#30 - Transparency
The original thought was that a free press would inform the public and act as a watchdog on the government. This worked off and on.
The average citizen is busy with a job, family and life. To be a fully informed voter, you would have to spend full-time observing and recording the government activities and then analyzing what is going on and what to do next. The press was supposed to provide this function - watch everything going on, distill it down to digestible-sized bits of information and then report it - truthfully and without bias - so that people can keep up with current events while busy working and living life.
So, The purpose of the press is:
Keep Us Informed.
Watch and Report on Government actions.
The concept of objective and disciplined journalism has been around a long time. It has been the leading philosophy, at times, and has taken a back seat at other times. It’s always been an inherent part of journalism, but some politicians and business executives have (re)discovered that people’s opinion could be directed by the press. People could be influenced or even “brainwashed” by media and the press. It’s been used to accomplish just that since then
One solution is the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) which is a federal law passed in 1967. It was conceived and adopted as a mechanical solution to ensure free access by citizens to any part of government. The Department of Justice is responsible for encouraging all government departments to follow the the law to the letter and to also follow the spirit of the law.
The are a few exemptions. It is understandable that we don’t want to harm individuals or organizations and we should protect our national interests.
FOIA requests are often denied under these exemptions and the claim for exemption might be disputed by the requester causing some controversy.
How is it related to education? FOIA, along with any state “sunshine law”requires that the state education department and the school board be entirely transparent in ALL of its dealings. This may or may not be the case in your area. It might take a little detective work to find out.
The suggestion here is to take it one step further. Change the law so that all contracts and services, whether contracted in writing or verbal agreement or just subscribed to, such as a utility or periodic service, be published publicly and in a timely manner. This would apply to all parts of the education system.
This may be in practice in your area, but it’s occasionally ignored when somebody wants to slide one by. It might be worth setting up a watchdog function just to keep it on the straight and narrow by double checking everything.
This would not be out of line with the spirit of FOIA.
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