Transparency with conditions is not transparency. Never has and never will. That’s the case at any time, but especially at 10 p.m. in the waning moments of an Austin School Board meeting. This transparency issue stems from the Austin ISD’s move to release a report that involves the closure, consolidation or re-purposing of schools in the large Central TX district. This would prove controversial in any district, but Austin ISD trustees got a taste of it when they considered closing nine schools in central and eastern Austin earlier this year. The Austin American-Statesman sought to obtain the document several days in advance of the Austin ISD school board meeting Monday. District spokesman Alex Sanchez said the newspaper could have it — if editors and reporters waited until 10 p.m. Monday. The newspaper editors rightly said “no deal” and the district withdrew the offer. Sanchez responded by calling Carstarphen's recommendations a "working draft" and exempted under state open records law, the Statesman reported. Let's get this right. This public document was a working draft until the superintendent was ready to discuss it with the board. The leadership at Austin ISD unfortunately wasn't kidding. The district relented with a release of the document a few hours before the Monday board meeting. The discussion about schools to be closed, consolidated or re-purposed will proceed.

The debate over the length of time the issue should be before trustees prior to a vote will also occur. They are legitimate areas of concern for Austin taxpayers. However, all Superintendent Meria Carstarphen wanted to do was delay and massage the expected controversy. In doing so, she created a second — and unnecessary — controversy. Austin ISD’s “working draft exception” to the Texas Public Information Act is an insult to taxpayers. Texas lawmakers have done a marvelous job of erecting barriers to true transparency and accountability. Taxpayers don’t need another imagined one from the desk of a superintendent. Carstarphen should have learned long ago that an attempt to quash a public document only leads to more problems and embarrassment for a public official. The calculated move demonstrates a far different kind of transparency: district leaders will come up with lame excuses to release information at their convenience and not a moment before that. Austin ISD taxpayers know that true financial and policy transparency leads with actions, not words. Aside from erecting a phony barrier to a public document, Carstarphen also has damaged Austin ISD's public trust. The school board better step in and engage in legitimate damage control. Ignoring this or refusing to take action could lead to an even larger problem: taxpayers refusing to give district leaders another cent of their money. That would only complicate problems in Austin ISD, but it's a scenario that couldn't be blamed on the Texas Legislature. Carstarphen flunked this transparency test. Perhaps a remedial transparency class is in order.