The kind of people we're dealing with, Monica Armenta

As a result of APS Custodian of Public Records, Rigo Chavez'
unethical handling of my email regarding a bona fide request
for public records; I have filed a complaint against him.

As a matter of principle, more than out of any hope that
he would actually be held accountable to any meaningful
standard of conduct.

The complaint was filed with APS Executive Director of
Communications, Monica Armenta; Rigo's boss I presumed.

She opened the email; but did not respond by the end of the
following day.

I tried to follow up today, and was notified that my email
to Armenta was deleted without being opened.

I was hoping that Armenta would do something stupid,
and she obliged. She proved what I have been saying all along;

APS administrators cannot be held accountable for their
conduct or competence as public servants.

Not only are their standards of conduct and competence
woefully inadequate; but the only redress available to
complainants, means filing the complaint with another
good ol' boy, like Armenta,

who then handles the complaint unethically; invariably.

When I followed up with another email, asking to whom
she reports; in order that I might file a complaint against
her for her manifest lack of character, she ignored that email
as well.

I would suppose that she reports to Linda Sink and or
Winston Brooks neither of which is available to stakeholders
with complaints against senior administrators.

Should Monica Armenta ever to called to account for her
conduct; she will argue, I'm sure, that Rigo Chavez' ethical
misconduct was too trivial to bother with, and that
I am just making trouble, for drill.

At this point I would like to illustrate and defend my position
with a real life example;

I used to teach at Hoover Middle School.
On the day in question, students were being rewarded for
something or another, and the reward was free pizza;
Pizza Hut pizza, not the faux pizza they make at school.

In order to readily identify the students who had qualified
for the reward, students had a stamp applied to their forearm.

It didn't take students long to figure out that one could
press their arm against another's, and transfer enough of the
tattoo to successfully steal pizza.

I caught a kid stealing pizza, and took him to the principal in
hope that the keeper of all punishments meaningful, would
impose one upon the little thief. Instead the principal said,
in front of the kid;

What the hell, it was just a slice of pizza.

or words to that effect.

I trust that I really needn't explain the lesson learned
that day, by the student and by me.

It is the little things that count when the issue is character.

Children behave correctly for one of only two reasons;
virtue and self -interest.

Self-interest leads a child toward making good decisions that
benefit them by means of a reward. It leads them away from
decisions that negatively affect their self interests; those
which include punishment.

I would argue that it is fairly well established that rewards
and punishments are fairly ineffectual in controlling the
behavior of youngsters.

Teachers cannot recognize and reward good behavior
with enough consistency to make a difference.
Just as they cannot catch kids doing wrong and then punish
them with enough consistency to make a difference.

If we really want kids to behave, we have to instill virtue;
an interest in doing the right thing simply because it is the
right thing, and even at some personal sacrifice.

Unlike punishments and rewards that are scaled to the
(mis)conduct, virtue tends to be more black and white.

Self-interest is a cost benefit calculation, virtue is not.

If one can steal big without an likelihood of being caught
the theft becomes a no brainer, and why not?

If we can successfully instill virtue, then a child will not
steal big or small; because it is wrong. Stealing big, and
stealing small are both stealing.

Monica Armenta taught Rigo Chavez that he can get away
with "small" ethical misconduct.

The rub comes when one realizes that the line between
good and bad has been obliterated; we now have not only
good and bad, but "kind of good", "fairly bad", and every
conceivable variation of both.

The rule against ethical misconduct just became unenforceable.

The belief that those accustomed to small ethical misconduct
will step up when the stakes get higher, is unsupported by
experience.

If anyone believes that the leadership of the APS,
the good ol' boys who let each other slide on the little stuff,
will somehow grow a spine when the stakes are raised,
is naive.

Proof of that supposition is no further away than the
evidence of public corruption, incompetence, and criminal
conspiracy in the APS Police Department, and now
in the APS Finance Division.


Monica Armenta has proven for me,
that there are no meaningful standards of conduct and
competence for APS administrators.

And she has proven as well, that there is no real
accountability to the few standards that they do have.

This is why they have excepted themselves from honest
accountability to the student standard of conduct;
the Pillars of Character Counts!

a nationally recognized, accepted and respected higher
standard of ethical conduct.

This is why they have excepted themselves from
accountability as role models.
of the student standard of conduct.