Documents Show NYC’s Education Department Failed to Answer 526 Public Records Requests Over Past 3 Years
At the start of December 2014, New York Post reporter Susan Edelman sent an intriguing public records request to the city’s Department of Education.
“Under 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,” Edelman said, according to a Department of Education summary.
In an email this week, the Post veteran told The 74 she “really can’t remember after three years” 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’s education policies.
Correspondence between Fariña 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’s inauguration committee, defended his education agenda publicly, and served as an “informal advisor” on school issues, according to The New York Times...