Must Be Something In The Milk

Posted with minimal comment, mainly because such foolishness deserves little response. (H/T to Peter for the original link.)

These are tough times for Minnesota schools.

In Lakeville, for example, the school board recently announced wrenching cuts of almost $7 million. Ninety-four teachers will lose their jobs, arts programs will suffer and a school will be closed.

There was wailing and gnashing of teeth, but the board set its jaw: There's not a dime for anything extra.

Unless you've got an ax to grind with white folks. Then the money spigots open.

The Lakeville schools are sending a delegation of teachers to the 12th annual "White Privilege Conference" at the Bloomington Sheraton from April 13-16. The district is shelling out $160 a pop -- plus $125 a day for teacher subs -- for this "white guilt" festival.

Let me get this straight. The school district is closing schools, laying off teachers, and cutting back programs due to a shortage of funds, but can still come up with the money to send employees to a conference "built on the premise that the U.S. was started by white people, for white people," with a stated mission of getting participants to confront their biases in a "journey in understanding white supremacy, whiteness, privilege, power and oppression..."

And what do the school district's taxpayers get in exchange for subsidizing this conference?

Teachers can attend workshops where they will "discuss how white privilege, white supremacy, and oppression affects daily life." Another workshop instructs attendees how to "rapidly release and overcome stress, trauma, drama and toxic beliefs."

I "release and overcome stress" with a bottle of wine and a roll in the hay. It's less expensive, doesn't take four days, and is a lot more fun. 

Participants will also have their worldview expanded, and presumably will pass these insights along to their students, as exemplified by selected quotes from the conference's website and assorted speakers:

"(Americans) are completely dependent on U.S. imperialism and war to sustain our daily lives."

"Our school system has been set up ... to perpetuate white supremacy and white privilege." Poor and minority students "do not drop out -- they are pushed out."

Christianity "has played a key role in developing and justifying sources of oppression" such as "violence and genocide" and is "the beginning of modern or biological racism."

The solution to 'white privilege' is to look beyond our "declining empire" to "exciting progressive developments" in Hugo Chavez's Venezuela -- among them, "land reform and redistribution of wealth, neighborhood committees, recognition of women's unpaid labor, end of spanking."

Ah, yes. If we end spanking then all our problems will be over.

If only it were that simple.

Yesterday's post highlighted a Chicago school's plan to prohibit students from bringing their own lunch to school. Also yesterday, Harper commented on a controversy over serving chocolate milk in public schools (now that I think about it, that should be a topic for the White Privilege Conference - after all, no one's talking about banning white milk). Now we have schools ignoring the budget crisis and blowing taxpayer dollars on obviously biased, one-sided, ideologically-driven brainwashing sessions. Whatever happened to teaching reading, writing, and 'rithmatic?

I wonder how much money these school districts receive from the Department of Education?