In 2012, the Osseo Area School District hired Pacific Education Group (PEG) to help with the high suspension rate amongst its non-white students and achievement gap issue the schools faced. Last year, the school board cancelled its contract with the racial equity consultants after abiding by its suggestions for five years and watching the racial achievement gap grow.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Wait –\u00a0grow<\/em>, you say?<\/p>\nWhat is clear for Osseo according to statistics obtained from Minnesota\u2019s Department of Education, math scores for black students in the School District have steadily declined, dropping from 33 percent in 2014 (which was above the statewide level) to 29 percent in 2017. In the same time period, math scores for white students remain largely unchanged at 73 percent. In reading, black students maintained a 36 percent proficiency in the same time period, while the gap with their white counterparts grew from 73 percent in 2014 to 74 percent in 2017.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
No huge surprise – it’s pretty much true everywhere.<\/p>\n
The surprise?\u00a0 We’ve actually found a school board that’ll tell the Emperor he’s walking around naked:<\/p>\n
\u201cThe problem is hard to fix when you have good teachers who are thinking about quitting, but you can\u2019t help them because you\u2019ve been sworn to not reveal their names,\u201d Gerhart told Alpha News. \u201cWe have a staff that is currently about 80% white, so in effect we are using taxpayer money to systematically shame 4\/5ths of our staff for simply being born.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gerhart describes an environment where teachers were afraid to step forward \u2013 teachers who were physically and verbally threatened and abused on a daily basis by their students.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The problem, of course, is that like most “progressive” “efforts”, the end results end up being indistinguishable from Stalin’s CHeKA, or the Spanish Inquisition:<\/p>\n
\u201cPEG has instilled a culture of fear among a number of teachers,\u201d Gerhart states. \u201cPEG likes to talk about having \u2018courageous conversations,\u2019 however in reality they have a number of \u2018protocols\u2019 in place that you have to agree and adhere to before taking part in the \u2018conversation.\u2019 \u00a0These protocols frame the context of the discussion before the conversation even takes place, in essence disallowing true discussion much less debate or disagreement. If a person does not agree to these basic protocols, it is regarded as evidence of that person\u2019s inherent racism. And remember, according to PEG, all white people are inherently racist no matter what, so a number of our teachers simply keep their mouths shut for fear of being labeled \u201cracist\u201d and getting fired or bullied out of their jobs.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The “Conversation” is\u00a0always\u00a0<\/em>defined by them.\u00a0 Which means it’s\u00a0never\u00a0<\/em>a conversation.<\/p>\nCongratulations, people of Osseo.\u00a0 Your elected officials have exhibited just the faintest shred of courage.\u00a0 It almost beggars the imagination.<\/p>\n
<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
News Flash:\u00a0 The citizens, taxpayers and parents of Osseo, MN have discovered what the parents of Saint Paul, Edina and some other Twin Cities’ area communities have found out:\u00a0 focusing to exclusion on “white privilege” as the reason for the achievement gap doesn’t actually change, or even affect, the achievement gap. Unlike other Twin CIties […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,308,78,377],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","category-entitled-america","category-school-choice","category-the-second-civil-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=64901"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64901\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64902,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64901\/revisions\/64902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=64901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=64901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=64901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}