Open government is crucial to maintaining effective and
accountable government. The cornerstone of open
government is public access to records via freedom of
information statutes.
Most parents, and for that matter the public,
are not aware that they are entitled to most information about
how schools (and other branches of government) conduct business. For examples of the type
of information you have a right to I suggest you review the
requests which I have made which are posted on this web site.
Please be aware that while most state FOIA
laws are patterned after the Federal statues, there still are
fairly significant differences.
The first FOIA requests I made were patterned
after Federal FOIA statues. This was because of my past
experience with Federal FOIA. Unfortunately, state statutes do not allow the same benefits as
Federal. One example being that Michigan FOIA statues do
not allow journalists an exemption to being charged for the
first 100 pages of documents.
State
Open Records Letter Generator (FOI)
FOIA Resource
List
Reporter's Committee for Freedom of the
Press
http://www.rcfp.org/
Society for Professional Journalists FOI
Resources
http://www.spj.org/foia/index.htm
National Freedom of Information Coalition
http://www.nfoic.org/
- Michigan
Link
The Freedom Forum Online
http://www.freedomforum.org/
Student Press Law Center
http://www.splc.org
State Open
Records Letter Generator (FOI)
|
Public School
Abuse Example Sidebar
I received an anonymous tip that
Genesee area school districts are collaborating to subvert
public access to their records. And also that they are being encouraged by someone
in our local prosecutor's office to use civil (SLAPP)
lawsuits to chill the public from exercising their rights to
access information under FOIA statues.
Freedom of information is the
law of the land. The prosecutor has a duty to uphold all
laws, and to encourage others to do the same regardless of
rather or not they approve of such laws. Encouraging
anyone to subvert such laws is a serious infraction which may
well merit termination of those who are doing this. I most certainly
hope this is not the case, but if it is true, then the prosecutor
had better address this misuse of the office
severely.
|