Adelita Grijalva has, in her capacity as a Tucson School District board member, seen firsthand the competition that proliferating charter schools can pose to public schools, particularly in terms of funding. But when it became clear that Gülenist charters in the area were misappropriating funds, her father, Rep. Raul Grijalva, called for an investigation:

Grijalva wrote, “As a member of the House Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education, I have a particular interest in charter schools operations that are funded by public taxpayer dollars. I believe that we have an obligation to ensure that no federal funds are being misused in these schools.”

In Arizona, charter schools connected to questionable movements proliferate, and like the Gulen schools, are raking in the cash through State funding and federal funding through the E-Rate program and others.

Rep. Grijalva specifically cites the irregularities in Gulen schools in his letter. He writes of the Gulen schools, “… many states have launched investigations into the contracting practices of this particular network of charter schools. Most recently, a 2015 report by the California State Auditor’s office determined that after reviewing 225 vendor transactions some charter schools linked to the same organization, 23 percent of the expenses lacked “either clear authorization or sufficient support for the transactions.”

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