Mayhem Rules in St. Paul Schools

Teachers, parents and students in the school district of St. Paul, Minnesota, are learning firsthand what happens when educators embrace ideologically driven, crackpot solutions for the achievement and disciplinary issues involving black students who are “victims” of “white privilege”: anarchy.

That anarchy comes courtesy of the district’s voluntary affiliation with Pacific Educational Group (PEG), an entity founded in 1992 by self-described “diversity expert” Glenn Singleton. As PEG’s website declares, it is their belief that “[s]ystemic racism is the most devastating factor contributing to the diminished capacity of all children.” As a result, they partner with educational systems “to transform them into racially conscious and socially just environments that nurture the spirit and infinite potential of all learners, especially students of color, American Indian students and their families.”

Superintendent Valeria Silva bought into this nonsense, engendering a seismic shift in the way discipline was meted out, based on statistics that showed black students being suspended at “alarming rates.” Thus suspension became a last resort, replaced with 20-minute “time outs” and counseling by a behavioral coach before offending students were sent back to the classroom. In the meantime, PEG offered “racial equity” training for teachers and staff, who were tasked with “exploring” their biases and prefacing their opinions with, “As a white man, I believe…” or “As a black woman, I think…” in an effort to discover their subconscious racism.

How’s it working out? Following district spending of more than $3 million on PEG programs over the last five years, local publication CityPages paints a depressing picture:

At John A. Johnson Elementary on the East Side, several teachers, who asked to remain anonymous, describe anything but a learning environment. Students run up and down the hallways, slamming lockers and tearing posters off the walls. They hit and swear at each other, upend garbage cans under teachers' noses.

“We have students who will spend an hour in the hallway just running and hiding from people, like it’s a game for them,” says one despondent teacher. “A lot of them know no one is going to stop them, so they just continue."

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