Austin Independent School District Flunks Transparency Test

From Texas Budget Source
September 27th 2011 By Curt Olson

Curt W. Olson
COlson@TexasBudgetSource.com

Transparency with conditions is not transparency.

Never has and never will.

That’s the case at any time, but especially at 10 p.m. in the waning moments of an Austin School Board meeting.

This transparency issue stems from the Austin ISD’s move to release a report that involves the closure, consolidation or re-purposing of schools in the large Central TX district.

This would prove controversial in any district, but Austin ISD trustees got a taste of it when they considered closing nine schools in central and eastern Austin earlier this year.

The Austin American-Statesman sought to obtain the document several days in advance of the Austin ISD school board meeting Monday.

District spokesman Alex Sanchez said the newspaper could have it — if editors and reporters waited until 10 p.m. Monday. The newspaper editors rightly said “no deal” and the district withdrew the offer.

Sanchez responded by calling Carstarphen’s recommendations a “working draft” and exempted under state open records law, the Statesman reported.

Let’s get this right. This public document was a working draft until the superintendent was ready to discuss it with the board.

The leadership at Austin ISD unfortunately wasn’t kidding.

For more go here. And, thanks to the Sunlight Foundation for the link.