A truancy town hall in Dover scheduled for Monday night made me wonder if you could get truancy numbers from the state. And the answer is not literally -- at least, I couldn't find anything on the site -- but you can get dropout rates (scroll down to see the links), which, I believe it is generally agreed upon, can be linked to truancy rates.

A look at the 2007-2008 numbers* shows you that:

• Crispus Attucks, York County High, York City School District and York County School of Technology have dropout rates in the top 20 of all schools in Pennsylvania.
  
• No other county school had a dropout rate higher than 1.6 percent (Eastern York), and that ranked 172nd in the state of the 617 public, charter and other school districts listed.
  
• Six York County public school districts -- Southern York, West York, Dallastown, Central, York Suburban and South Eastern -- had dropout rates of less than 1 percent.
• 603 students dropped out -- including 117 from York City, 78 from York Tech, 59 from West Shore and 58 from CA.
  

But an observation from YorkCounts, which is sponsoring the town hall, is good to keep in mind when you're looking at the numbers. In its "Stay in School Initiative Report to the Community," it noted that the state's dropout rates are compiled by counting the number of students who were enrolled on Oct. 1 and still enrolled on the following Sept. 30.

 YorkCounts says that gives an incomplete picture of how many students are graduating within four years. Its research shows that between 1998 and 2008, 6,429 students dropped out of York County schools, and that in 2005-2006, the four-year graduation rate in York County was 78 percent.

PDE itself wrote a qualifier to the numbers in its introduction to the 2006-2007 dropout rates, noting that rates at a school like York County High could be inflated because "their students are at high risk of dropping out and many are attending school while working full time. The methodology of calculating dropouts must be examined to truly understand these high dropout rates. ..."

YorkCounts says the town hall, titled "Kids, Truancy and a County at Risk," will focus on the United Way of York County's Stay in School Report as well as the work of Judge John Uhler's Truancy Task Force (read more about the latter at the Juvenile Court Judges' Commission site; click on "current JCJC newsletter.")
 
*You can crunch your own numbers at the PDE Web site, but you have to have Microsoft Excel (or OpenOffice, which is free and has a good spreadsheet function, or some kind of spreadsheet capability). If you have neither but want more numbers, let me know in the comments section and I'll post them as soon as I can.

Here's an attention-getting quote from the director of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center,* from a story in the Harvard Law Record, that seems to say the more transparent government is, the less it can be trusted:

(Michael) Leiter said that everything counterterrorism did would require a large degree of public trust. He believed transparency would undermine such trust, making it difficult for counterterrorism policymakers to operate. Much needed to happen behind the scenes, he said, citing the use of provisions of the Patriot Act to foil a recent bomb plot against New York City subways, and noting that, in terms of international operations, there "was no altruism in international affairs," and that difficult and delicate trade-offs were often made in the pursuit of security.
 ... Leiter said that, in the absence of public oversight, lawyers ought to play a greater role ensuring that there is accountability for any action taken behind the scenes. A breakdown of the internal channels set up by the Church and Pike Commissions in the 1970s - specifically, a lack of trust in the House and Senate Intelligence Committees and the special courts set up to monitor use of the Foreign Intelligence Security Act (FISA) is what has led members of Congress to leak vital information to the press, rather than deal with problems within the system. "Everything now plays out on the front page of the New York Times and the Washington Post," Leiter said, making it difficult for the NCTC and other national security agencies to pursue effective policies.

It's hard to imagine how trust could be undermined by transparency. For example, if you had no idea what happened inside the county's courtroom, why would you have more trust that justice was being carried out than if you could see it for yourself?

No doubt there are legitimate needs for secrecy in, say, the fight against terrorism. But for the leader of the country's counterterrorism office to say everything it does should be kept secret, and therefore public trust about its activities will increase, seems odd.

What do you think of Leiter's comments?

*Quote flagged on Twitter by openthegovernment.org, thanks very much.

York County congressman Todd Platts wants to be top dog at the Government Accountability Office (story here), which may be one of those agencies you haven't heard much about. But it actually does some pretty interesting stuff. It's known as the investigative arm of Congress because it performs a watchdog role over other agencies, and it works on behalf of members of Congress or congressional committees.

A description of its job that appears online: "We advise Congress and the heads of executive agencies about ways to make government more efficient, effective, ethical, equitable and responsive."

You can go on the GAO's Web site and find anything from a report on the Department of Defense's planning for withdrawing forces from Iraq to how the IRS is managing tax debt collections to safety issues if the age standard for commercial pilots is changed. The GAO is also reporting on stimulus money and takes reports on stimulus fraud.

I recall in 1998 when I was an editor at the Carroll County (Md.) Times, our staff did a lengthy series on heroin use by teens in that community. We used a GAO report on heroin trafficking to help us build a map that showed, station-by-station, how heroin got from Afghanistan to a Baltimore suburb.

The comptroller's job would include testifying before Congress. The job carries a 15-year term.

Right now, the acting comptroller general is Gene L. Dodaro, who's been with the GAO for more than 30 years, according to his bio on the site. He is a graduate of Lycoming College in Williamsport.

The Hill, a Washington, D.C.-based newspaper that covers Congress, broke the story early this morning and has quotes from Platts' letter of application, which it said it obtained from a source and would not release. Here is The Hill's story.

I'll be moderating a live chat tonight beginning at 8 p.m. on the York County election. We'll post local and statewide results in the chat and ask your thoughts on some topics. Please stop by.

The list of White House visitors is now online and searchable. (Thanks to the FOI Advocate blog for flagging that.)

You might recall that we asked York County congressman Todd Platts for his visitors' list, and he said no.

But Obama's list, through July 31, is available -- although it is only a list of names that were requested. (Here's more on the White House's plans to release lists of visitors.)

Some names you might recognize from the list that's out now:

William Ayers, John Boehner, Newt Gingerich, Al Gore, Alan Greenspan, Jesse Jackson, Michael Jordan, Michael Moore, Denzel Washington, Serena Williams, Oprah Winfrey and Jeremiah Wright.

BUT. The Los Angeles Times reports the William Ayers that visited wasn't that William Ayers, and the Jeremiah Wright who visited wasn't that Jeremiah Wright. Same with fellows named Michael Jordan and Michael Moore, the White House told the Times. The White House said it was asked if people with those names visited, so it included those names in its release.

Here's a good Washington Post story about the list, who's on it and what's known about why they visited.

 In York, we've had some go-rounds with city police over access to public records. But, that I know of, we've never gotten to this level (at least regarding fairly routine requests; I do remember a long struggle with the city for us to get access to historical police records related to the 1969 riots, but that's another story):

 The (Baltimore) Sun is suing its city's police department for basically ignoring public records requests and/or assessing high fees for records it is willing to provide. A police department spokesman said he couldn't comment on the lawsuit because he hadn't seen it, but said police "understand the importance of transparency." Hmmmm.

I absolutely loved an anecdote from atop Sean Adkins' story in today's paper. Here it is:

"Every couple of years, Frito-Lay officials stop by the Hanover Borough office to check
out any new building permits filed by Utz Quality Foods.
   "Basically, those officials are searching for any clue to expansion within Utz -- a sign the
potato chip maker could be sharpening its competitive edge within the snack food industry, said Bruce Rebert, Hanover's borough manager."

The reason I love it is because it's easy to think of open records being a media issue, so, for example, a newspaper's fight to increase the public's access to open records can be seen as self-serving.

 But here's a situation where a company uses access to public records as part of its strategy to compete for market share. So businesses, too, have a stake in the effort to maintain and increase access to government records.

In case you were curious, we checked on outgoing District Attorney Stan Rebert's campaign money. (To give credit where it's due, this was actually managing editor Randy Parker's idea -- just to see how or if Rebert would spend whatever money he had left after losing the primary to Tom Kearney. For example, could or would this powerful figure in county Republican politics donate to other campaigns?).

The headline would be that, as you might expect, Rebert spent almost all his money in the primary. Here are the details, thanks to reporter Teresa Ann Boeckel, who paged through the paperwork:

Rebert's committee had $31,179.03 available between May 5 and June 8, and spent $29,437.07, leaving a cash balance of $1,741.96. Much of that was spent on advertising during the primary.

Between June 9 and Oct. 19, the current reporting period, his committee received $737.66 in contributions and spent $730.36 on party expenses, repayment of a candidate loan and a stop-payment fee. That leaves a balance of $1,748.76.

Anything else you want to know? Leave a comment here, or e-mail me at sblanchard at ydr.com.

Bands like Pearl Jam and Nine Inch Nails (that's Trent Reznor at right) aren't happy their music may have been used to torture prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, and they've filed a Freedom of Information Act request to get the song titles. Thanks to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press for flagging Washington Post and New York Times stories on that.

 I must say that's the first time I've heard of a FOIA request made by rock bands. It's part of an effort to put pressure on President Obama to follow through on his promise to close Guantanamo Bay.

Unredacted is a "behind-the-scenes" blog just launched by the nonprofit National Security Archive at GWU:

"The Archive's own experience with thousands of Freedom of Information Act and Mandatory Declassification Review requests provides a wealth of data and fundamental lessons that we hope to share with you," says the first entry.

Unredacted will highlight "never before publicly seen" government documents in a "Document Friday" series and post commentary and analysis from NSA experts. Read the news release at the jump.