Fix transparency gap in education partnership

With taxpayer money involved, the proceedings must be public.

The Connecticut Parents Union has it right. The group, which advocates for education, is urging that a new publicprivate partnership conduct its business in public. This is such a basic premise, that it is surprising it is even an issue. But it is. Dalio Philanthropies initiated the Partnership for Connecticut with a pledge last April to donate $100 million over five years to help students in struggling schools in Connecticut. It would be matched with a public contribution and the General Assembly committed $20 million in this year’s budget.

With taxpayer money involved, the proceedings must be public. The governor and legislators, however, yielded to the wish of hedge fund billionaire Ray Dalio of Greenwich to shield the work from Freedom of Information requirements.

The founder and president of the Connecticut Parents Union, Gwen Samuels, urged the state Board of Education last week to conduct a special meeting to review the exemption and “do the right thing, put it in writing, send it to legislators.”

“There should never be any entity, including state entities, that have access to [public school] children of this state without transparency,” Samuels told the board. The parents’ group in August held a town hall style meeting at the Capitol on the same issue.

Though public interest is significant, the state education board does not appear inclined to act. Board Chairman Allan Taylor said the Legislature came up with the secrecy provision “and did it that way and generally we take what the Legislature gives us.”

We expect better from the state Board of Education, which should be standing up for students first and foremost, not automatically yielding to the will of politicians.

It is up to legislators to fix the secrecy provision, and we implore them to include it on the agenda of the upcoming (but as yet unscheduled) special General Assembly session.

Before the special session, however, Dalio Philanthropies will have to be convinced that complete transparency is required. Dalio’s position is that private discussions are necessary to solve Connecticut’s educational challenges. Not so.

Sensitive information is handled in public routinely and effectively, for example in the open workings of the former Commission on Economic and Fiscal Stability.

Dalio wants a “transparency commitment” policy to guarantee one public meeting a year with reports issued at certain times, but no provision for what types of information would be public. That is not enough.

As it is, the partnership has actively tried to skirt FOI rules. The state’s attorney general determined that legislative leaders on the partnership board would be subject to FOI provisions, so the group created a fivemember executive committee that would oversee the work and exclude the elected officials.

We appreciate the generosity of Ray and Barbara Dalio and welcome their interest in improving education for students in struggling districts. But when public money is also involved, the partnership must operate fully in public.

The Legislature must rectify this as soon as possible.