Technology is making the global village ever smaller, with instant communication between Boston and Beijing only a few keystrokes away on the information superhighway. Which makes it all the more remarkable that the only option for Boston residents wanting to keep tabs on the doings of their own School Committee is to travel the city's pothole-rutted roadways twice a month to the committee's downtown meetings at School Department headquarters.

While everyone from residents of neighboring Cambridge to rural outposts in the Berkshire hills can view local school committee meetings on public access television, when it comes to tuning in the Boston School Committee, citizens of the state's capital city are left in the dark.

To City Councilor John Tobin, it's a troubling symptom of a system that is far too inscrutable and hard to navigate for families who are in the schools or might like to be.

''It's mystifying to me how in 2005 the Boston School Committee is not on television," says Tobin, who chairs the council's education committee.

Tobin first raised the issue of televising School Committee meetings last year. He was rebuffed by school officials, who cited a lack of funding to wire the building and cover operating costs of the venture. They suggested Tobin seek a corporate sponsor for the project.

''We're all for it," says School Committee chairwoman Elizabeth Reilinger of the idea of televising committee meetings. ''But it's simply a matter of dollars and cents," she says, pointing to cuts in classroom resources that tight budgets have forced in recent years.

''There's no way in good conscience to carry out our fiduciary responsibility and to put money into it," she says of Tobin's TV proposal.

But open and accessible government carries a cost, and Tobin finds it hard to see how, in good conscience, the largest school district in the state can fail to make School Committee meetings more accessible to busy families.

''With a $712 million budget, I've got to think they can find the wiggle room somewhere to make this happen," says Tobin, who wants to meet with Reilinger and Superintendent Tom Payzant to push again on the issue.

He bristles at the idea that he should find an underwriter to cover the costs of televising School Committee meetings.

''I don't know why this has become my responsibility," he says. Tobin says it's ironic that the School Department hasn't pursued the issue with Comcast, the country's leading cable television provider -- and a sponsor of the Boston public schools newsletter.

As a fallback, Tobin says he's willing to pursue arrangements for the School Committee to meet across the street in the City Council chambers in City Hall, from which council meetings have been televised since 1996. ''Our home is your home," he says.

Tobin, who has been helping convene citywide forums on bringing wireless Internet zones to Boston, says it's frustrating to be in the middle of exciting developments to promote communication and the flow of information while the School Department drags its feet on something other systems have had in place for years. He points out that the School Department website doesn't even list e-mail addresses that residents can use to write to School Committee members, something a quick survey of area municipal committees websites shows to be commonplace.

Given the continued questions about accountability following Boston's switch more than a decade ago from an elected School Committee to one appointed by the mayor, Tobin says the School Committee should be bending over backward to make its proceedings and members accessible to those who use the system.

''We really have to start shedding some light on the decisions being made and the decision makers," he says. ''It's nothing about making people look bad or putting them on the spot. It's about our customers -- our students and our parents -- and letting them know about the decisions being made and how they can impact the process."