control the information, control the discourse

It's not profound, at least not anymore, and certainly not shocking that those who maintain the databases run the show.

At last night's community forum to discuss the Olympia School District's budget cuts, I saw exactly how that works. In the utter absence of malice, the district has inherited a system of budgeting that hierarchizes and decentralizes information so that only a handful of people know the scope and character of the entire district budget.

So, when 200+ people sit down to go over cuts, they're at a huge epistemic disadvantage. They don't have each building's budget in front of them--where the real details hide--and the district-provided handouts are vague, excepting the specific proposed cuts. How much cash would it save to trim 5% from every WIAA sports or activity program? How much would it raise to implement a $5 pay-to-play increase? How much does Marshall Middle School spend on photocopies? Unless we're the assistant superintendent, we don't know.

I've tried to make things easier on the average citizen by creating an interactive spreadsheet so they can try balancing the budget on their own, but I've only included proposals that I've heard about. Anything truly novel has to spring up out of the void of imagination, rather than the rational crunch of numbers.

District officials, when shown the spreadsheet, have been uniformly excited by it. My next goal is to work with them in an official capacity, to bring the power of information to the masses. Someday, I hope that every district in this state--and everywhere--would be that data-transparent.

ESD Efficiency Audit Released: Your Tax Dollars at Work

Because I read everything published about schools in Washington State, I downloaded the entire 1,309 page behemoth from the State Auditor's Office wherein they look at the performance of our Educational Service Districts. Those not as in love with data as I can also try the Executive Summary, though it falls waaaaay short in the explanation department.

I live and work in ESD101, and the recommendations about it are rather bland. As a classroom teacher I don't really interact much with the ESD, beyond complaining about the fact that I have to go up there for my LASER trainings. According to the audit, the ESD could save money by giving up their roles investigating complaints against teachers and settling boundry disputes. The second I would question--who better to settle turf wars than the board that oversees the turf, after all--but the first I think is a capital idea IF additional funds are then channeled towards the Office of Professional Practices at OSPI.

That's a double-edged sword, though, because it would almost be a necessity for OSPI to then have investigative staff stationed at all of the ESDs (you can't investigate something in Grand Coulee from a desk in Olympia), and if that needs to be the case, have you really saved money? Shouldn't the auditor's office take something like that into account when considering potential savings?

The local ESDs are mandated to hold a public meeting to discuss the findings against them and develop a plan to get better. That'll be the key to seeing if this process has any real meaning or not.

(Also, a nod to the Evergreen Freedom Foundation, the first place on-line I saw the story)