Deerfield and Highland Park High Schools, which comprise District 113, have offered SEED, SEED II, and SEED for Administrators for many years. In addition, District 113 has employed the services of the pricey Glenn Singleton and his Pacific Educational Group which promote the same dubious “social justice” theories as SEED. The District has spent well over $100,000 for these programs that are supposed to help close the racial learning gap.

In 2007-2008, Glenn Singleton visited District 113 approximately seven times. Each time he came, the district pulled all administrators, including all department chairs; two teachers from every department; and some secretaries and custodians from both high schools away from work for the entire day to meet with Singleton at the Highland Park Country Club to discuss district “whiteness” and “institutional racism.” Cumulatively, Singleton cost taxpayers $53,000; substitute teachers cost taxpayers $10,000; and lunch for everyone at the Highland Park Country Club for these seven visits cost taxpayers $20,000.

Last year, I asked my former employers, both the administration and school board, how, even in theory, having secretaries leave their jobs for seven full work days would help the Latino students improve their scores on standardized tests. As was their custom, they did not respond.

And what did the district, and most importantly, the Latino students, gain from this enormous financial investment? As I wrote earlier, District 113 Superintendent George Fornero recently wrote Secretary of Education Arne Duncan to tell him that District 113’s minority students “will all fail” this year’s ACT and Workkey Assessment tests (Prairie State Achievement Examination).

I can’t help but wonder what the Latino parents would think if they knew that District 113 has had over $100,000 available to help their children and that liberal activists squandered it to teach district employees about their “whiteness” while lunching at a North Shore Country Club.

But let’s turn to District 153 which has also spent thousands of dollars on SEED ostensibly to help close the achievement gap.

After visiting Churchill School in Homewood, IL, Southtown Star Reporter John Ryan wrote a follow-up column about District 153’s experiences with SEED. According to Ryan, Principal Cece Coffey explained that “the program was first brought in to address an achievement gap in the district.”

Then in a futile attempt to conceal the fact that SEED has accomplished precisely nothing in terms of closing the achievement gap, Coffey feebly said that the “Reasons for the gap in a middle-class community are subtle . . . If a student feels more accepted they are more engaged in school. It’s another leg, along with hard-core academic programs, to address the achievement gap.” The reasons are “subtle”? What does that even mean? Does it mean that Coffey doesn’t know what the reasons are? If so, why spend thousands of dollars for a curriculum to fix a problem whose causes remain a mystery?

Coffey attempts to obfuscate the issue of test scores, talking instead about students being “engaged in school.” This is very clever rhetoric in that to anyone reading it quickly, it suggests improvement in test scores and grades without actually claiming that test scores and grades will improve.

But the story gets even worse. Coffey was forced to admit that “[T]he program’s results are not quantifiable enough to gauge if it has directly influenced test scores in the two years it’s been in the district.”

In plain, non-evasive language, this means that test scores have not improved as a result of SEED. (This evasiveness makes one wonder if our public servants will ever admit mistakes.)

As I stated in an earlier article, a little thing like absence of results will not deter a true “diversity” proselyte. Coffey seamlessly switches the goal from improved test scores, which are, of course, objective and quantifiable, to something warmer, squishier, and non-quantifiable: “student interaction.”

Although the achievement gap remains, Coffey sees other benefits to the SEED expenditure. She “does believe she has seen [SEED’s] influence in student interaction. ” She reports that “‘On the playground and in conversations I’ve had with students, I can say we’re making progress.'” Thousands of tax dollars spent, and what does District 153 have to show for it? They have Ms. Coffey’s claim that from some conversations with students, she has divined that the school is “making progress.”

Specifically what kind of progress is being made and toward what goal is a wee bit unclear, but I’m sure whatever the shifting and murky goals are, Coffey and District 153 SEED Coordinator Jeanette Nichols can achieve them with just a few more tax dollars.

I would suggest that Homewood taxpayers, particularly the parents of minority children, ask Coffey some hard questions. For example, ask her who is learning to accept whom through SEED. In other words, prior to using the SEED curriculum, who was not accepting whom? Is she claiming that there were teachers who were not accepting minority students? Also, ask her to provide evidence that SEED has improved “student engagement with school.” Then ask her if the acceptance of someone by someone has improved either test scores or grades. If Coffey’s answers are evasive or unsubstantiated, don’t allow one more penny to be devoured by SEED.