In September, I wrote about Dawn Neely-Randall, a teacher in her 25th year of teaching in Ohio who decided she had to speak out against the testing madness that had swept the nation. I said if there were 1,000 teachers with her gumption in Ohio (and every other state), we could drive the “reformers” out of our schools and back to the smoke-filled rooms and financial institutions where they came from (of I didn’t exactly say that, I meant it).

Dawn has continued to speak out, and she sent me her Facebook page, which has pictures of her in conversation with Governor John Kasich. Governor Kasich looks on approvingly while charter pirates raid the state treasury of about $1 billion a year. He doesn’t worry about their poor performance or about their high profits because they also are generous contributors to his party! He doesn’t worry about wasting the lives of Ohio’s children by putting them in schools run by mercenaries. He doesn’t care about squandering the public’s money intended for education.

Dawn sent this new letter:

“Diane, I just thought I’d share my FB post from today. I’ve now talked with 1 Governor (and 1 Governor Candidate); 3 Senators; 6 State Reps; 1 Congress Woman (and 1 Congress Woman candidate); the Ohio Board of Education (twice); and the Ohio School Board. Here’s a photo of me trying to hold Governor Kasich to task over all this testing (who agreed that 18 hours for my fifth-graders “seems excessive” and who PROMISED I would be heard, but, of course, I have still not received the guaranteed phone call from our State of Ohio School Superintendent. (I’m the one who wrote the Washington Post piece of throwing students to the testing wolves…) In the meantime, parents in Ohio are starting to activate. It is all so overwhelming.

“Here is my FB post. Please see photos with Koch-funded and future Presidential candidate John Ka$ich from last Saturday at LCCC in Elyria, Ohio:

Dawn Neely-Randall

“Stress is really setting in.

“This morning, I awoke feeling the weight of the world on my shoulders. I don’t know how one little rant on Facebook last March got me from just being a concerned teacher to being so out there politically and publicly. I have NO political aspirations and I have received NO compensation for anything I’ve done, however, as I’m sure you can imagine, once you enter the public arena, you become a target since there is no way to please everyone. I go to bed writing letters to legislators and stakeholders in my head and awake wondering what I can do next to stop all this testing madness for my students. It has become a heart and moral issue for me. It is all so out of control and if you were already on my FB page prior to March, you heard me forewarning that all this was coming. I have said before that I felt I was building an ark and telling everyone that a flood was coming and trying to get them to save their children and that is really how I feel. (And it is only going to get worse and is already happening in other parts of our country.) If things don’t change soon, my health really can’t continue to tolerate all this stress and I don’t know what I will do differently with my career next year, but I have a feeling that the testing students will have to sit through from February through May will be a deal breaker and will send me out of the classroom for good.

“The other problem is that the more I speak out, the more people want to refuse the tests which does, indeed, hurt a teacher’s evaluation rating (brilliant move by the State of Ohio to give students a zero for refusing a testing and penalizing teachers to keep teachers silent), so, you can imagine, this will not make me popular with my colleagues. However, what about the children? I feel caught between a rock and a hard place. Legislators from both sides are telling me they can’t help and that it will take a massive act of civil disobedience from parents to change things. Teachers have duct tape over their mouths. Many School Board members are starting to catch on (thank God) and I’m putting my hopes in the fact that they will take their roles very seriously as the first line of defense against the state harming the students on their watch. And in the midst of it all, slowly but surely, I have to teach my students to navigate the computer for all the online PARCC (Partnership for Assessment for Readiness for College and Careers) testing coming their way and just the first introduction I gave them to the online practice test seemed to really freak (and stress) them out; I fear it is literally breaking my heart.

“Here’s a list of Ohio Department of Education testing hours JUST for 3rd through 8th grade (NOT INCLUDING) all the other state mandated testing, which adds ample hours to each school year and not including students’ course work testing as well. Remember, please that this will be the SAME child (your child or your neighbor’s child or your grandchild) testing from grade to grade to grade; add up the hours. Which grade level will suffer the most? The grade level AFTER the grade level that students were testing. In other words, each year that goes by, the more fried students will, of course, become. (Imagine how “happy” students will be about going to school by their middle school years and how dejected they will feel about testing by then.)

“How many drives to Florida could I make from Ohio in the same amount of time that students are testing 3rd through 8th grade? And remember, kindergarteners this year started testing first off this school year. Also, remember, this is just a partial list of hours students are tested. Is it just me, or is this so insanely insane?

“The Ohio Department of Education assessment staff is pleased to report session times for this year’s administration of Ohio’s New State Tests”:

“PARCC TESTNG 3rd Grade: 9.75 hours

4th Grade: 12.5 hours
5th Grade: 12.5 hours
6th Grade: 12.3 hours
7th Grade: 10.8 hours
8th Grade: 13.3 hours”

Thank you, Dawn. Thank you for your courage. This testing is not helping children, and you know it. It is a hoax intended to make public education look bad so the profiteers can move in and “save” more children from public education. They will open fly-by-night schools staffed by uncertified “teachers.” They will profit. Our kids will not. Keep fighting. As the scandals accumulate, and as voices like yours continue to be heard, the public will support you, not the people who seek to profit by destroying what belongs to the public.