Contrary to what many on the left are saying - local schools in Ohio set their own curriculum. The Ohio State Board of Education (OSBE) provides standards of competency that children must meet to eventually graduate. These competency tests are used to help calculate a scorecard for the school system.
The State Board of Education does develop model curricula for school districts in Ohio. This is normally adopted from the members of the Ohio Leadership Advisory Council giving input. They greatly influence how teachers educate across Ohio. The Ohio Leadership Advisory Council is a partnership between the Buckeye Association of School Administrators and the Ohio Department of Education.
Much of what these associations are about is “identity” and “feelings” and they impose metrics related to “identity” and “feelings” upon the students of our public schools instead of focusing on solid education.
Identity Politics
Once identity politics is allowed in the classroom - it gives an avenue for activists to use emotional manipulations to push back against any conservative point of view; thus, an injection of unfettered stupidity flows into education.
No one is saying that America does not have its faults. But, these faults are certainly not on the order of Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, or Communist China. Certainly, the “Nazi” pejorative and the educational environment is pushing back and demonizing the dominance of white heterosexuals of European descent and is demonizing traditional gender roles.
With “feelings” couching every subject that is taught, students are emotionally manipulated to self-censor or to wipe out all various conservative values they may have had. For instance, let's say that your child doesn’t want to call a transgendered student by their preferred personal pronoun. The scenario could be that your teenager refuses to call a biological boy “she”. Now your teenager is considered a bully for stating what is accurate and the truth. Another scenario could be that your female student-athlete is uncomfortable competing against a transgendered student because they believe it is unfair for a biological girl to have to compete against a biological boy.
Social Emotional Learning (SEL or CASEL) is a methodology by which every liberal agenda item can be instituted within Ohio schools - and Ohio is one of 8 states that have developed standards that every school must implement.
While Critical Race Theory (CRT) is not taught directly in most K-12 schools - Ohio teachers can introduce all elements of CRT. This means that even though certain races and genders may not have played a significant role in history - or that the role of race and gender played no significant part - that there must be an inclusion of race and gender that is equal to that of the dominant race and gender - even if they played an insignificant or non-existing role. It is in this way that history is rewritten to give undue prominence to those that are undeserving of such a station.
There are only so many hours in a day - and it is not feasible to teach all of history and be inclusive of every identity group. This takes up too much time and energy and is too costly to try to appease everyone. It is an unacceptable burden for our education system to bear. Additionally, feelings based on identity only help to divide our children rather than to unite them and allow a truly integrated society.
Prior to the 2000s education in America was largely taught from a melting pot perspective. Education was largely “color blind” and did not concern itself with gender identification. Instead of identifying people into different groups, they were all classified from an American perspective, and assimilation into this perspective gave us a common bond. Today’s academia and Ohio’s professional educators say that the “color-blind” perspective is in itself racists and borne out of white privilege and white teachers need to check their privilege at the door and realize they are an oppressor.
The push for the elements of Critical Race Theory to be introduced into Ohio schools is happening from the top down and is being implemented through SEL. Of course, the following discussion is calling it CRT, it is called “Cultural Responsiveness.” This is quite eye-opening.
The end goal of SEL and “identity” led education seems to be to produce anti-American activists that see divisions which to segregate people into. Separate classes leave no chance of unity on anything.
Of course, the people that have bought into this reprehensible mindset do not want to recognize that white people are people too and also have a cultural heritage.
HOW TO STOP IT
In many school districts teachers are required to draw up lesson plans and turn them in for use of substitute teachers -not necessarily for approval by the principal, the school board, or the superintendent. Teachers have leeway in the classroom that allows them to depart from their lesson plans, curriculum, and perhaps the standards. It’s not good enough for your superintendent to say that there are no CRT courses. There should be:
Penalties for teachers that do not get all lesson plan materials approved.
Termination for teachers that introduce racial components into their lesson plans.
Lesson plans are available online, accessible to parents, students, and taxpayers.
While 77% of Ohio teachers and teaching professionals support Social Emotional Learning - everyone should talk to their legislators in order to ban this effort Statewide. SEL is currently adopted and was quickly integrated into most curricula.