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The Washington education group has requested all the universities and colleges of Minnesota to provide a copy of the entire syllabus of a particular course. The request is been made according to the open –records law stated by the state government. The decision was confirmed by a district judge.

The national Council on Teacher Quality is primarily an advocacy and research organization. The organization went ahead and universities and colleges of Minnesota who backed out from providing the necessary information according to the open-records law.

As per the law, it is mandatory for every college and university to provide certain information. The request made by the group asks education institutes to submit documents that include student-teaching assignments, entire syllabus and evaluation and organization of teaching techniques .

The current situation is the most of the universities and colleges from Minnesota have already submitted documents to the group as per the request. However, they have not provided information about the syllabus of the course.

This has raised many eyebrows in the education administration as well as working of the group that has demanded the documents. According to the officials of many colleges and universities, the group is welcome to go ahead and view the syllabus. However, they will not be allowed to keep a copy of the same.

However, this request made by the college officials was straightaway declined by the Judge. As per the Judge, the syllabus of any course is public property. After all, most of the colleges and universities are running on the funds provided by people. Hence, the syllabus of each course is public data in more than one way. As per the Federal Copyright Act, the documents are thus made available for public to view them and have a copy of them as well.

As per the data, as many as 435 public schools from the state of Minnesota declined providing necessary documents to the group. The group had submitted the request to 1139 private and public educational institutes across Minnesota. However, according to NCTO managing director, majority of the institutes have already submitted all the essential documents as per the request.

The State University Systems of Missouri, Wisconsin and Minnesota did not agree with the request of submitting records. However, the Minnesota scenario seems to be more or less resolved at the moment. Legal negotiations are still on with the University of Missouri and University of Wisconsin.
Infact, a legal lawsuit was even filed against University of Missouri about a month back.

The purpose of the organization for collecting information and records from colleges and universities is clear and straight. The organization wants to come up with a national ranking system based on the documents they receive.

According to the organization, the information will further help to evaluate the performance of each and ever single university and college in different states. The rankings will be very helpful for students when it comes to choosing a particular university or college.