Study of School District Websites Completed
Blueprint for Transparency shows all districts can improve
(Oklahoma City, OK) As parents are sending their children back to school for a new year, a study finds that a vast majority of school districts in Oklahoma fail to deliver a basic level of transparency on their websites. In fact, 79 districts – nearly 15% - don’t have a website at all.
“At a time when schools are teaching students who have grown up in an internet-based world and have Facebook, MySpace and Twitter accounts, it’s unbelievable that so many have no web presence at all,” said Brian Downs, Executive Director of Oklahomans for Responsible Government. “Taxpayers have a right to know how their money is being spent and the internet is the cheapest way for districts to provide that information to everyone at any time.”
The study of 531 school districts was conducted by OFRG over the summer and the results printed in its Blueprint for Transparency: Education. The list of districts was provided by the State Department of Education and the criteria for evaluating the websites was developed by SunshineReview.org, a national transparency advocacy group.
No school fully met all ten of the criteria, so every district in the state can show improvement between now and next year when OFRG conducts the study again. It’s our intent to update this report annually.
“Just as students deserve the same basic education whether the district they live in is rich or poor, urban or rural, taxpayers in the state deserve the same basic level of transparency,” said Downs. “More than $4-billion in federal, state and local tax revenue is spent on education in Oklahoma, making the need for transparency even more critical. The point of this first study is to give a baseline of where districts are today, not to criticize. We are encouraging districts to improve on this over the next year so taxpayers all over the state can benefit.”
The study found that the best websites are not always from urban areas with Vici, Guthrie, Sperry and Holdenville among those with the most information available.