Cops Are NOT "Peace Officers"
I am a high school teacher in Ohio. There has not been one year in my last twelve years of teaching that I have raised public complaint. That silence ends now.
I have been a white Ohio educator at the high school level for almost 12 years.
I have seen initiative after initiative trickle down the pipeline, most of which I disagree with from a research-based standpoint, but I love my kids, so I have always dealt with the changes. There also has not been a single year in the last 12 that I have been evaluated the same way, and yet I have not raised even a teensy public complaint.
The silence ends now.
On January 18, 2024, I learned that the Ohio Department of Education is creating a new curriculum that will become mandatory for all students who want to graduate high school in our great state. As stated on their website, this curriculum is designed to teach children how to interact with “peace officers”, which is their fun (and insane) word for cops of various forms.
Their website also suggests this initiative was spearheaded by the Ohio Department of Public Safety — a.k.a. other cops — meaning there is no sound educational background or even need for this propaganda. Nobody from the world of schools asked for this, and nobody from the world of schools wanted this. But now, this will be Ohio law.
I have seen some of the slides from one of the presentations that the Department of Education is considering releasing to the public as a “model curriculum”. I have seen them because school districts are already meeting with teachers and other staff members to implement this new initiative.
I can tell you with complete conviction that what I have seen is racist and fascist propaganda that will have widely detrimental effects on ALL students and teachers who are forced to participate.
First and foremost, it is not the job of the public to protect themselves against police brutality. This perpetuates the myth that victims are responsible for the actions of their abusers (while we know that cops already have a higher rate of perpetuating domestic abuse) and does absolutely nothing to solve the actual problem of cops abusing their power while terrorizing marginalized groups.
Let’s look at what this course will NOT teach students:
Students will not learn any accurate and historical information and statistics about “peace officers”.
Students will not learn how policing has its roots deeply entrenched with the “Slave Patrols” of the past.
Students will not learn how 2023 was the deadliest year ever for cops, who murdered more than 1300 people.
And finally, students will not learn how 50 years of crime data shows that only 2% of crimes end in conviction, which ultimately highlights how “peace officers” do not stop crimes, nor do they prevent them from happening in the first place.
Now, let’s look at what this bright and shiny new curriculum WILL teach students:
Students will be taught the false narrative that if you just do whatever cops say, everything will be great.
And every single white student in Ohio — including my own six-year-old — will be taught that when police shoot another Black or Brown person, it was ultimately their fault for simply not complying.
Racism.
Fascism.
Violent propaganda.
We should already know, as a collective society, that parents of children of color have to have “the talk” with their children early and often in order to try and keep them safe from police brutality.
We all should also already know that even when people of color are doing EVERYTHING right and NOTHING wrong, they are significantly more likely to be met with lethal force from the “peace officers” tasked with protecting them.
In Columbus, Ohio alone, we are currently pushing for Jason Meade, a former deputy, to be tried again for the murder of Casey Goodson Jr. after the original trial resulted in a hung jury and a C.P.D. officer just recently shot and killed another Black man named Colin Jennings who was experiencing a mental health episode when they were called to help him.
Therefore, and I need to be excruciatingly clear here, there is not a single white teacher on planet earth that is qualified to teach students of color about how to interact with cops.
Ok then, Sarah, how about the Black teachers teach it the curriculum then? Great question, and the answer is emphatically no. Only 6.1% of all teachers in the U.S. are Black because of long-standing systemic racism in the educational field. Most schools have only white teachers. Furthermore, this curriculum is racist regardless of who the adult in the room is.
Who does the state want to teach these lies? Well, the website says that any teacher already teaching a course required for graduation will be automatically allowed to add this to their current curriculum. Currently, I teach personal finance, which is required for graduation, so white teachers just like me could be required to add this to their classes.
The last time we glorified having “peace officers” in our schools was the D.A.R.E. program, and multiple credible sources all report that the initiative was a huge and dismal failure in reaching its intended goals.
Another inherently foul portion of this curriculum is that it boasts that students must engage in “role play” activities. I cannot even begin to fathom how traumatic that would be for a Black student. How would a teacher ever decide who played the cop and who played the “offender”? What would that feel like to stand in front of 30 of your peers and make-believe being questioned by police, knowing full well that your DIPLOMA depends on it?
Currently, in the capital city, we have buildings in the Columbus Public School system actively crumbling around our children. We have high school kids running on dirt tracks, and elementary school students who do not have enough money to eat (or pack) a lunch. We need more mental health professionals and guidance counselors across the state, and yet taxpayer dollars are being spent to develop new, racist content. I cannot make it make sense or cents.
We need to be teaching our students social justice at every grade level.
We need to be teaching accurate, not whitewashed, history.
We need to be teaching our kids personal finance, career acquisition skills, and how to have more of a voice in our political system.
We do NOT need to be teaching them how to be quiet and compliant in the face of police brutality, either experienced or witnessed.
There are more than 1.6 million schoolchildren in Ohio and the time for being quiet is over. I cannot sit back and watch as our state joins the ranks of Florida and Texas. Next, we will be teaching that Black people benefited from slavery or using PragerU as classroom content.
Please join me in fighting this by signing my petition to ensure no Ohio student ever has to take this course in their school. One sole petition will not stop this racist and fascist propaganda in its tracks — yet it is our starting point to our fight.
Please sign.
Thank you for bringing this issue to light. We must all stand up and fight this nonsense in solidarity. This is so important Petition signed & shared!
Wow.