...as millions are spent on "white privilege training" and staff are not allowed to discipline students:
ST. PAUL, Minn. – Have the taxpayers of St. Paul spent nearly $3 million over the past five years to bring chaos and danger to their schools and students?
Apparently so.
In 2010, the St. Paul school district began a contractual relationship with the Pacific Educational Group, a San Francisco-based organization that tries to help public schools deal with achievement and disciplinary issues involving black students.
PEG packages and sells the concept of victimization, for a very high price.
It claims that the American education system is built around white culture, tradition and social norms – aka “white privilege” – to the unfair detriment of black students.
PEG believes that black students will only achieve if school curricula are customized to meet their cultural specifications. It also rejects the concept of using suspensions or expulsions to discipline black students.
The relationship with PEG has been costly for the St. Paul district, in more ways than one.
According to information provided by the district to EAGnews through a freedom of information request, St. Paul schools spent at least the following amounts on PEG consultations services over the past five years:
* $137,720 in 2010-11,
* $366,800 in 2011-12,
* $598,900 in 2012-13,
* $489,150 in 2013-14 and
* $285,895 in 2014-15.
The district also reported spending “matched amounts” of $132,072 (2010-11), $363,260 (2011-12) and $537,900 (2012-13) on PEG, without explaining what that term means.
Not long after PEG started working with St. Paul school officials, crucial policy changes were made, according to various news reports.
Special needs students with behavioral issues were mainstreamed into regular classrooms, a position openly advocated by PEG.
Student suspensions were replaced by “time outs,” and school officials starting forgiving or ignoring violence and other unacceptable behavior, according to various sources.
“The disciplinary changes came out of meetings with an organization called Pacific Educational Group, a San Francisco-based operation that has been consulting with the district dating back to 2010,” the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported.
The result has been general chaos throughout the district, with far too many students out of control because they know there are no real consequences for their actions.
A local publication called CityPages recently told the story of Becky McQueen, an educator at St. Paul’s Harding High School.
“Last spring, when she stepped into a fight between two basketball players, one grabbed her shoulder and head, throwing her aside,” the CityPages article explained. “The kid was only sent home for a couple of days.
“In March, when a student barged into her class, McQueen happened to be standing in the doorway and got crushed into a shelf. The following week, two boys came storming in, hit a girl in the head, then skipped back out. One of them had already been written up more than 30 times.
“Yet another student who repeatedly drops into her class has hit kids and cursed at an aide, once telling McQueen he would “fry” her ass. She tried to make a joke of it — ‘Ooh, I could use a little weight loss.’ Her students interjected: ‘No, that means he’s gonna kill you.'”
McQueen now has her students use a secret knock on the classroom door, so she will know who to allow in, the article said.
“There are those that believe that by suspending kids we are building a pipeline to prison. I think that by not, we are,” McQueen told CityPages. “I think we’re telling these kids you don’t have to be on time for anything, we’re just going to talk to you. You can assault somebody and we’re gonna let you come back here.”
Full article here:
http://eagnews.org/teachers-complain-chaos-reigns-as-st-paul-schools-spend-millions-on-white-privilege-training/
