I don’t know if the term “overseas” is factually accurate, since some of the people reading this blog are part of the same continent as New York City, where I live.

But I wanted to express my appreciation to readers in other countries who are logging on to read the blog:

Most readers, of course, are in the U.S. Next in number are readers in Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand.

Thank you to readers in Thailand, India, Israel, Haiti, Mexico, Finland, Japan, Germany, the Netherlands, the Republic of Korea, Turkey, Italy, France, Brazil, the Russian Federation, Noway, Argentina, Philippines, Switzerland, Costa Rica, Chile, Belgium, Ireland, Spain, South Africa, Ukraine, Greece, Sweden, Romania, Pakistan, Singapore, Luxembourg, Northern Mariana Islands, Saudi Arabia, and dozens of other nations.

Welcome to a free-ranging discussion of the issues that are now roiling American education. As one of you wrote in a comment, it won’t be long before some of the same policies reach you. So, stay tuned and feel welcome to join the conversation.

Diane

A reader asked an important question in response to my blog about the Chicago Teachers Union decision to authorize a strike: What if they strike and they lose? What if Mayor Emanuel fires them all and replaces them with TFA? Won’t it prove that striking is futile? Won’t unions everywhere lose heart?

I responded that the mayor might prevail. He might keep the schools closed and hammer the union into submission. Could he replace 25,000 striking teachers with scabs? There are not enough TFA teachers minted every year to do that (TFA sends out fewer than 10,000 per year). Even if he did hire TFA, he would have a completely green workforce with constant turnover. I wonder how TFA corps members would feel about being used as strike breakers.

Emanuel could surely fill the empty jobs with teachers who have been fired or laid off elsewhere. There is a large pool of them. He would surely have a teaching force filled not with creativity and passion for their work, but with fear and timidity.

What happened in Chicago was not about winning. Winning is never certain. And there is nothing good about losing.

What matters is that the teachers of Chicago said “enough is enough.” They could have remained silent. They could have avoided the confrontation. They could just accept whatever is done to them. But they said no. They said they could not be bullied any more.

And it is true that they might lose. But there comes a time when a person must assert his or her dignity. There comes a time when people take risks for what they believe in their heart is right. This is that time.

On Monday, I posted a blog called “The Day I Was Terminated.”

In that blog, I recounted that I received an email on June 5 from Grover (Russ) Whitehurst of Brookings telling me that I was being terminated–after a 19-year association with Brookings–because I was “inactive.” That’s a pretty abrupt way to finish off a 19-year affiliation.

My first thought was that the termination might be related to my pointed criticism of Mitt Romney; Whitehurst is an advisor to the Romney campaign. I then went on to admit that I might be over-reacting by assuming a political motivation. As you will see in Brookings’ response, the decision was made in April, before I blogged about Romney (it should be noted that Russ, who served during the George W. Bush administration, was unlikely to be pleased with my ongoing critique of No Child Left Behind, the administration’s signature education program).

I reviewed whether I was “inactive,” and recalled that when I asked permission to present my latest book at Brookings in 2010–in which I dissect the failings of NCLB, test-based accountability, and choice, Russ told me I had to rent the auditorium and bear other expenses that might mount into thousands of dollars. Since I do not have an organization, I had no budget to draw upon, and I declined.

As I pointed out in my original post, it is impossible to be “active” if the program leadership does not invite you to participate in forums or debates, and declines your offer to be active. Since my book went on to become a national best-seller and was, on the day that I was terminated, the #1 book in the nation in both social policy and in public policy, the whole affair seemed bizarre.

The blog went viral, with notice taken in the Wall Street Journal blog and Esquire and other media outlets, and Brookings issued a response. The response said that the decision was taken in April, which meant that Russ was not responding to my scathing analysis of Romney’s education agenda on the morning of June 5. It also defended the practice of Brookings fellows taking an active part in political campaigns, a practice that I had not questioned or even mentioned.

In its response, Brookings chose to treat the matter as a routine cleansing of the rolls, removing the names of those who were “inactive.” It did not comment on my statement that I had asked to be active and my offer was rejected (although you can infer that from the statement that “it’s up to the program or center director to pursue and to identify the necessary funding”). Since Whitehurst was not interested in having me present my book, he made no effort to pursue the necessary funding. As I wrote in my original blog, AEI–a conservative think tank–had no problem finding the funding for me to present my arguments against choice, vouchers, charters, NCLB, and high-stakes testing in its auditorium.

I don’t mind being terminated, since it was clear that the center director (Whitehurst) did not welcome my involvement in Brookings’ activities, nor was he interested in my critique of NCLB, choice and testing. If there is no role for me to play at Brookings and if the issues I care about it will not be discussed or debated, then there is no point in maintaining a connection to the institution.

It is sad, however, that the education policy program now has no one to represent “the other side” on these issues, if they should be discussed or debated at all. It’s unfitting for a great institution and will leave the punitive ideas now dominating the policy agenda without any thoughtful critique, at least not at the Brookings Institution.

Here is the Brookings response, as reported on the Wall Street Journal blog: