Are California State Board of Education meetings really public?

July 29, 2008 by dave

As I read the news stories about the California State Board of Education's recent decision regarding 8th grade Algebra, the thought came to my mind: "That was probably an interesting meeting to watch." After I slapped myself for a fall into extreme education-geekiness, I decided to look and see if the meeting was available online.

The first place I looked was the Board of Education's own web page but no luck there. Printed copies of the minutes and other materials are available, but that doesn't really capture the discussion of the meeting. Second, I looked at the California Channel web site since they stream lots of legislative hearings and other meetings. No luck there either. It struck me as extremely odd that these meetings aren't available online. Not only are legislative sessions available online, but even the individual legislative committee meetings are available online.

A quick check of state education web sites for the other 49 states revealed that at least 15 other states already make their State Board of Education meetings easily available to the public through audio, video or telephone conferencing. These states are Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, North Carolina, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Virginia. The citizens of these states can either participate live, or at the very least watch or listen to the meetings after the fact.

Local school district boards also have public meetings, but typically those meetings are only a short drive for an interested parent. Those meetings are clearly open. I question whether the California State Board of Education meetings are effectively open meetings since it is simply impractical for the majority of California's citizens to take one or two days off work and drive to Sacramento for a Board meeting. If you live in Crescent City that's a 6 hour drive. For a San Diegoan, that's an 8 hour drive. Even though the room in Sacramento is open to anyone, the meetings are not really open from a practical standpoint. The majority of the people attending these meetings are not the average parent, but instead, they are representatives of various organizations such as the California Teachers Association, who have a vested interest in the decisions of the board.

Conversely, because they are available online, legislative sessions and committee hearings are much more effectively open meetings.

I contacted the California Department of Education (CDE) and was told that CDE had no plans to make the meetings available online.

So, in order to right this wrong, I've started an online petition, which I will send to the State Board of Education if I can get a significant number of signers. So, if you're a California registered over, please sign my petition. Feel free to forward the petition to other groups or individuals who you think might support my cause.

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