if your only tool is a hammer, then every problem is a nail. unk

individual public servants in control of power and resources; is the hammer.

and the nail; the failure of the the leadership of the aps to administer power and resources in the best interests of students and their education.

mayor martin "the hammer" chavez wants a bigger hammer. he says if only we give him a bigger hammer, he will whack the aps nail.

there are more than a few flaws in the logic;

• the power to make really important decisions about the real problems in education needs to be used at the educational interface; not in a board room and not in the mayors office.
  
• power and resources should be spent by the most expert and experienced educators; not by those in a distant boardroom or mayor's office.
• resources need to be spent at the interface and not in board rooms or palacial office spaces.
• the movement of decision making power and resources away from the educational interface can not justified. it serves only the interests of those who want to personally acquire and wield power. their interests are indefensible except by stonewalling.
• the accumulation of power and resources in the uptown palace, or in the mayor's office, serves no useful or legitimate educational purpose.
• the suggestion that the mayor is any more accountable to the community than the school board is, is nonsense. who actually believes that a mayor is accountable to voters?
• if corrupt and incompetent public servants were accountable to voters; why do they still exist?
• and most importantly, if the mayor has any real interest in aps accountability; he would be supporting the aps audit. and he is not.

accountability is fatal to corruption and incompetence. there is no way to provide accountability except by providing accountability. there is no equivalent gesture.

transparent accountability to a meaningful standard of conduct will eliminate corruption and incompetence in the leadership of the aps. it will also eliminate the corrupt and the incompetent in the leadership of the aps.

an aps accountabilility audit is opposed only by the corrupt and the incompetent; and by those who would enable their corruption and incompetence;

like the mayor, the journal and to only a very slightly lesser extent, the trib.