In what's being hailed as a "game-changer" for citizen watchdogs, Arizona's attorney general says government agencies shouldn't impose fees for inspecting public records and making copies with your own electronic device.Attorney General Tom Horne's Dec.
Author: Frank LoMonte
Civic education scholars agree: School administrators need a thicker skin for discussion of social and political issues
When school censors prevent students from discussing controversial issues, it's not just harmful to journalism -- it's harmful to citizenship.
‘Tinker Tour’ a chance for honest talk about state of student rights
Beating America’s education establishment in front of the U.S. Supreme Court made Mary Beth a believer in the ability of determined dreamers to accomplish improbable things. Fueled by that belief, she and longtime SPLC staff attorney Mike Hiestand successfully raised $50,000 from 225 donors, big and small, to underwrite the “Tinker Tour” that launched Sept. 17 from the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.
Using campus crime records
Use public records to learn more about campus safety at your school.
The Tinker Tour is halfway home, but there’s room on this freedom bus for everyone
On my third day on the job at the Student Press Law Center, I got a phone call from Mary Beth Tinker.
TRANSPARENCY TUESDAY: Call them “retreats” or “briefings,” but government meetings are still open to the public
School boards and other government bodies required to admit the public to their meetings have come up a cute, but not especially persuasive, way of doing their business behind closed doors: By not calling their meetings "meetings."When a bunch of government officials sit around a table and talk about government business, common sense, Webster's dictionary and 20-20 vision say that's a "meeting." Regrettably, some government officials who distrust the public's ability to maturely deal with information -- or who realize their behavior is so deplorable that it can't withstand public scrutiny -- will go to extraordinary lengths to argue otherwise.They'll claim to be holding a "working session" or some other euphemism that sounds less "meeting-like." That may be reassuring for their consciences, but it's rarely a legally adequate justification to shut the public out.Recently, a Rhode Island judge ordered that state's Board of Education to invite the public to an "informational retreat" where board members were scheduled to discuss high school graduation requirements and standardized testing.
Two new reports on civic engagement in schools identify a central role for scholastic journalism skills
Youth will need digital media literacy skills to critically engage with all the information (and misinformation) they can now find online, to seek out a range of perspectives, and to be thoughtful about the content they circulate and create.That's among the big-picture takeaways from a groundbreaking new study, "All Together Now: Collaboration and Innovation for Youth Engagement," just released by Tufts University as the product of the nation's leading scholars in civic education.The Oct.
Chicago teacher’s “teachable moment” about racial slur leads to favorable “academic freedom” ruling
Federal courts rarely afford much weight to the "academic freedom" of public school teachers when they're disciplined for what they say during class, but an Illinois district court has made an exception in a rather unlikely factual setting: A Chicago teacher suspended for saying the "n-word" in front of sixth-graders.In Brown v.
TRANSPARENCY TUESDAY: Does the right to “inspect” public records include the right to Instagram them?
A Colorado city council drew the ire of open-government advocates this summer by voting to ban members of the public from snapping photos of public records to avoid paying copying charges.
Charter schools are public schools — except, apparently, when they aren’t
In a recent Education Week blog post, author and education reformer Sam Chaltain asked a question that, until recently, seemed beyond doubt: Do students in charter schools have First Amendment rights?The answer is in some doubt as a result of a pair of court rulings absolving charter schools of violating the rights of students or employees.Unlike truly private schools, charter schools derive their funding and their legal existence from local school districts (that's where the "charter" comes from). School boards hold life-and-death authority over these schools, and state laws generally require that (unlike truly private schools) they accept all qualified applicants.Charter schools do enjoy a measure of separation from the government because they are statutorily exempted from certain state oversight requirements that apply to traditional public schools.