Why are we last in education?

How would you find out?

You could ask the people who run the schools.  It's fair to assume board members and administrators are in a position to answer the question.  If anyone has access to the data, they do.

Yet in asking the question of them, a conflict of interests is created.  Because they own some part of the failure, their personal interests are served by attaching blame elsewhere, while the public interests compel them to disclose their shortcomings candidly, forthrightly and honestly.

The problem with asking board members and administrators to respond candidly, forthrightly, and honestly to questions about their own, and each others competence and conduct, is they are human.  Their natural tendency is to protect themselves, garner praise they haven't earned and escape consequences they have.

Not every board member and senior administrator yields to the temptation to avoid honest accountability.  There are school board members and superintendents with the character and the courage to hold themselves honestly accountable to meaningful standards of conduct and competence in their public service; just not here.

Honest accountability does not include self investigation.
Impartial self-investigation is oxymoronic.

The superintendent cannot impartially evaluate the board because they're keeping his $750K golden parachute inflated.  The board cannot impartially evaluate the superintendent because they are evaluating (and validating) at the same time, their selection and retention decisions regarding the supt.

The most simple and straightforward solution is to have independent investigations of the conduct and competence of the administration and board.  There is no good and ethical reason to avoid independent standards and accountability audits of the leadership of the APS.

There are two possible outcomes of an independent administrative and executive audit.  They will find;

1. school board members and administrators are honestly accountable to meaningful standards of conduct and competence or,
2. they are not.

If they are, their $1M a year communications efforts would be spending money on radio ads imploring support of their competence and conduct, rather than their "potential".  Not a word. Nowhere.  Not even in anticipation of school board, bond issue, and mill levy elections.

The obvious conclusion is that impartial investigation will reveal a lack of standards and a lack of honest accountability to such standards as there are.  The lack of high standards and accountability affects the quality of education delivered in schools.

The self-investigation of allegations of corruption and incompetence is an accoutrement of power.  It is the corrupting influence; not the power, but the ability to abuse it without consequence, that corrupts absolutely.

Why is there no independent investigations of why APS is failing to meet the needs of so many students?

More importantly, why are teachers not being asked why fully third of their students won't graduate, and many of the ones who will graduate, will leave high school functionally illiterate?

It would be interesting to compare the answers of APS Executive Director of Communications Monica Armenta and the answers of teachers when asked, why are so many APS students leaving school without an adequate education?

APS teachers have more than 100,000 years of teaching experience between them.  Nearly half have masters degrees, many have doctorates and other advanced certifications.  They represent an immense pool of educational expertise; highly trained and experienced.  Why are they not being asked for their input on APS' failure?

Is it because of where their 10,000 fingers will point?

It's time for a full scale standards and accountability audit of the leadership of the APS.




cc Letter to the Editor upon posting