Poetter said testing has become big business and is a threat to democracy.
“What you read in the curriculum field, there is a hyper-rush to standardized curriculum. It got ramped up through the efforts of commercialization of education. In Ohio, it’s a $1 billion industry now. Schools are our public entities between society and youth and society and families. This erodes democracy,” Poetter said.
The reform movement is broad, he said, and his class worked for a month this past summer trying to come to grips with it.
The class was doctoral candidates, mostly teachers but some administrators and a few in higher education or areas where education is important to them.
Poetter said the data was collected in three stages. Class members first had to reflect on their experience and write what he called “curriculum bits” and then take those and research “curriculum treatments” and come up with theories as to what could be done.
Finally, they broke into teams and worked to write the chapters.
“They broke into teams and worked to put the chapters together with the connective tissues between the bits and the treatment,” Poetter said. “There are six chapters and we did it in 30 days. I wanted us to think and be responding quickly.”
The title of the book may make anyone seeing it think it is a book about dealing with bullies and that is intentional. Poetter sees the net results of such testing as hard on students and taking away from true education. The title comes from a real-life experience of one of the teachers in the class who is also a parent, recounted in one of those “curriculum bits.”
“We had an essay from a teacher who picked up her daughter from first grade. It was a beautiful spring day but her daughter was crying in the back seat. She asked her, ‘Was someone mean to you today?’ She told her mother, ‘Our teacher said the testing is even harder next year.’ It’s crazy that someone was crushing her spirit. It’s indefensible. It’s reprehensible,” Poetter said. “I knew that was the title from the very beginning.”
The book was published by Van-Griner and is available online at www.van-griner.com under educational books.
In the explanation of the book on the publisher’s website, Poetter notes that, “In 2015, the opt-out movement flourished around the country, especially in Ohio. Perhaps this is the best way for parents and students to stem the tide of the testing regimes sweeping the nation.” He further added, “When we standardize children, standardize their teachers, standardize the curriculum, and standardize their schools, we get what we pay for: a very, very impersonal and ineffective system of public education, ripe for takeover. …Billions upon billions of dollars have been dumped into the private sector as we have over-regulated schools, making way for deregulation.”
He said the book was basically written when the class ended in June, but he wrote the introduction to the book and his student advisee Jody Googins did the final editing, earning her co-author credit.
He said the book was published in time to give a presentation at a fall education conference and he was invited speak at a meeting of the Ohio Coalition for Adequacy and Equity in School Funding.
While the book may seem to be geared toward educators, Poetter said it is an issue that should resonate with residents who care about the education children are receiving and is readable because it is written from an autobiographical perspective.
“We can see citizens begin to have schools reflect their interests and the community’s interests. It goes to the idea that citizens can see some outcome,” Poetter said, adding that the opt-out movement is picking up steam and huge segments of the population doing just that. “It’s a very interesting time to be working in or studying schools.”
He said the book delivers a strong message for people concerned about education.
“I am impressed by how the students were able to convert their experiences into something with their writing,” he said.
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