Obama’s school speech visualized
President Obama’s school speech has been big news for the last week or so, and today’s the day. The White House released the text of Obama’s speech, so I ran it through Wordle to get a text cloud.
–Paul
Auditing school district transparency
If you’re interested in how much information is out there online about your local school district, take a look at this report released today by Oklahomans For Responsible Government. Overall, it’s not a flattering portrait of online transparency among the state’s school districts. From the report:
There are districts that have good websites, but lack information
taxpayers need. If the football schedule can be posted, surely the
board meeting schedule can, too. We found districts that have
Twitter accounts, but nothing about a budget or how to contact
board members.
OFRG earlier took a look at county Web sites, an area that also was part of the state and local government focus of this year’s Sunshine Week in Oklahoma. (Read the national report here; Check out the Oklahoma survey data here.)
Here’s what Oklahoma State University journalism professor Joey Senat said back in March on local transparency and technology:
“I don’t know of anyone still using a typewriter,” said Senat, who organized the Oklahoma Sunshine Week surveys. “All of this information is being created electronically, which is the first big step to getting it online.
“We need to expect our public officials to learn how to provide us access online. Taxpayers already pay for the records; putting it online certainly seems to be a minimal cost. There are enough counties and cities and school districts who are already doing it to show that it is doable.”
Of course, sunshine and open records are year-round issues, so it’s nice to see groups like OFRG taking a look at online transparency.
–Paul
State aid and stimulus money to schools
The state Department of Education has released its initial projections of how much money each school district can expect from state coffers in the upcoming school year. You can read my colleague Dawn Marks’ story here.
We’ve compiled the projections into a searchable database on our Right to Know page. You can search for your school district by either county or district name, or both. You can also download the spreadsheet and do your own analysis.
Included in the state aid this year is about $167 million in federal stimulus money that lawmakers added to the state Education Department budget to avoid cuts. Districts can expect more stimulus money from the state later in the year.
Those figures don’t include other stimulus money each district is eligible for in special education funding and what they call Title I help for math and reading programs in districts with higher proportions of low-income students. (For more on that chunk of stimulus money, read Dawn’s earlier story here.)
Looking at the figures, aid to most schools is down this fiscal year as compared to the final amounts they received in FY 2009. And financial officials in the districts expect this year’s amounts to decline as the state revenue picture becomes clearer:
Because revenue collections for the state have been lower than expected, allocations could change, said James White, assistant state superintendent for finance. “It may get worse. We may have to reduce those later,” White said. “Right now we’re telling school districts not to do anything drastic but to plan for cuts.”
Without stimulus money, the picture could have been bleaker, state officials said. It’s also important to remember that the state aid allocation is just one part of the funding for public schools. Other money comes from local property taxes and regular, non-stimulus, federal funding.
Here’s a quick look at the top 20 districts and their FY 2010 projected state aid amounts compared to last year:
Source: Oklahoma State Department of Education
–Paul
University athletics hiding behind privacy rules, paper finds
The Columbus Dispatch in Ohio had a very interesting story on Sunday about the uneven disclosure of public records by athletic departments at the country’s largest universities.
Here’s an excerpt:
Across the country, many major-college athletic departments keep their NCAA troubles secret behind a thick veil of black ink or Wite-Out.
Alabama.Cincinnati. Florida. Florida State. Ohio State. Oklahoma. Oregon State. Utah. They all censor information in the name of student privacy, invoking a 35-year-old federal law whose author says it has been twisted and misused by the universities.
Former U.S. Sen. James L. Buckley said it’s time for Congress to rein in the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, which he crafted to keep academic records from public view.
A six-month Dispatch investigation found that FERPA, as it’s commonly called, is a law with many conflicting interpretations. And that makes it virtually impossible to decipher what is going on inside a $5 billion college-sports world that is funded by fans, donors, alumni, television networks and, at most schools, taxpayers.
The paper also includes a searchable database on its Web site so you can look up NCAA violations, university information and their responsiveness to records requests by the Dispatch.
ESPN’s bloggers picked up the story, too. Here’s the take from their Big 12 blogger.
–Paul
Human errors account for most data breaches, report finds
For all the stock we put in computers these days, it’s user error that often gets us in the most trouble.
That’s the conclusion from the nonprofit Identity Theft Resource Center. It’s wrap-up of 2008 data breaches found that human errors — losing a laptop with sensitive data, sending a CD of data to the wrong address — accounted for most of the data breaches last year.
From its latest report:
Sadly, these trends continue to plague companies and government alike, despite education on safer information handling, new laws and regulations. Mal-attacks, hacking and insider theft, account for 29.6% of those breaches that reported the causal factor. Insider theft, now at 15.7%, has more than doubled between 2007 and 2008. On the other hand, data on the move and accidental exposure, both human error categories, showed noteworthy improvement, but still account for 35.2% of those breaches that indicate cause.
Here in Oklahoma, there are two laws on the books governing data breaches. The first, to do with government agencies, went into effect in 2006. The second, dealing with private businesses, was passed in the last Legislature and went into effect in November.
You can read the ITRC’s entire report here in PDF format. The list shows nine Oklahoma-related data breaches last year, including several businesses and government agencies.
Finally, a tip of the hat to the Washington Post, which has a story on the ITRC report here.
–Paul
Public comments to be restricted at OKC School Board?
Keep an eye on developments tonight at the meeting of the Oklahoma City School Board.
One of the items on the agenda is a restriction of public comments about personnel matters. You can read more about the proposed changes here.
It’s interesting to note that this is one of the first actions of new Chairman Kirk Humphreys, who has been widely praised for stepping in after the tumultuous, short-lived tenure of John Q. Porter.**
But it raises some alarm bells for advocates of open meetings and open records. It also comes after the city council in Bartlesville decided not to air the public comments section of council meetings on local cable TV. Are we seeing a pattern here?
Tonight’s OKC school board meeting starts at 5:30 p.m. at the school district’s administration building at 900 N Klein.
–Paul
**Clarification at 3 p.m.: Porter was the former superintendent; he has been replaced by Karl Springer. Humphreys replaced former board Chairman Cliff Hudson, who agreed to step down if Porter resigned.
