Winston Brooks should not be given a chance

I've taken a lot of heat recently from people who think that
I am not giving the new superintendent a chance to show us
what he has got to offer,
that I am not giving him a chance to succeed before arguing
that he is not going to succeed.

And I am prepared to defend my position.

As always I welcome any divergent opinion, although I am
getting a bit sick of being called names, and having my
motivation being questioned; my motivation doesn't play;
it isn't part of the argument.

My first contention is that APS is run by a good ol' boys club.

No one has ever contested that allegation.

One simply can't ignore the fact that not even the members
of the good ol' boys club will deny the allegation.

Nor will anyone in the good ol' boys club offer any evidence
that would tend to controvert the allegation.

It is supported by a recent audit of the APS by the
Council of the Great City Schools, who wrote;

"Administrative evaluations are subjective and
unrelated to promotion or step placement."

It is obvious that Winston Brooks intends not to address the
issue. He will ignore it. He will pretend
that it does not exist.

Two good ol' boys have both been promoted into even more
senior leadership, Brad Winter, and Linda Sink.

Together, they are senior administrators who have failed
to mitigate the problems previously, and will now be paid
hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to work their same
old "magic"; magic that has not worked before,
is not working now, and will not work in the future.

There are those who maintain that a definition of crazy is;
doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different
result.

Two administrators who were intimately involved in the
chaos in the APS Financial Division, and did not blow the
whistle on incompetence and corruption, have been
promoted to even more senior positions.

Concede please,
that the good ol' boys are still running the APS,
or offer some evidence to the contrary,
some controverting argument. Anything at all.

Why does that make any difference?

One of the key privileges of membership in any good ol' boys
club, is that one is not held accountable for their mistakes.

No one ever loses their job, no one is demoted,
no one suffers any really negative consequence.

Consider Gina Hickman and Michael Kimbrell,
both of them knew, or should have known for years,
that the APS Financial Division did not have financially sound
policies and procedures, that purchasing guidelines were not
being followed, and inadequate records were being kept.

Neither said a word,
neither has been held accountable for not saying a word,
and both have been promoted precisely for not saying a word.
(Both were given an opportunity to challenge these
allegations, and chose not to.)

What do you think that this means for the future stewardship
of a billion of your tax dollars a year?

Wouldn't you feel more confident, if Winston Brooks
had placed someone else in the positions of
Chief Financial Officer, and Director of Internal Audits?

And you know, that the same thing has gone on, and
the same thing is going on, in every division of the APS.

Most importantly, you must concede that there simply has to
be some reason that good ol' boys don't answer questions.

Winston Brooks joins the rest of the leadership in their
steadfast refusal to enter any venue where they could be
compelled to provide candid, forthright and honest responses
to legitimate questions.

Not one of them will stand up and respond to as simple and
as legitimate a question as;

How much money did you spend
on the new board room?

My proposal; that they all simply face stakeholders and
answer their questions, a town hall meeting, has been
roundly criticized by my detractors, as chaos in the making.

It needn't be, It is possible to appoint or hire a competent
facilitator who will keep the train on track.

The point is not that a town hall meeting could end up in
chaos, but that a town hall meeting could end up with them
in a position of having to admit damning truths, lying, or
stonewalling; none of which they want to engage in.

There is no good and ethical justification for not telling
the truth; for not allowing legitimate questions to be
asked in any venue, and then being expected to respond
candidly, forthrightly and honestly.

There is no reason to expect that the same organizational
structure that has not gotten it right in over a hundred years
will now get it right,
with all of the same players, under all of the same rules and
under the very same conditions
(the most damning of which is continued secrecy).

Winston Brooks should not be given a chance to fix the
good ol' boys club from the inside, and in secret.

There is no good and ethical justification for either.

This is an illustration of the metaphor of
an ostrich sticking his head in the sand;

and it will do us exactly as much good,
as it does the ostrich.