Mar. 18—A favorite quotation among open government advocates is a statement written by Louis Brandeis, a U.S. Supreme Court justice from 1916 to 1939.

Brandeis wrote: "Publicity is justly commended as a remedy for social and industrial diseases. Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman."

We relish that sentiment as we celebrate national Sunshine Week, which started on March 12 and concludes on Saturday.

The American Society of News Editors — now called the News Leaders Association — started Sunshine Week in 2005 to examine how transparent government entities are in conducting official business and in sharing public records.

News organizations and other advocates use the annual week to focus on openness, often by publishing stories that examine or test what government does.

The Maryland-Delaware-DC Press Association — of which The Frederick News-Post is a member — examines a government transparency issue each year for Sunshine Week. This year's coverage, which I helped edit, was on school system websites.

We looked at how well Maryland's 24 school systems, plus four in Delaware and the one in Washington, D.C., do in posting a range of information online.

The 20 categories we measured included basic details such as email addresses for school board members and the agendas for school board meetings. We also looked at more substantive categories, such as teachers' salaries, per-pupil spending and approved contracts.

Not surprisingly, school systems scored well on the basics, but were not as good at more detailed types of information.

In some cases, it wasn't necessarily a matter of having the information available — it was how to find it.

Teachers' salaries, for example, are in contracts between the school system and the unions representing teachers. If you wanted to find your district's contract, typing "teacher salaries" in a search bar on the website generally did not work. You had to know the right terminology, such as "negotiated agreements."

If you didn't use the search function, and tried perusing the website to find the information, you might not find it. At least one district had the contract posted under "human resources." Maybe people in the education world would think to look there, but would everyone else?

One element of transparency is not only sharing information, but making it available in a way someone can find it and understand it. Consider how the average person might navigate a website — what search terms they might use or menu items they'll look for.

Transparency also means making information available quickly, without delay. Yes, someone seeking information can request it under the Maryland Public Information Act, but when the information doesn't require research and review, it should be available quickly — such as on a website.

Frederick County Public Schools did pretty well in the review. It was easy to find contact information for board members and the superintendent; a budget document; and archived board meeting videos.

A majority of Maryland school districts did not post their superintendent's contract, but FCPS did. FCPS also included a link to the salary with a press release about her taking the job — an indication of trying to post information when and where someone might look for it.

The MDDC story package about this year's Sunshine Week project was published in the News-Post on Monday.

The package included a list of the 20 categories of information we looked for. There were sidebars about best practices and about BoardDocs, a software system many local school systems use to share links to board meeting videos, agendas, supporting records and more.

MDDC did a comparable review for Sunshine Week in 2017, looking at 156 county and municipal websites across Maryland.

The results were similar. Almost every jurisdiction posted contact information for a government. Most posted agendas and minutes. About half posted public notices.

About 20% listed bids that were awarded. About 6% posted a vendor list.

Just two of the 156 websites met all 14 items on a checklist that MDDC created — Garrett County and the city of Laurel in Prince George's County.

Sunshine Week is a good reminder of the principles of openness — governments carry out the public's business and store the public's records, and should not cloak meetings or documents in darkness.

Those are essential ideals to live by all year.