Costly data demands leave some Minnesota school districts frustrated
Costly data demands leave some Minnesota school districts frustrated
Some district leaders say they’ve been inundated with huge data requests that appear politically motivated and can be massively expensive and difficult to decipher. At least one school board has asked lawmakers to help slow a “runaway train.”
In general open governance is good. These requests look silly at the same time, e.g. asking about CRT. At the same same time,
The Owatonna People’s Press last month reported the Owatonna school district spent $300,000 to fulfill a data request related to an equity plan and assessment and a word search of district correspondence containing words and phrases such as “Black Lives Matter,” “systemic racism” and “critical race theory.”
It's crazy that it cost $300k to do that. I think ideally, requests like this wouldn't be an issue even if they're not really in good faith, because responding to them would take someone a few button clicks.
In general open governance is good. These requests look silly at the same time, e.g. asking about CRT. At the same same time,
The Owatonna People’s Press last month reported the Owatonna school district spent $300,000 to fulfill a data request related to an equity plan and assessment and a word search of district correspondence containing words and phrases such as “Black Lives Matter,” “systemic racism” and “critical race theory.”
It's crazy that it cost $300k to do that. I think ideally, requests like this wouldn't be an issue even if they're not really in good faith, because responding to them would take someone a few button clicks.
The cost includes more than just the word search.
I'm a little unclear on what exactly the work Owatonna had to do for the request mentioned for them. Other school districts mention doing more than just a keyword search, but what exactly is involved with "fulfill a data request related to an equity plan and assessment and a word search of district correspondence". The article they linked to has no additional information, or my adblocker is too aggressive. It shows people with piles of paper, but why are they printing all that out like that in the first place?
LLMs would actually make it very easy to address some of the issues, like this:
“Literally, they wanted, for instance, a review of every course with, quote, ‘a sociological theme for issues of equity.’ That’s not a keyword search,” Pekel said.
They're pretty good at taking in text and spitting out answers to questions like "Does this text address theme X?". Though when legal gets involved, maybe it requires a person to blame if a document gets missed.
This is the kind of thing why school choice vouchers can't exist in any good faith context. Private entities wouldn't be held to the requirements that they answer these kind of nonsense requests, or even if they did, wouldn't be beholden to the public to consider changes to material that someone objected to.
Any request with a perceived political motivation should be paid in full before any work is started, others may have some leeway in their arrangements but still need to be compensated by the party requesting excessively broad datasets. If you want input into the curriculum, attend a PTA meeting and speak your piece publicly.
Exactly. These requests are used to slow down everything and make public schools worse for their own political gain. They go against the spirits of these laws.
I believe in open governance after all!
Yes minister..
I feel like the law would be best served where FOIA requests incurring more than $1k to school districts must waiver their right to anonymous requests and must pay 50% of the cost.
Make it 100% if its over $1K. Since most real requests shouldn't be that much at all.