Out of the Dark is a call for teacher leaders to take a stand against the current political takeover of our educational system today. This book investigates where this political power hold began, theorizes why is it so hard for us to change what is happening, and then explores theory into practice for supporting the development of a democratic curriculum.

Out of the Dark highlights example schools in Florida, North Carolina, and Ohio that are fighting the monopoly of standardization by implementing their own version of visionary democratic education. This book is purposefully heavy on references to encourage teachers to become curriculum leaders through research and complicated conversation that they have with themselves and with each other.

It is time to stand together against the overutilization and magnified importance of standardized testing in our educational system in the United States. The time is now to envision a democratic education based on an eclectic compilation of curriculum theory and fight for the significant educational contribution of our own professional wisdom prompting democratic empowerment for our students.  In other words, if we empower our teachers to be lead learners in their field, they in turn empower their students to do the same.