"You can't just tell the truth; you never know how someone might want to use it"

I will tell you in a moment, who said that.

It was more than a decade ago. I was fresh out of Character Counts training, and a member of the teachers union team that was negotiating contract language.

I had managed to get a plank into the union platform.

I was there to see that the new contract contained language that respected and recognized the right of stakeholders to know the truth.

It was during that negotiation that Tom Savage said, "If I told (stakeholders) the truth about what was going on at my school, the realtors in my neighborhood would have my neck".

It was outside of negotiations where I met face to face with then APS Superintendent and West Point graduate, Peter Horoscak.

And when I argued that teachers (and other stakeholders) had a right to know what was going on in their schools; Peter Horoscak said; "You can't just tell the truth; you never know how someone might want to use it."

The truth is, the leadership of the APS treats the truth as a commodity that they distribute according their interests. They are not compelled by any standard of conduct to distribute the truth ethically.

The truth is, the leadership of the APS has a full staff of professional prevaricators whose absolute priority is to distribute the truth in a manner that does the least harm to the leadership of the APS.

That fact is indisputable.

The public interest is not served by this arrangement.

In fact, the interests that are served are diametrically opposite to the public interest.

They are milking a billion dollar a year bureaucracy;
for all that its worth.

They could not have established their exception to accountability if the public were aware of what they are doing. If stakeholders knew that the leadership of the APS has methodically and deliberately excepted itself from accountability even to the law; they would be outraged.

They would show up at a board meeting carrying their pitchforks and torches and demand;

honest accountability to meaningful standards, for public servants within their public service; for eight measly hours a day;

transparently accountability under a system over which they have no control; and even against their will.


There are those who do not want the public to start talking about accountability in public service. Their position; that they are excepted from honest accountability, is indefensible in open discourse. They are conspiring together to keep the subject from public discourse.

The media in Albuquerque, the "leadership" of the Journal, the Trib, KOB, KOAT, and KRQE, are involved in the effort to keep the public from considering honest accountability for public servants.

That fact is indisputable.


One of the privileges of membership in the privileged class is that if you are to be held accountable at all;
you are accountable only to others of the privileged class;

... and certainly not to the great unwashed
or to any of their silly rules.