Brooks on the Bob Clark Show

APS Supt Winston Brooks was on KKOB radio Thursday morning. He and Bob Clark played softball for an hour.

The disturbing aspect is that Brooks will get credit for "getting himself out there and answering questions". He did not place himself in a position where he had to take follow up questions about his responses, except from Clark who wasn't asking any.

The leadership of the APS makes a big deal about "communications". It is the subject of one of their 8 goals, link;

3. The district has developed and is beginning implementation of a comprehensive internal and external communication plan with an evaluation component that involves the community.

Brooks, on the Clark Show, began a re-framing of the public perception of the APS Communications Department. He is now calling it the "marketing" department.

I can understand why he is de-emphasizing "communications" in light of the heat his spin masters and the Communications Department are taking in the media and in the Roundhouse.

But why pick "marketing"? Why does a virtual monopoly in a market, need a marketing department?

In any event, he spoke about how far graduation rates have risen in late. Because they were playing softball, Brooks did not have to explain the mathematical smoke and mirrors he uses to pad the score; 9th graders who have failed the 9th grade, are no longer in the cohort; raises the rate, but not performance. A fifth year has been added to formerly four year high school; raising the graduation rate but not performance.

In the face of any criticism over administrative bloat or compensation, Brooks likes to point to "comparable" districts. His premise is that all districts are effective and efficient, so if we're comparable to them, we are effective and efficient. It negates completely, the possibility, the probability, that comparable districts are comparably bloated and over compensated.

I thought his characterization of Public Education Secretary Designate Hanna Skandera as a "young lady" was unnecessarily dismissive and characteristic of his reputed attitude toward women.

Because they were playing soft ball, Brooks never had to defend

• spending classroom dollars to keep the Caswell Report hidden from public knowledge in order to insulate senior APS administrators from the consequences of felony criminal misconduct.
• his complicity or complacency regarding the denial of due process to hundreds of whistle blower complaints,
  
• his obfuscation of an independent administrative accountability audit of the entire leadership of the APS, or
• his abdication from senior most role model of the APS Student Standards of Conduct; the Pillars of Character Counts!.

The establishment media in Albuquerque has abandoned its responsibility as a watchdog over government; they now sleep together, they are in cahoots. They are covering up an ethics and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS.




photo Mark Bralley