My home state of South Carolina is a poster child of disfunction, a self-loathing mutt of myopic bible-thumping, state-rights' libertarianism mated with historical and systemic poverty born out of racism and the lingering burden of slavery.
SC voted for Newt Gingrich in the 2012 Republican presidential primaries and now stands as the home of former-governor turned Appalachian-trail-hiking pro-family Mark Sanford running again for office.
Beneath the Surface
Yet one of the greatest weights on the state is a long-standing assault on the state's struggling public schools. SC is also a powerful and disturbing picture of the greater education debate in the U.S. since the state reflects a harsh reality of the dynamics associated with pockets of poverty and community-based schools. As a documentary and law suit have identified, SC schools suffer from a corridor of shame.
Because of the state's nearly blanket commitment to the Republican party (many offices have only one candidate, a Republican, and a number of SC politicians have saved their political careers by simply switching to the Republican party, even ascending to governor through a change in affiliation) and right-to-work (read non-union) status, advocates of corporate-style education reform policies that have been spreading over the past thirty years—the accountability movement built on standards and tests, but promoting school choice and alternative programs such as Teach for America (TFA) and charter schools—have sought to wedge their influences into my home state. The list is disturbing:
• Howard Rich buying SC in order to privatize schools, as examined by Gina Smith and Cindi Scoppe.
• TFA infiltrating the high-poverty schools of Charleston, SC.
• SC League of Women Voters bending to the VAM-style evaluation of teachers.
• A bill seeking to model SC reading policy on Read, Florida—a flawed and punitive approach that promises to retain impoverished children of color.
Next, it appears, is the continued onslaught of charter schools:
A building off Pelham Road in Greenville County is under construction, but it will soon be the site of GREEN Charter School, which stands for Greenville Renewable Energy EducatioN....
During a FOX Carolina investigation a crew learned that Docmeci helped open similar charter schools in Florida and New York. His name is mentioned with what's called Gulen Movement.
Along with the problems associated with the broader charter school movement—re-segregating schools, "no excuses" ideologies entrenching racist and classist policies, diversions from more authentic reform—the Gulen Movement adds another layer of caution, as
Sharon Higgins has reported [1]:
“Gulen movement” is the most commonly used term for the group of individuals who follow the teachings of Fethullah Gulen, a charismatic but highly controversial Turkish Muslim preacher. Members refer to themselves as Hizmet (“service”). This group is widely known in Turkey as the cemaat (“The Community”). Historically, new members have been recruited at the movement’s tutoring centers, dormitories, and schools....
The Gulen movement’s secretive nature and use of strategic ambiguity has caused repeated concern in Turkey and elsewhere....
Organizations within the movement’s web, as well as the individuals who are involved, are extremely reluctant to disclose their affiliation to outsiders. Bill Park, a Senior Lecturer in the Defence Studies Department at King’s College London and a British expert on Turkish politics has stated, “Fethullahci are often loath to declare themselves openly as such.” And, “Gulen institutions do not publicize their Gulen affiliation anywhere they operate.”...
The Gulen movement is highly controversial in Turkey and even feared, as reflected in a CBS 60 Minutes interview with Andrew Finkel, an American journalist who has been reporting from Turkey for 25 years....
While the American public’s taxes support the Gulen movement’s charter schools, its other organizations are financially supported by members.
SC now sits as a canary in a coal mine for anyone who values the promise of universal public education, social justice, and eradicating the plight of poverty within the more affluent country in human history.
I see no reason to wait for discovering the bird prone on the bottom of the cage.
[1] See more HERE and HERE.