APS Board of Education; a model of clean government-

It isn’t of course, but it could be.

It stands to reason that the larger a government body is, the harder it will be to make substantial change. It stands to reason then that a small government body, a seven member elected school board, is the logical place to start a reform effort. The seven member board is the Achilles heel of governmental bodies that tolerate corruption and incompetence. A change there could well be the beginning of change everywhere.

Corruption and incompetence are the cause of almost every “bad” thing that a government does; wasted money, ineffective efforts, and every decision that serves private interests over public interests.

Accountability is fatal to corruption and incompetence.

To the extent that corruption and incompetence exist, it is because there is no accountability. Socrates is widely credited with observing that, “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Consider for a moment that it is not power, but the lack of accountability for the abuse of power which corrupts, absolutely.

If any public servant who abuses the power entrusted to them is held accountable, honestly and absolutely accountable for that abuse, how could it continue? It can’t.

Instead of accountability, people are offered an assurance; you can trust me. Trust is a poor substitute for accountability. How else can it be explained that government still suffers widely from the effects of corruption and incompetence? Even after all of the years of opportunity to eliminate corruption and incompetence.

Transparency is an excellent example of a concrete step toward accountability. Yet transparency does not exist. Those who we have trusted to protect our interests have yet to provide a level of transparency that provides protection against the ravages of corruption and incompetence. It is naïve to expect that they will. You cannot expect a wo/man to eliminate corruption and incompetence when their political being depends on their existence.

All that is necessary to provide for honest accountability to a meaningful standard of conduct in the Albuquerque Public Schools is to remove the current board and elect in their place seven men and women who are willing, in their public service, to be held accountable, honestly accountable.

The current Board, Paula Maes, Leonard DeLayo, Robert Lucero, Berna Facio, Miguel Acosta, Gordon Rowe, and Mary Lee Martin, has individually and collectively renounced honest accountability to a meaningful standard of conduct. It is on the record.

DeLayo, Acosta, and Lucero’s board seats are up for election in February 2007. They need to be replaced by three individuals who in their role as public servants, as role models for 98,ooo school children, and as stewards of hundreds of millions of tax dollars, are willing to be held accountable to a meaningful standard of conduct.

Someone needs to run against them. It would seem that anyone willing to stand for accountability would be a shoe in.

Any takers?