmos Foundation," and you can also select the state to narrow the search. You can view and download the Form 990s that non-profits have to submit to the Internal Revenue Service every year. These forms provide useful information such as overall budget amounts, the mission of the non-profit, the top independent contractors hired by the non-profit, and the names of board members.
Grants
To search for federal government grants to charter schools and charter holder corporations, click on the following links:
Click here for Assistance Database
Click here for Recovery Database
Old newspaper articles
Many newspaper articles on Gulen charter schools are no longer available on the websites of the newspapers they were originally published in. The Newslibrary.com website has a large searchable archive, and individual articles can be purchased for $2.95 (Note: We have no affiliation with this website. There are other websites available that provide similar services; we cannot say which is best, but this website is one we happened to use and it worked.)
Archived webpages
Several services archive webpages periodically, making it sometimes possible to view a webpage as it appeared at some date in the past. When doing a Google web search, hits will usually show a link that says "Cached" next to them; clicking often makes it possible to view the last archived copy of the website that Google stored. Usually this only goes about one month back in time.
Another service, the Wayback Machine, allows viewing of some websites at various time points that can go back as far as 1996 in some cases. Not all websites are archived; it depends on the popularity of the site. As one example, some pages of the Horizon Science Academy website hsas.org can be viewed going back as far as 1999.
Congressional Turkey trips
The Legistorm website gives information on trips by Congressman and their staff, including the sponsor and the disclosed value. For example, by entering "Rumi Forum" in the "Sponsor" box, it is possible to view all Turkey trips paid for by the Rumi Forum.
