Brooks sets goals, offers no new plans.

The Saturday Journal offered 28 column inches to the APS
and Winston Brooks, to lay out the goals for next year,
link.

The goals include; raising graduation rates, raising the
percentage of students who are proficient in math and reading,
raising scores on the NCLB mandated tests, and reducing
truancy.

No where in the 28 inches, was there discussion of actual
plans to achieve any of the goals.

For example; Brooks announced his intention to lower the
truancy rates by 1% per year, but offered no plan to achieve
that end.

He could have said, for example; I intend to reduce truancy
by using our highly qualified school counselors differently.
Instead of using them as scheduling clerks, we will use them
as counselors, and direct them to counsel "at risk students"
instead.

But he did not.

He could have said, I intend to follow school board policy
and institutional character education, thereby directly
addressing a myriad of fundamental road blocks to reaching
our goals.

But he did not. (and never will)

Goals without plans to reach them, are just numbers. Brooks,
in the article, complained that the NCLB goal numbers are
arbitrary numbers. So are his. They are guesstimates.

In truth, they amount to the lowest number that would
not raise public ire. If the estimate were lowering truancy
rates by 1/10th or 1/100 of a percent, the public might have
taken notice and raised some ruckus.

Brooks goals were of course, approved by the board. I would
point to the lack of qualifications of the board, to honestly
evaluate whether the goal numbers were realistic or not.

Reporter Hailey Heinz, reported that the President of the
Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce, Teri Cole, said,

"We look forward to additional strategies that will deliver
even better results by 2012. "

I look forward to seeing the first. Bottom line;
plans are not on the table for critical review.

We really have no idea whether there are changes in the
offing that offer any real hope at all of making a difference.

And next year, when the arbitrary numbers are not met,
new arbitrary numbers, smaller ones, will be invented.

Winston Brooks and the leadership of the APS have never
asked teachers, what do you need to succeed? They have
never asked and they never will. If we really wanted teachers
to be more successful, why aren't we asking them why they
are not seeing success?

There are more than 70,000 years of teaching experience in
the APS, and they have never been formally surveyed for their
opinions; not by the leadership of the APS, and not by the
Journal.

Why are the opinions of teachers given no weight at all?

The short answer is , the leadership of the APS does not want
to document teachers' dissatisfaction with their leadership.

And neither do their friends at the Journal.

The Journal was at the board meeting last Wednesday, and
watched the leadership of the APS refuse to answer a very
simple, straightforward, and legitimate question;

What are the APS Student Standards of Conduct?

As if student conduct had nothing at all to do with truancy,
graduation rates, achievement, or any other measure of their success.

Not only is APS not telling the truth about student discipline,
they are about hiding it, link.