As I have said before, journalists work behind the scenes every day to lobby for release of public information. That came into sharp relief recently when Oregon delayed publishing school test scores.

The reason cited by the Department of Education was hard to argue with: The state said it wanted to make the scores more transparent and easier to digest.

“The change comes after The Oregonian/OregonLive reported on a national study that ranked Oregon among the worst states in the country for student achievement transparency,” education reporter Julia Silverman wrote.

But skeptical journalists also wondered whether the delay was to give government spinmeisters a bit more time to soften the blow of bad results. And the planned release on a Friday raised eyebrows further.

Lynne Terry, editor of the Oregon Capital Chronicle, flagged the issue for other Oregon journalists.

The “Friday news dump” is a tried-and-true tactic to bury news on a day (better yet a Friday afternoon or evening) when newsrooms are slammed wrapping up the workweek. And follow-up articles over the weekend are less likely because of lighter newsroom staffing. By Monday, interest fades as new storylines emerge.

The dropping of important information on Fridays has been around as long as there have been people paid to manage the release of bad news.

Marc Siegel, Education Department spokesperson, denies that was the intent. “That idea never came up. ODE chose Friday to give journalists more time to review, ask clarifying questions and write about a very large volume of data and ensure the data are accessible to the public and press.”

As far as Oregon test scores, a short embargo is typical for complicated data sets.

“I have been covering test score data release in Oregon for 27 years,” said Betsy Hammond, longtime education editor at The Oregonian/OregonLive. “We have always gotten the data on an embargoed basis with about three days to parse it before we are allowed to make it public. …

“In my experience, having three days to examine and analyze the data and ask school districts questions has helped our newsroom and others avoid mistakes and provide accurate contextualized information to help readers understand what’s there.”

She and Silverman agreed, however, that the Friday release was problematic. Test scores have routinely been released on Thursdays, three days after journalists receive them under embargo. Keep in mind the tests were given last spring.

After hearing of the unexpected delay, journalists from the Salem Reporter, Oregon Capital Chronicle, Oregon Public Broadcasting and The Oregonian/OregonLive wrote to the director of the Education Department, Charlene Williams, and copied their concerns to the office of Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek.

Citing public records law, the letter noted timely release was required. Also, “embargoing public information until a Friday is a common tactic to limit the dissemination of that information to the widest audience possible,” the letter said. “As journalists, our job is to help the public understand a wide variety of issues, including public education. Releasing information near a weekend, when it is commonly known people consume less news, will from our perspective limit transparency.”

Ryan Haas, managing editor at OPB, took the lead in drafting the letter. The Salem Reporter’s Rachel Alexander, who had filed the records request, signed on along with Hammond and Terry.

Kotek’s office said the initial delay was solely “to ensure the data was more accessible and comprehensible to the press and public.” Upon learning of the media’s public records request, the governor’s office asked the department to move up the release time.

By Monday, the Department of Education said it would release the information on Thursday, as usual. And indeed, the news was bad.

Silverman had noted it was difficult for people to compare school performance over time, from before the COVID-19 pandemic to afterward. Comparing test results for each school or district involved finding data points in multiple large spreadsheets.

That remains the case (though Siegel said more data would soon be available).

Even with the extra time, the data released Thursday is not easy to parse for parents. Comparing the new scores to those from just before and after the pandemic requires locating and downloading at least six separate Excel files from the state’s website.

The Oregonian/OregonLive to the rescue. In order to add clarity, data specialist Mark Friesen jumped in to create data visualizations showing pre- and post-pandemic performance trends for every school in our database, found at schools.oregonlive.com.

Readers can compare test scores in 2018 to the current scores. This helps pinpoint learning losses during the pandemic.

We hope readers find it informative.