MORE PUBLIC EDUCATION, PLEASE: Cleveland schools CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett went to the last two School Board meetings with presentations about large budget cuts to eliminate a projected $100 million deficit for the year starting July 1. At last night's meeting she laid out her layoff scenario, which includes over 600 teachers and about 300 other employees. Here's the Plain Dealer coverage of that meeting.

In preparation for this announcement, the district put letters in all their teachers' mailboxes yesterday. It was no surprise, since talk of layoffs has been circulating for months.

So presumably the district has had time to put Byrd-Bennett's two School Board presentations into html format and post them on its expensive website, where teachers, parents, and other citizens alarmed or perplexed by the news coverage could see what she actually said.

Here's the "News and Information" page of the CMSD site. Note that two press releases were posted yesterday. Note that one of them is headlined "CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett to Address Budget Reduction Process". But the link leads only to an announcement of a media briefing prior to the Board meeting, at which "No specific numbers will be discussed".

Okay, it's early. Maybe it will all be posted later today. We'll see.

But if Byrd-Bennett wants the community to "understand" the district's financial emergency and step up to the big tax hike she wants in the Fall, she'd better start taking steps to help us understand. Step One would be to put aside the made-for-TV histrionics ("Byrd-Bennett fights back tears") in favor of more open, timely sharing of real information, financial and otherwise. You know -- transparency. No more secret Board committees, no more carefully orchestrated press releases. Just put it all out there, unfiltered, free of extraneous packaging, and easy to find. And then be prepared to respond to public questions with real, timely answers.

Here's an example question to start with: If the average classroom teacher makes $45,000-50,000 a year, how can laying off 618 teachers save $61.5 million, as the PD story says?

Here's another: How many kids actually received diplomas from the Cleveland schools last year?

And here's a third: May I please see the District's most recent audited financials and the current year's line item budget?

This kind of information should be available to any Cleveland citizen, with a minimum of hoop-jumping. On the web -- once a capable site is up and running -- this can be accomplished at practically no cost. Right now would be a really good time to start.

I don't mean to be adversarial here. I believe the CMSD needs a tax increase -- should have tried for it last Fall, in fact -- and I intend to vote for any reasonable version of one. I believe that laying off teachers is a bad move. I believe that Byrd-Bennett has been a good CEO, on the whole, and deserves much benefit of the doubt.

But that doesn't exempt her, or the Board, or the teachers -- or the Mayor -- from the simple equation repeated so often in classrooms and halls: Give respect to get respect.

The minimal form of respect owed by a public agency to the public is open, easy, complete access to its information. The Cleveland Municipal School District is still a public agency... an agency that badly needs the voters' respect this Fall. Do the math.