School transparency is going mainstream

TMCnet.com has picked up on the growing movement towards school transparency. Our friends at the Mackinac Center are asking all 551 Michigan schools to post their budgets and check registers online through their “Show Michigan the Money” program. Kenneth Braun, director of the project, explained the goal of this initiative:

“I’m not presuming there is great malfeasance in these districts. It’s more of a good community relations thing. We think everyone should do it, not just school districts, but other levels of government. It establishes trust within a community in a situation and time when the trust is kind of shaky.” Indeed, one Michigan district signed on after a payroll clerk embezzled more than $1 million before being brought to justice. In another Michigan school system that now complies with the checkbook project, the FBI and Justice Department prosecuted two employees for stealing, he said.

According to Sunshine Review, school districts should have the following information on their websites:
- Budget
- School district government meetings/agendas
- Elected officials of the school district
- School district administrators
- Lobbying/advocacy
- Access to government records and public documents
- Contracts with teachers and support staff
- Contracts with vendors
- Tax burden
- Criminal background checks
- Academic performance

The Sam Adams Alliance’s own Paul Miller also had a good point in the article:

“With transparency, you are going to have more school districts accountable to children and the parents instead of unions and special interests,” Mr. Miller said. “It’s a huge no-brainer. Parents have a right to know how their money is being spent on their children’s education.”

Let us know if you are interested in helping out with the My Government Website project on Sunshine Review. Volunteers are building new articles every day to help make our government more transparent, more accountable, and ultimately more effective.