ANN ARBOR, Mich. – School districts around the nation contract with the Pacific Educational Group (PEG) for a variety of reasons, but the underlying motivation is closing persistent achievement gaps between white and minority students.

PEG officials say that gap exists due to “white privilege” in public schools. In other words, curriculum and teaching strategies are fundamentally based on white cultural norms, to the detriment of minority students.

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PEG, a San Francisco-based education consulting firm, attempts to combat this problem by training school staff to employ more “racial equity” in their instructional efforts.

The Ann Arbor, Michigan school district contacted with PEG between 2005 and 2011, paid the company nearly half a million dollars, then determined that the achievement gap had not shrunk to any significant degree. The superintendent and several school board members also complained that PEG failed to produce measurable data regarding its impact on the district.

The district dramatically reduced its relationship with PEG in 2011, instead opting for an in-house program to address the achievement gap.

Regardless of whatever progress has been made since then, it’s arguable that the in-house effort was at least as effective, and a lot less expensive, than PEG’s program.

“From March 2005 until June 2011, the district spent $441,130.06 on various services from the Pacific Education Group,” the Ann Arbor News reported in 2012. “That’s an average of $73,521.68 per year.

“Most of the charges were for consulting services and travel expenses for Glenn Singleton, chief executive officer of PEG, and other individuals within his organization.”

From Singleton’s perspective, his company’s efforts were having a positive impact in Ann Arbor.

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“At some point, you see if the district is going to fly or not take responsibility and I think Ann Arbor is going to fly,” he told the Ann Arbor News editorial board in 2011.

When asked during that interview how his company measures progress, Singleton indicated that statistics were monitored on a regular basis.

“What’s most important is a constant monitoring of what we would look at as summative data, like standardized tests, but also the teacher-produced type of assessments,” Singleton was quoted as saying.

“All of those add up to how kids are experiencing school and what are chances for success. We’re constantly monitoring the data and that’s one of the earliest things we engage in. Student achievement goals are the ultimate measures.”

Ironically, several school board members said they became skeptical of PEG’s due to the absence of statistics that might have measured how much impact the company was having.

“We’re pretty data driven, pretty affluent, with smart constituents,” Ann Arbor school board member Simone Lightfoot told the Portland (Oregon) Tribune in 2014. “We didn’t find that they were able or willing … to provide a measurement of growth, improvement, something quantifiable.”

“What didn’t happen was a direct link to their specific work, like identifying how many staff had been trained, improvements in classrooms like better participation in AP courses, some of the indicators that would demonstrate more of a direct tie,” board member Christine Stead told the Tribune.

“When you look to make an investment and you’re really trading off resources that affect the classroom, they should make a good case for themselves.”

The data that Lightfoot and Stead did see cast a shadow on PEG’s efforts in the district.

“On Thursday, the Michigan Department of Education released its annual report card for schools, complete with new designations that highlight performance discrepancies at individual buildings. Ann Arbor had 27 of its 33 schools targeted for improvement by the state due to its achievement gap,” AnnArbor.com reported in 2012.

“On the Michigan Educational Assessment Program exam in 2010-11, 80 percent of Caucasian fifth-graders scored proficient in math, while just 32 percent of African American students and 42 percent of Hispanics scored the same. In reading, 93 percent of Caucasians, 50 percent of African Americans and 55 percent of Hispanics scored proficient.”

So PEG was on the job in Ann Arbor for about six years, and was paid nearly half a million dollars, but academic outcomes for minority students continued to sag.

It was a huge gamble with taxpayer dollars that failed to solve the problem, and arguably postponed the implementation of an effective solution.