The Pillars of Character Counts Are a Fine Student Standard of Conduct

After more than a decade of close attention
I have not seen better.

It is an unequivocal higher standard of conduct.
It was written by talented and dedicated people.

There is nothing wrong with it.

The APS School Board adopted it unanimously in 1994.
APS has spend hundreds of thousands of dollars promoting
Character Counts. They even pay a full time administrator
to "administer" it.

I was among the first group of APS teachers to be trained
by Michael Josephson himself,
to train students and staffs in the fundamentals of CC.

Then I acquired the obligation to try to try to enforce
the standard on a corrupt and incompetent principal,
Wayne Knight, of Hoover Middle School.

My efforts to hold him accountable,
exposed the fact that the entire administrative chain of
command is not even remotely accountable to the standard
of conduct that they enforce upon students.



In the beginning, adults were actually accountable to
the Pillars of Character Counts. The employee code of
conduct said;
In no case shall the standard of conduct for an adult
be lower than the standard of conduct for a students.

Rather than be held accountable to that standard,
rather that be held honestly accountable for their conduct
and for their competence within their public service,

Paula Maes and the board stripped any mention of the
Pillars of Character Counts from the code of conduct that
applies to them.

They have stripped the word ethical from their own
standards of conduct.

And now they cannot be held accountable for anything.


The Pillars of Character Counts cannot exist side by side
with corruption and corrupt incompetence.

One or the other must go.

If Paula Maes has her way,
the Pillars of Character Counts are out;
and unchecked corruption and incompetence are in.

The battle lines are drawn.

On the one side, you have Paula Maes, the corrupt and
the incompetent in the leadership of the APS.

Squarely on their side, working to protect them from the
consequences of their betrayal of the public trust, we find,
oddly, the local media;

Tommy Lang, Kent Walz, Mary Lynn Roper,
Michelle Donaldson, and Sue Stephens,

who are sworn, apparently,
to keep the Pillars of Character Counts, off the table
during the hiring of APS' next top role model.

They are sworn apparently,
to keep any discussion of the ethics and accountability
scandal in the leadership of the APS, off the table entirely.

They are sworn apparently, to keep the subject of
an administrative accountability audit
off the table entirely.

As a result, the stakeholders in the APS are destined to
be saddled with yet another good ol' boy.

Someone who will be hired to hide the problems
and not to fix them.



The problems cannot be fixed except by a superintendent
who is willing to be held accountable to meaningful standards
of conduct and competence;

and who is willing to hold everyone in the leadership of the
APS accountable to those same higher standards.

The problems cannot be fixed without holding the corrupt
and the incompetent accountable for their corruption and
their incompetence.

Even if it means the most senior administrators in the APS
will forfeit their careers, their reputations, and maybe even
a few years of their freedom.

What are the chances of hiring a superintendent with the
character and the courage to really reform the leadership
of the APS?

They are precisely the same chances, as the chances
of getting you to stand up against the good ol' boys and
their plan.

What are the chances of getting you
to go to one of the meetings tomorrow and demand
honest accountability to meaningful standards of conduct
and competence, for the leadership of the APS?

What are the chances that you will do anything at all
to put role modeling on the table tomorrow?

All that is necessary for evil to prevail in the world,

For Paula Maes and her ilk in the leadership of the APS
to prevail in their efforts to cover up the corruption
and the incompetence of their cronies,

is for good men to do nothing. burke