Monday, November 29, 2010

Brooks' "happy place"

When the Journal editors finished writing their editorial for
this morning's paper, link, they were apparently satisfied
enough with their conclusion to print it;
they hope APS Supt Winston Brooks finds his "happy place".

They illustrated the editorial with a couple of examples of the most recent unhappiness; the Ethridge affair (including School Board President Esquivel's inappropriate email exchange) and Brooks' new hybrid SUV.

The editors still will not deal with the ongoing cover up of the corruption in the APS Police Department, the ongoing denial of due process for whistleblower complaints, and the ongoing ethics and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS.

Brooks can stonewall his way out of the Ethridge mess; he can roll up the windows on his SUV and the poor example it sets, but he can't explain away the APSPD cover up, the due process denial, and the role modeling scandal.

"Happily" for him, Kent Walz and the rest of the Journal editors don't expect him to, not even in light of the upcoming school board election.

They will ignore the fact that nobody is talking about any kind of independent investigation of credible allegations of a hostile work environment for APS employees. They will ignore the fact that a hostile work environment manifests itself in the fundamental failure of any organization, in particular educational institutions whose success depends on creative thinking and problem solving. What better way to suppress them than creating an environment that is hostile to them?

They will write, or have written, stories about SUVs and
emails, and will ignore the fact that one in ten Albuquerqueans
are APS students on track to drop out of high school.

So what does Brooks have to be unhappy about?

The Journal editors needn't be concerned that Brooks
cannot find his happy place; they have given him one.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Well said; agreed.