Recently in Scott Blanchard Category

Thanks to Robb Montgomery for this, what he calls a "live data graphic." It looks like one of those dot-tests you do to see if you're color blind. But when you mouse over the dots, you see the name, position and salary of a White House staffer. The dots are different sizes, corresponding to the salary.

Pretty cool, and, needless to say, has local possibilities. If there's some data you'd like to see us look at like this, leave a comment.

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 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.

Can you assess first-responder performance without knowing where units came from or where they went? You'll be able to if a county judge rules in the Daily Record/Sunday News' favor on an open-records appeal; you won't be able to if he rules in York County's favor.

York County Common Pleas Court Judge Richard Renn will issue a written decision on the matter. He heard arguments from the YDR's lawyer and the county's lawyer on Wednesday.

The state's open records office ruled that 911 time-response logs must include addresses or geographical identifiers; the county appealed to Common Pleas Court.

 The county's key arguments:

•  The right-to-know law doesn't define time-response log, so the definition should come from the state chapter of the National Emergency Number Association, which defines a time-response log as, basically, when a call came in, when a unit went out, when it arrived and when it cleared the scene.
• The release of addresses or geographical identifiers would amount to an invasion of privacy of people who call 911 for emergencies.

Key arguments from Wednesday's hearing, according to York attorney Niles Benn, who represented the newspaper:

• The county did not cite supporting legal authority in its denial of reporter Ted Czech's request, as required by the right-to-know law;
• A follow-up letter from the county cited the exception to the law in which 911 time-response logs are mentioned. But the exception specifically allows public access to time-response logs.
  
• The county did not argue, in its denial letters or to the Office of Open Records, that addresses are protected by federal or state constitutional right to privacy;
• The right-to-know act addresses safety concerns regarding the release of addresses, but did not attach any qualification when it made time-response logs public.
• The new right-to-know law intended to expand public access, not restrict it; excluding addresses from time-response logs would withhold from the public information it could get under the old RTK law.
• If the county is not required to release addresses, it should be required to release cross-streets.

We'll let you know when Judge Renn rules. Meantime, anyone want to weigh in on either side of this case?

Quick update: A York County judge heard arguments today about whether the county must include addresses, or some kind of geographic locator, with its time-response logs. The judge has not produced a decision yet.

Background for this issue is here. It's an important case because time-response logs were specifically made public in the state's new right-to-know law, but York County is challenging the state Office of Open Records' decision about what a time-response log is.

I will post more about the arguments later.

I don't mean to make fun of the state's conservation department, because earthquakes -- even small ones -- aren't too terribly funny. But I thought it was interesting, and illustrative, that when the DCNR made public a Columbia University report on Dillsburg earthquakes, it did so with a 500-word disclaimer.

It indicates how skittish government agencies can be even when dealing with what is a public record. They want to make sure that if the ground opens up and someone's house falls in, that person doesn't come back and say, 'According to the report you posted online, you said that wouldn't happen, so now you owe me the cost of my house.'

That scenario seems a little silly. Common sense makes you wonder who would sue a public agency for posting a public document online; and common sense makes you wonder who wouldn't understand that it's an individual's responsibility what he or she does with the information.

But there are lots of lawsuits out there. So it's hard to blame DCNR for uttering, in lilting legal language, "The user shall save the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania harmless and indemnify it from any suits, claims, or actions arising out of the use of or any defect in these Open-File Reports or accompanying documentation."

By the way, our story on the report is here. And just for kicks, here's the "tagcloud" of most frequently used words in the disclaimer: