Mercury News editorial: UC schools need remedial work on open government
Originally published in the San Jose Mercury News on Feb. 15, 2011
It’s disconcerting, to say the least, that the University of California flunked a transparency test from a major open-government group. But the Bay Area’s four California State University schools — including San Jose State — got an A-plus.
May we suggest some peer tutoring?
Californians Aware, a respected nonprofit, public-access watchdog group, gave the 10-campus UC system a failing grade for its response to a request for records. UC Berkeley’s C grade was the highest in the system. That’s pathetic.
The 24-campus CSU system got an overall B, which is pretty good. But Cal State East Bay, San Francisco State, San Jose State and Sonoma State all made the honor roll with A-pluses.
The information sought by the advocacy group was not hard to find. It was contracts, ethics forms and spending reports — according to a CSU spokesman, “fairly standardized” requests.
The UC system disputes some of the findings and argued that some information was indeed sent, although long after the deadline set in state law. But there’s no question the UCs did a lousy job. They’ve got to improve.
Californians Aware and the Bay Area CSU schools could team up to help educate the rest of the institutions. That may be hard for the more prestigious UCs to swallow, but they’re the ones that need remedial work.