Secrecy is government's gift when it comes to keeping jobs
Scott Reeder: Secrecy is government's gift when it comes to keeping jobs 12/19/2007, 10:20 am SPRINGFIELD -- As Christmas approaches and gifts are purchased and wrapped, the words, "I've got a secret" soon may ring through my house. That's part of the joy of being the father of a 2-year-old. But in my work as a statehouse reporter, the chant in my ears often is much different. It goes like this: "I don't have any secrets." Some government officials and politicians have made the keeping of secrets an art form. Once their clandestine activities are found out, the pat response tends to be, "We never hid anything." Recently I completed an investigation of how Illinois fails to deal with serious issues of teacher misconduct. Back in July, I received a tip that Chicago Public Schools maintained secret, or confidential, files in its inspector general's office that identified criminals and others suspected of serious wrongdoing. I filed an open records request for the documents. CPS promptly rejected my request. I filed an appeal with Chicago Public Schools CEO Arne Duncan and he denied my appeal. I contacted the Illinois Attorney General's office, and Public Access Counselor Terry Mutchler spent four months pressuring school officials to turn over the documents. Finally, CPS turned over a portion of the documents with some of the names of errant teachers blacked out. But even so, the information provided was pretty damning. The documents reveal that drug-dealing, prostitution, attempted murder, criminal sexual assault, embezzlement, theft, reckless homicide and stalking are among the crimes committed by those hired to educate children. And the school district failed to warn Rockford Public Schools when a Chicago teacher believed to have been sexually involved with a 15-year-old transferred to that school district. (The teacher left his job after an internal investigation, but was not criminally charged.) After the stories were published, I received an e-mail from a spokesman for Chicago Public Schools. He didn't object to my reporting about criminals in the teaching ranks; he just didn't like my calling it a secret, characterizing the documents I obtained as "very public." Yeah, right. If you don't have anything to hide, why hide it? Scott Reeder is the Statehouse Bureau Chief for The Daily Journal and newspapers serving Moline, Rock Island and Ottawa. Inserted from <http://daily-journal.com/archives/dj/display.php?id=410167>
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