A newsletter that was a treasure trove for journalists, advocates, and anyone wanting to know the latest internal policy news from the Department of Education has disappeared from its home on the Internet.
The Principals’ Weekly has been cited in everything from local ed blogger Norm Scott’s post about the Broad Prize to Time Magazine’s exploration of election-time freedom of speech for teachers.
And just weeks ago Jonathan, another teacher-blogger, suggested that “someone in each school (chapter leader, committee member, interested teacher/secretary/counselor) should be regularly taking a peek” at the newsletter’s archives. At the time, they were posted on-line, oddly enough, on the DOE’s Division of Contracts and Purchasing site.
But this week, trying to take a look at the DOE’s guidance to principals about military recruitment, I found that the archives were gone. Were they moved in response to the attention from bloggers?
No, said DOE spokesperson Andrew Jacob, who assured me that they were simply relocated to the password-protected Principal’s Portal because it’s “the location that’s most convenient and intuitive for principals,” who are, after all, the intended audience.
About our First Person series:
First Person is where Chalkbeat features personal essays by educators, students, parents, and others trying to improve public education. Read our submission guidelines here.