Digging deeper into the Journal report on APS crime stats.

I am out of town, and trying to figure out friends' and relatives' individual computers, browsers, etc. makes it a little less than convenient to post, AND I am on "vacation", but never the less, I would like to build on the Journal story a little before it is really, really old news.

You can read the whole story here, link.

There is a lot to comment on, so I will simply highlight the article itself, followed by my reactions.

How safe are Albuquerque Public Schools? The answer to that is anyone's guess, ..."

That premise is unacceptable. Although the words are the reporter's, stakeholders really are limited to what they can guess, when it comes to safety in schools. In my experience, APS goes out of its way to not gather any statistics on safety and crime in schools.

On a related side note, everytime that APS crime statistics have come up, in litigation or where ever, they are up. APS' response is normally; "The numbers are up, only because we are getting better at collecting the data."

There really is no growth curve on collecting data. If they are getting any better at it at all, it is because they are being dragged kicking and screaming into actually collecting the data at all.

APS stopped collecting the data "...when the state stopped requiring the information from New Mexico school districts.

That "the state no longer requires it", is not reason enough to stop collecting the data, analyzing the data, and addressing the data by implementing whatever response we can to reverse the growing trend. If the state, for some indefensible reason, decided not to ask for test scores or drop out rates, would we stop collecting them as well. Or, if the state jumped off a bridge, would APS jump off too?

Sidebar. I apologize for the digression, but I simply must share a war story with you. I was talking to a student who had just done something inappropriate, I can't recall what, and I had asked him, if all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you, too? He answered; "Probably, ... because all of my friends would be dead."

"APS Police Chief Bill Reid said ... the data are "not very scientific.""

Why not? Why cannot data this important, be gathered "scientifically"? After all, we pay a million dollars a year for a department called Research, Development and Accountability, whose primary function is data gathering and crunching.

Two of the schools, Manzano and La Cueva, use city police and don't share their data with APS police, Reid said.

Why in the world not?

"He said he doesn't have enough money to hire an analyst or buy a software package that would help catalog the district's crime stats, which were compiled by APS Research, Development and Accountability when the data were required by the state."

If there is so much crime in the APS, that it requires a full time analist, above and beyond RDA's contribution, just to deal with the numbers, shouldn't we be paying a little more attention to the problem?

Several school board members said they would like APS to start compiling the crime data again.

Duh!

Until 2001, the state compiled an annual Violence and Vandalism report that documented crime reports by district. It was replaced by the Safe Schools report, which reported on crime statewide. That report has not been issued since 2007 because of inconsistent reporting by the districts.

Why does the State Department of Education permit school districts to report inconsistently? Why are there not investigations and penalties for districts that are not telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about crime in public schools?

Federal regulations under the Gun-Free Schools Act now require states to report only "persistently dangerous schools," which New Mexico does not have, ..."

Say what? Imagine the most dangerous school in the entire state; the one where good kids are most afraid to go to school everyday, the one where learning is truly disrupted by relentless fear. And now tell me that New Mexico does not have even one "persistently dangerous" school. What is necessary to qualify, daily ax murders?

Even when APS was releasing its annual crime report, the data were often not reliable because some schools were better about reporting than others. (emphasis added)

What the auditors from the Council of the Great City Schools wrote was, there are administrators who routinely falsifiy data in order to make their schools look good.I sat in a meeting where, later an APS senior administrator, then Principal, Tom Savage said, "If I told the truth about what was going on in my school (Albuquerque High School) the realtors in my neighborhood would have my neck!"

"I was getting the impression some schools weren't reporting to make themselves look a little better," said APS board president Marty Esquivel...

And did what about it? exactly.

While APS has its own police force, school principals can opt instead to use the city police or county sheriff's department as their law enforcement, which means inconsistency in what crime is reported to the district, spokesman Rigo Chavez said.

If APS schools are able to make use of the APD, and the BCSO, why are we paying millions of dollars for the APS to have a publicly funded, private police force, in the first place?

Also, some schools are better about reporting student suspensions than others.

Why are principals who decide not to report suspensions, or any other relevant data, not fired on the spot?

"Nonetheless, Esquivel believes the information is important and that the district should be compiling it."

And still the data would not be shared with stakeholders, because if you ask Marty Equivel if he will tell you the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about what he has found out, he will not.

And if you ask him why he is not accountable as a role model of the APS Student Standards of Conduct, a standard of conduct that would require him to tell the truth, he will not answer.

If you ask him to point to a time, a day, and a place where he will sit and answer legitimate questions about the public interests in the public schools; candidly, forthrightly and honestly, he will not.

If you ask him to begin an open and honest discussion of standards and accountability in the leadership of the APS, he will not.

And, why would any of this crap surprise anyone?



photo Mark Bralley