APS Ethics Scandal; incompetence and corruption unchecked

Most of what is wrong with public service has to do with incompetence and corruption. More fundamentally it has to do with a system that tolerates incompetence and corruption. Corruption exists only because it can; the system allows it.

A system deliberately and intelligently designed to illuminate incompetence and corruption would likely eliminate them. The system has to be changed.

The system is not now fixed because those who have the power to fix it, don’t want it fixed. It is not in their interests.

There is only one check for incompetence and corruption; accountability. Accountability is fatal to incompetence and corruption.

The Leadership of the APS will not admit accountability to any meaningful standard of conduct.

When dodging accountability, two things happen; standards are lowered, and the complaint process is disabled.

The Leadership of APS has lowered the standard. Once accountable to a widely recognized, accepted and respective code of ethical conduct; they are now accountable to none; deliberately, methodically, and in their self interest.

They have disabled the complaint process. There is no procedure in the APS to hold an administrator or board member honestly accountable for ethical misconduct.

The record will show that they do not hold themselves accountable even to the law. When they repealed their accountability to a code of ethics; they created an opportunity for themselves; unethical litigation. A powerful law firm related to the school board by marriage, on what appears to be an unlimited budget, and willing to litigate unethically; can save board members and administrators from accountability, even to the law.

I have been making this argument for quite some time. It has been acknowledged by neither the APS Leadership nor the media. Both are problematic.

The Leadership of the APS, the board, superintendent, and Modrall, will not respond to this allegation. There is only one reason not to respond. The allegation is true. They do refuse to be held honestly accountable to any meaningful standard of conduct. Their position is indefensible.

The media will not report the story. By this I mean they will not assign a reporter to conduct an impartial investigation and then report the truth to stakeholders. This has been true even during the past two elections and will likely be true during the next.

Unfortunately, the media is the only real hope of addressing the problem. The APS axis controls the system. The system will not hold them accountable. They can be held accountable only by stakeholders.

If a thousand people attend a board meeting to insist that APS Leadership be accountable to a higher standard of conduct; those eight public servants would be compelled either to hold themselves honestly accountable to the same standard that applies to students, or resign.

If stakeholders are kept ignorant, they will never assemble in numbers large enough to effect a change. How do you get a thousand people to go to a board meeting if the media wants the truth suppressed as well?