After Democrats and the mainstream Montana media spent the Montana Legislative Session bashing Republicans over nullification, Democratic Superintendent of Public Instruction Denise Juneau is hoping for a way to back out of her own nullification efforts.
Huffington Post has this:
When it comes to education, Montana is stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Faced with potentially losing federal funding after publicly challenging No Child Left Behind’s student performance mandates, Montana’s education chief Denise Juneau is now in discussions with the Department of Education in search of compromise, she told The Huffington Post Friday.
Meanwhile, The Sunlight Foundation is calling the National Governor’s Association, as the group also highlights efforts, or the lack thereof, to make states more transparent.
Here’s more:
According to their website, the state leaders will be meeting to discuss education, innovation and competitiveness. Here at Sunlight, we would like to take the same opportunity to address an equally important issue – open government. A call to the NGA’s Communications office to see if I can be given access to the agenda of the meeting, revealed that it was not available for the public “because their meetings are private” — unless if you are an attendee or a governor.
Unfazed by the U. S. Public Interest Research Groups report that gave Montana an F for state transparency, Governor Brian Schweitzer vetoed a bill that would have created a website with information on the state’s budget and spending. The governor, who claimed that state legislators are already publishing the same information on their individual websites, added that the cost of creating new sites could not be covered by the state.