Korte stands alone against bad teachers

To hear the editors tell it, School Board Member Kathy Korte is the only member of the Albuquerque Schools Board of Education "brave" enough to talk about bad teachers.

The premise of the editorial is misguided; that bad teaching is a school board policy issue. Board members really aren't supposed to be involving themselves in anything considered to be day to day.

Dealing with bad teachers is an administrative responsibility, not an executive responsibility.

If Korte wants bad teachers dealt with, she (and the board) need to hire a superintendent who can deal with bad teachers. Instead, she and board have now extended Winston Brooks' contract well beyond even their tenure on the school board, despite his manifest incapacity to deal with bad teachers.

Journal editors, let's say Kent Walz, to put a face to them, write;

Kathy Korte has been willing to step up and draw attention to education’s worst-kept secret.

Kent Walz praises Korte for bringing the discussion back to where it should have been all along, that is, to a focus on "what is best for students".

Really?

Let's draw our attention to a few of APS secrets that Korte isn't brave enough to tackle;

• the ethics and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS manifest in;
  
  1. the lack of administrative standards and accountability, and
  2. the lack of executive standards and accountability, and
  3. the leadership-wide abdication from the obligations of the senior-most role models of APS student standards of conduct; the Pillars of Character Counts!.
• the corruption in the leadership of their police force
• the ongoing denial of due process to whistle blower complaints
• the ongoing failure to address student discipline in general, and chronically disruptive students in particular
• the ongoing lack of respect for the input of all APS teachers and their nearly 100,000 years of teaching experience, including the lack of respect for even the input of the very best teachers.

Not to mention "her" unlawful restraining order and use of a publicly funded private police force and Praetorian Guard, to keep me from exercising Constitutionally protected human rights to ask these questions face to face, is that what is in the best interests of students?

Korte wants to fire bad teachers for their "lack of communication with parents".

Out of the other side of her mouth, Korte is foursquare in her opposition to a Citizens Advisory Council on Communication. It is she who champions the denial of due process to the CACoC and their efforts to establish open and honest two-way communication between the leadership of the APS and the community members they serve. Is that what's best for students?

Korte is hiding an ethics and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS. Is that what's best for students?

Abdicating her personal responsibility to be a role model of actual honest accountability to a nationally recognized, accepted and respected code of ethical conduct, is that what's best for students?

Covering up felony criminal misconduct by senior APS administrators, is that's what's best for students?

Covering it all up and misleading stakeholders into believing they're doing what's best for students, is that what's best for students?

You gotta love the abandonment of any personal responsibility for deliberately misleading thousands of stakeholders; the editorial disclaimer; unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers.

Yeah, like that makes is alright.

I hold Kent Walz personally responsible for the cover up



photos Mark Bralley