蜜桃影视

At the start of December 2014, New York Post reporter Susan Edelman sent an intriguing public records request to the city鈥檚 Department of Education.

鈥淯nder the Freedom of Information [sic], I request all e-mail communications since Dec. 30, 2013 between Chancellor Carmen Farina and two others, Michael Mulgrew and Diane Ravitch. Please include e-mails both to and from Farina,鈥� Edelman said, according to a Department of Education summary.

In an email this week, the Post veteran told 蜜桃影视 she 鈥渞eally can鈥檛 remember after three years鈥� what piqued her interest, but on its face the request reflected complaints by critics, like the Post, that the teachers union unduly swayed Mayor Bill de Blasio鈥檚 education policies.

Correspondence between Fari帽a and Mulgrew, the union president, might bolster the case. Ravitch, an education progressive known for her scathing opposition to test-based accountability and charters, sat on the mayor鈥檚 inauguration committee, defended his education agenda , and served as an 鈥渋nformal advisor鈥� on school issues, according to .

The secrets lingering in those emails 鈥� if there are secrets, or emails, at all 鈥� remain unknown. New York鈥檚 requires government agencies to provide or deny records within ; they must set a 鈥渄ate certain鈥� for response if more time is needed. Edelman鈥檚 request was neither denied nor granted, however: as of Wednesday, Oct. 4, her letter has sat for 715 business days in the Department of Education鈥檚 records office, according to a spreadsheet listing all unfilled Freedom of Information requests on file with the department.

蜜桃影视 asked for that information in April 2016 under public records law and obtained it 341 business days later.

鈥淚n general, the DOE鈥檚 response to FOIL requests has a chilling effect,鈥� Edelman said in her email. 鈥淵ou鈥檙e almost loathe to file a request because you know it will fall into a black hole.鈥�

Edelman鈥檚 long wait has not been solitary. , building on research by , reported last spring that DOE responses take, on average, 103 days, making it the least responsive among city agencies in providing access to records.

In April 2016, 蜜桃影视 also submitted a request for arbitrators鈥� decisions in teacher misconduct cases that has gone unfulfilled for 369 business days. 蜜桃影视 published a story on Aug. 23 of this year about the long delays and the department鈥檚 overall poor response record under FOIL.

Advocacy groups and media outlets (including the Post on behalf of Edelman and two colleagues) sued the department in recent years because of its failure to provide records in a state-mandated 鈥渞easonable period鈥� 鈥� instead sending monthly notices extending the expected response time by 20 business days. The head of the state鈥檚 Committee on Open Government, which oversees FOIL, calls the DOE鈥檚 practices 鈥�terrible.鈥�

In a statement, DOE General Counsel Howard Friedman pointed to planned improvements: “We are proposing changes to our FOIL regulation to help improve communication with聽individuals who submit requests and provide them with realistic response timelines. The DOE will continue to address FOIL requests in accordance with State law and remains committed to increasing transparency and more efficiently serving the public.鈥�

A snapshot of the period from March 2, 2014, which the DOE identifies as the date of its oldest open request, to Aug. 25, 2017, the last date for which it provided information to 蜜桃影视, finds 526 outstanding requests, 221 of them filed prior to 2017.

Young Advocates for Fair Education, a Hasidic group that has pushed for more secular education in ultra-Orthodox schools, filed 11 requests that remained outstanding, more than any other entity. (Completed requests and those answered since Aug. 25 don鈥檛 appear.)

Law firms accounted for 15 open requests, and advocacy groups for 25, ranging from Advocates for Children (three) to Class Size Matters (five) to StudentsFirstNY (eight).

Among media outlets, Edelman and her colleagues at the New York Post waited on 14 requests, Chalkbeat and The New York Times each waited on five, and Politico on four.

The names of more than 200 people who submitted requests were redacted; it鈥檚 likely that most were students or parents whose identities are shielded by federal law. The requests are often very specific 鈥� for a student鈥檚 records or 鈥渁ll records pertaining relating [sic] to AT&T corp payment check No. 0000160034013 in the amount of $1,175.39.鈥� Others are broad: 鈥淧lease send me 鈥� copies of any and all materials produced, obtained, received, modified, sent, distributed, maintained, or recorded by the Office of Special Investigations.鈥� Neither approach has been successful.

Apparently straightforward requests by reporters, who tend to word theirs more carefully, remain unfulfilled, sometimes for years. On April 14, 2015, Politico鈥檚 Eliza Shapiro asked for Chancellor Fari帽a鈥檚 schedule for the preceding three and a half months. Pei-Sze Cheng, at WNBC-TV, asked on Sept. 23, 2014, for instances of corporal punishment reported to investigators from 2010鈥�2014, including the number that were unsubstantiated.

On March 3, 2016, Katie Honan of DNAinfo asked for the number of mental health professionals placed over the past three years at Renewal Schools, the persistently struggling schools that the administration has poured hundreds of millions into to turn around. The Post鈥檚 Carl Campanile asked on July 28, 2015, for copies of reports by DOE investigators showing test or grade tampering or inflation during the previous two years.

The DOE hasn鈥檛 responded to these four requests for a collective 2,235 business days.

In September, responding to widespread criticism, the DOE announced would allow those who submit unclear or overly broad requests to make changes. The records office would discontinue sending monthly extension notices, providing instead specific dates for requests that demand more than 20 days.

These changes are more consistent with state law, said Robert Freeman, executive director of the Committee on Open Government.

Sixteen聽of the outstanding requests in DOE records dated from 2014; 56 were submitted in 2015, 149 in 2016, and 190 from the first six months of 2017. (Another 115 open requests were submitted聽after that.)聽 It remains unclear whether the DOE provided all open requests to 蜜桃影视, however. Aaron Pallas, an education and sociology professor at Teachers College who writes frequently about education in New York City, filed a request in July 2011 for documents that might show if the DOE prepped students for the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

Pallas told 蜜桃影视 that he had never received a response from the DOE, just monthly extension letters. 鈥淚t got kind of comical because occasionally they鈥檇 miss a month and I鈥檇 have to write to them and say, 鈥榊ou haven鈥檛 sent me my monthly update letting me know that you haven鈥檛 done anything yet,鈥� 鈥� he said.

Pallas wrote about the delay in a February 2013 column; soon after, he said, someone at the DOE contacted him off the record.

鈥� 鈥楬onestly, our unit was not doing test prep,鈥� 鈥� Pallas says he was told. 鈥� 鈥楨ven if your request does get fulfilled, it鈥檚 probably not going to give you the sorts of things you might have been expecting.鈥� 鈥�

Pallas said the last communication he received from the records office was an extension letter dated Nov. 13, 2013. He followed up in July 2014, but never heard back.

Freeman remains hopeful. 鈥淚 think that if [DOE officials] stick to them, the changes that have been made represent improvements,鈥� he said. 鈥淭he hope is that we will see much more efficient response to FOIL requests. We will see fewer unreasonable and unjustifiable delays. We will see more seriousness given to compliance with FOIL.鈥�

The guidelines may be more of a next step than a more radical course put forth in 2013.

鈥淎gencies that do not comply [with FOIL] should be sanctioned with a fine for each day of non-compliance,鈥� then鈥揚ublic Advocate Bill de Blasio, who made lack of transparency by city agencies one of his rallying cries. 鈥淚n New York City, these fines would be assessed after a court finds an agency to be at fault 鈥� including in cases of excessive delays or a 鈥榩attern and practice鈥� of FOIL violations.鈥�

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