Police Brutality is an Education Justice Issue
Posted on: Thursday August 21st, 2014
The recent murder of Michael Brown, another unarmed Black youth, by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, has sparked anger and protests across the country. It has led to important conversations about the criminalization of youth of color, the militarization of the police, and what we can do to end such injustices. Such tragedies are all too common in this country; a Black person is victim to an extra-judicial killing every 28 hours. The trauma that this creates in Black and Brown communities is immeasurable and felt heavily in our schools, which are starved for resources and wholly unequipped to support young people’s healing. Ferguson schools have had to delay the beginning of the school year out of concerns for students’ safety. This exacerbates challenges for families who depend on schools to provide care and food for their children.
This post originally appeared on the Alliance to Reclaime Our Schools (AROS) blog. The OTL Campaign is a member of AROS.
The recent murder of Michael Brown, another unarmed Black youth, by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, has sparked anger and protests across the country. It has led to important conversations about the criminalization of youth of color, the militarization of the police, and what we can do to end such injustices. Such tragedies are all too common in this country; a Black person is victim to an extra-judicial killing every 28 hours. The trauma that this creates in Black and Brown communities is immeasurable and felt heavily in our schools, which are starved for resources and wholly unequipped to support young people’s healing. Ferguson schools have had to delay the beginning of the school year out of concerns for students’ safety. This exacerbates challenges for families who depend on schools to provide care and food for their children.As parents, students and teachers, we see massive divestments in schools that serve low-income Black and Brown youth. At the same time, police forces are bolstered with technologies and equipment that cost millions of dollars and do more harm than good. Spending on the nation’s criminal justice system has increased by 127% from 1987 to 2007, while spending on higher education only went up by 21%, according to the Pew Research Center. Our schools are forced to cut nurses, counselors and teachers. Sometimes, even the neighborhood school itself is forced to closed. In Philadelphia this year, students suffered as Governor Corbett spent “nearly half a billion dollars this year on prison expansion while the School District of Philadelphia was forced to lay off over 4,000 employees at the beginning of the school year due to a budget deficit of $304 million” states the Philadelphia Student Union.
Rather than turn to methods like restorative justice, we continue using “zero-tolerance” practices that criminalize youth of color and depend heavily on the use of police and security guards Police Brutality is an Education Justice Issue | National Opportunity to Learn Campaign | Education Reform for Equity and Opportunity: