The time will never come when The Day dilutes its support for the nearly sacred principle of transparency in doing the people's business. Thankfully, Freedom of Information is the law, and however many reasons public officials may float for exempting their actions, that law has proven fair, clear and enforceable.

Still, some say that a transformative vision of helping thousands of Connecticut high school students at risk of dropping out to graduate and enter jobs or post-secondary education deserves FOI leeway. They say, "We all need to act differently to engage every kid," and that means consensus rather than public differences of opinion.

The Partnership for Connecticut includes every conceivable ingredient to help students who might give up on graduating, thanks to the commitment of its guiding founder, Barbara Dalio of Greenwich. Her private philanthropy, the Dalio Foundation, has been testing and measuring strategies for 10 years; she insists upon seeking input from students, educators and employers, and receives it; her foundation has pledged $100 million over five years; and she has gotten the participation of the state and the public schools, which her experience has told her is a must.

The mission is to reverse the disengagement that sets in when students see no employment future and lose interest in the effort to graduate. That puts some 30,000-plus young adults out into the world annually without a structure for work, training or further education.

Dalio's concept of how to lead such a mission is ambitious. She wants the newly formed board to limit public debate and make its decisions by consensus and a unanimous vote — which it has done in its first two meetings. When consensus is not forthcoming, however, she wants to hammer out the needed compromise the way a legislative party caucus may do under state law: behind closed doors that mute any raised voices, literal or figurative.

And there's the rub. The partnership board includes four elected officials by virtue of their General Assembly leadership roles. Their participation, and the fact that the state will provide another $100 million in public funds, would normally subject the board to FOI requirements, including open meetings. However, the law that created the partnership in the last session exempts it from FOI. 

The Partnership promises to make its minutes and all expenditures public and to keep most meetings open.

But given the exemption, it could hold private meetings, withhold minutes or financial records; could, in short, be private rather than public.

A new bill proposes to end that exemption. It should be enacted.

The partnership says it would operate secretively only if its mission required confidentiality, such as for students' personal stories or the names of potential donors. But claiming it is easier to get things done without public scrutiny could be, and often is said, by any board with lofty intentions. And this one has a built-in obligation to the public.

Besides the statutory preference for voters and taxpayers to see the use of state resources, secrecy also presents a risk to the partnership's credibility. Not knowing what was said or why the board took a certain action, skeptics may impugn political or personal gain as a motive, even when there is none.

The partnership recently asked educators and employers to identify the pressing needs for helping students and received more than 370 responses. The answers, Dalio said, were consistent across the board: mental health programs, social and emotional learning, more social workers and psychologists, making use of the arts to heal and teach.

Low graduation rates are a bane for job creation, they contribute to to crime and incareration, and to opiate abuse to mask hopelessness. The Day agrees with the Partnership for Connecticut that "we all need to act differently to engage every kid." That would benefit not only young people all over the state but all of us.

A model for achieving compromise would be a relief compared to partisan stalemate, but legislative caucusing is not that model. Party caucuses are only for talking; they have no authority to enact law or policy. The partnership board has the authority to approve major policy initiatives. In doing so, it wants to choose when it operates openly and when it does not. Thus far, it legally can.

That should change. Freedom of Information is everyone's right. In the end, imperfect as it may be, it works better than any other system.

The Day editorial board meets with political, business and community leaders to formulate editorial viewpoints. It is composed of President and Publisher Timothy Dwyer, Executive Editor Izaskun E. Larraneta, Owen Poole, copy editor, and Lisa McGinley, retired deputy managing editor. The board operates independently from The Day newsroom.