The Journal and Tribune are culpable

All standards great and mean are meaningless without accountability. Without accountability, the most respected standard is just so many words; serving no good. It is all about accountability.

The Leaders of the APS maintain the wherewithal to dodge accountability. Whether or not it is used, they have at their immediate disposal the resources to avoid accountability even to the law. Their record proves it.

Like radar detectors, like photo defeating license plate covers, there is no reason to maintain the ability to escape accountability, except to escape accountability; it is ethically indefensible. It is itself unethical.

It is not in the interests of students, teachers, parents, or the community that APS Leaders maintain their immunity. The only interests served are their own; they are not legitimate interests.

They maintain their immunity through stealth. A public discussion of their immunity would lead to its abolition. It is indefensible; were it not, the defense would be manifest.

The responsibility for the fact that their immunity is not part of the political discourse, even through the election of board members and allocation of hundreds of millions of tax dollars, falls squarely upon the shoulders of the Journal and Tribune.

The failure of the Journal and Tribune to expose the APS ethics scandal is a betrayal of any interpretation of a journalist’s code of ethics, and of the public trust.

They, like the APS Leaders whom they protect, cannot be held accountable for their misconduct.

And so, it will continue.