School transparency: New budget website is a work in progress

In his State of the District address last week, Clark County Superintendent Dwight Jones unveiled a new website that he says will make Southern Nevada schools among the most transparent in the country. The interactive tool, called Open Book, went live Jan. 15. It allows anyone to delve into the district's budget at www.ccsd.net/district/open-book.

"See for yourself where we spend your dollars," he said.

Online access to the school district's budget is a step forward, certainly. But it falls short of complete transparency.

Open Book shows the school district has 341 students per administrator, the nation's lowest rate, according to a spokesman. But the accuracy of that figure depends on the definition of "administrator." A more relevant number might be the ratio of non-classroom personnel to teachers, which has long hovered near one-to-one.

And even the number of teachers reported through Open Book raises a few questions. Victor Joecks, communications director for the Nevada Policy Research Institute, says his organization asked the district why the budget shows only 15,000 teachers, not the 17,000 more commonly cited. The website doesn't report the 2,000 teaching positions funded with the state's class-size reduction money, Mr. Joecks says he was told. Moneys that flow into the district through UNLV, the federal government and private foundations also fail to show up on Open Book, even though they fund the positions of school district employees.

While the school district currently reports class sizes of 35 students or more, a student body of about 310,000 students divided by 17,000 teachers should produce an average class size of slightly more than 18, Mr. Joecks points out. Small classes of special needs students may be a partial explanation, but some still ask what many of those "teachers" are doing.

Meanwhile, the school district's five-star rating system has taken a one-year break from true transparency because of a "hold harmless" policy that allows campuses to earn a better ranking for this year, but not a worse one for declining performance. And the school district has refused to release to the press last summer's graduation statistics from well-funded, struggling "turnaround" high schools - data that already has been reported to the state.

A Dec. 14 district-wide directive informed principals they "are required to inform the Communications Office when approached by members of the media who wish to interview CCSD staff and/or wish to visit the school campus; Principals should err on the side of caution and always contact the Communications Office when dealing with members of the media." School district spokeswoman Amanda Fulkerson argues the goal is actually more openness, that the policy is in place "not because we want to silence anyone, but to make sure we have accurate information going out."

That would seem an unlikely way to promote transparency for either the press or the public on the campuses of Clark County schools.

The school district is making progress under Mr. Jones. Omission, whether intentional or not, is a threat to that progress. The public must be able to trust that it is getting complete, accurate information about the quality of our schools.

Open Book is a good start. Like many of our schools, it is also a work in progress.