A Poor Strategy

The February 6th HSD Curriculum Committee meeting focused on the district's Strategic Plan, available at this link.
Sadly, it looks like the issue of the radical, hateful, and racist teaching of Critical Race Theory (discussed in my last blog post) is more pervasive than I thought. Page 18 of this strategic plan contains the action item "Continue education and awareness training through Pacific Educational Group..." And to make sure no teachers remain un-brainwashed, the same page requires the schools to create a "tracking system of the participation rates for equity focused professional development".

What is the Pacific Educational Group? Basically, they are a consulting group that has been providing "diversity education" to school districts around the country-- centered on the most radical, divisive teachings of Critical Race Theory. An informative article online summarizes their beliefs better than I can:


Glenn Singleton of Pacific Educational Group has become a rich man by preaching racism, hate, and scapegoating. School systems hire him for hundreds of thousands of dollars to insult and scapegoat teachers and students based on their race under the guise of “diversity training.” That embarrasses the school systems that hire him in high-profile legal cases. Yet foolish school superintendents continue to hire him at exorbitant rates, as the Discriminations blog notes, citing a recent story in the San Francisco Chronicle.
...
Singleton promotes the basest racial stereotypes, such as claiming that “’white talk’ is ‘verbal, impersonal, intellectual’ and ‘task-oriented,’ while ‘color commentary’ is ‘nonverbal, personal, emotional’ and ‘process-oriented.’” He also blathers about “the ubiquity of white privilege and racism,” and depicts Asian students as being “majority students” just like whites because they have the temerity to succeed academically in a predominantly white society. But although he views minority culture as not being “intellectual” and “task-oriented,” it is white teachers whom he blames for the underperformance of many minority students, since he claims it would be a “racist statement” to place any responsibility for minority underperformance on minorities themselves.

Not only is this use of race irratonal and insulting, it is also illegal:

In June 2007, the Supreme Court struck down Seattle’s use of race, and 4 of the 9 justices cited Seattle’s wacky, Singleton-influenced, definitions of racism in the course of their opinions. Justice Thomas, for example, cited those definitions as an object lesson in why not to defer to school districts when they use race. I filed the brief that brought those wacky definitions to the Supreme Court’s attention; it was one of the few amicus briefs filed in the case that opposed Seattle’s use of race. As a result of losing the case, Seattle is expected to pay more than a million dollars in attorneys fees to the lawyers who challenged its use of race.

Other interesting articles, on more recent experiences with this group, can be found here and here.  So, in summary, the Pacific Educational Group provides a radical, extremist form of "equity training" that is racist at its core, and its policy suggestions have even been held illegal by the U.S. Supreme Court. Yet the Hillsboro School District has not only hired this group, but embedded dependence on them in its strategic plan.

I have brought this issue to the attention of some school board members, and am waiting to see what action is taken.