DENVER – Earlier this week, NBCNews.com published a glowing report about the significant decline in out-of-school student suspensions and expulsions in the Denver Public Schools district.

The story sings the praises of the “restorative justice” approach to student discipline employed by the district.

MORE NEWS: Know These Before Moving From Cyprus To The UK

“An angry teenager feels disrespected by a classmate and initiates a physical fight with another student. The resulting altercation disrupts a classroom lesson,” the NBC piece said.

“Should these students be expelled? Or should they talk with one another, their fellow students, and a counselor about the consequences of their actions and how to make amends?”

People opposed to out-of-school suspensions, particularly for students of color, would certainly approve of the latter approach described above. They believe it’s critical to keep children in school to whatever degree possible, rather than releasing them to the negative influence of the streets.

But many teachers and others who work in Denver schools have a different view. They say the school district has focused too much on eliminating suspensions, to the degree that students misbehave more frequently, with no fear of meaningful punishment.

The “restorative justice” philosophy has certainly kept a lot more Denver kids in school.

According to a 2013 report from Chalkbeat.org, “the number of out-of-school suspensions this year dropped 38 percent to 5,309 from 8,542 two years ago. Meanwhile expulsions have dropped to 69 from 108 two years ago.”

The NBCNews.com report said that since 2005, when the district started inching toward “restorative justice” for student offenders, out-of-school suspensions have decreased from about 12,000 to about 5,000 per year.

MORE NEWS: How to prepare for face-to-face classes

That news will certainly be welcomed by the Obama administration, which has been pressuring schools across the nation to lower suspensions, particularly for black and other minority students, who receive a disproportionate share of those penalties.

The statistics are presumably also embraced by the Pacific Educational Group, a left-wing education consulting firm that contracts with hundreds of districts across the nation – including Denver Public Schools – to combat “white privilege” in schools.

PEG has spoken out against out-of-school suspensions for black students, claiming their behaviors are often misunderstood by white teachers and administrators. PEG officials have also excused minority students for violent and unruly actions, claiming their behavior is the result of socio/economic conditions.

“White educators are prone to wondering why black and brown boys are prone to fighting in school,” writes Glenn Singleton, PEG’s founder. “They question why violence is taught in homes of color.

“Missing from this analysis however is how these boys might be affected by growing up in a white-governed country which threatens young men of color at will, distrusts their ability to succeed and follow the law, and allows daily racial stress to mount in neighborhoods, schools and classrooms.”

But officials from PEG and the Obama administration don’t have to work in the schools.

Like their peers in several other districts that contract with PEG, many Denver teachers say the new disciplinary policies have led to chaos in many classrooms, because students know there will be no serious consequences for their actions.

In 2013, Chalkbeat.org published a story about the lack of discipline in Denver schools and the educators who spoke out about it.

The article said a group of students lured a teacher out of a classroom, so that a female student could assault another female student while they watched and recorded a video that they posted on Facebook.

The article quotes a letter sent by 44 staff members at Morey Middle School to district administrators, outlining their grave concerns:

“The disproportionate amount of time and resources that in the past would have been spent on improving instruction is instead spent by our entire staff, including administrators, instructional team, support staff, and teachers on habitually disruptive students that continually return to our classrooms This has now reached a critical point.”

The article quoted Greg Ahrnsbrak, a physical education teacher at Bruce Randolph Middle School, who said the level of disruption caused by misbehaving students was increasingly intolerable.

The teacher claimed that students have been caught with drugs, have threatened teachers, and have threatened to blow up the school, with few consequences.

“Ahrnsbrak said students caught fighting no longer automatically face suspension under the revised policy, which he said went into full effect at Bruce Randolph this year,” the news report said. “As a result, he said, students with serious behavioral issues are being kept in class, disrupting the educational experience of other students.

“Ahrnsbrak said it’s his belief DPS is basically not allowing schools to effectively deal with habitually disruptive students ‘to make the numbers,’ or ensure that the number of students being expelled or suspended keeps going down.”

Ahrnsbrak told the reporter that, “Consequently, the message to all students is there are no limits.”

Other teachers also spoke out in the article.

“This has gotten to the point it’s beyond ridiculous,” Patrick Millican, a math and geography teacher at Randolph Middle School, was quoted as saying. “There is no of set of consequences for these kids’ actions. It’s not fair to those kids who come to school every day, work hard and try to get a good education.”

Two years later, the situation had apparently not improved to any significant degree.

A March 2015 story published by CPR.org reported that one-third of Denver teachers responding to a student survey said they did not feel safe in their own schools.

“Sixty percent of the teachers said behavior and discipline problems have had a negative impact on the teacher’s mental health,” the news story said.

“Almost 60 percent of those surveyed would hesitate to send their own child to their school because of discipline issues. A third reported being instructed to follow questionable discipline reporting practices. And almost 80 percent said they are losing planning time because of discipline problems in the classroom.”

Amazingly, DPS Superintendent Tom Boasberg seemed dismissive of the survey results and the concerns of frightened teachers.

“I think that any time an interest group with very strong views purports to do a survey, that the purported results of those surveys should be taken with more than one grain of salt,” Boasberg was quoted as saying in the CPR.org story.

“I don’t think that one would look to the Republican National Committee survey results about Hillary Clinton as the most accurate gauge of Ms. Clinton’s image.”