Accountability in the leadership of the APS

In my search for inspiration for a post on accountability in the leadership of the APS.  I always go first to the Wikipedia and as usual, found an excellent reference, link, on accountability.  I recommend the investment of your time and attention to it.

The opening paragraph, here quoted in significant part and edited according to my own interests;

In ethics and governance, accountability is answerability (sic), blameworthiness, liability, and the expectation of account-giving...In leadership roles ] accountability is the acknowledgment and assumption of responsibility for actions, products, decisions, and policies including the administration, governance, and implementation within the scope of the role or employment position and encompassing the obligation to report, explain and be answerable for resulting consequences.

In governance, accountability has expanded beyond the basic definition of "being called to account for one's actions". It is frequently described as an account-giving relationship between individuals, e.g. "A is accountable to B when A is obliged to inform B about A’s (past or future) actions and decisions, to justify them, and to suffer punishment in the case of eventual misconduct".

Accountability cannot exist without proper accounting practices; in other words, an absence of accounting means an absence of accountability.

An absence of accounting means an absence of accountability.

And again;
An absence of accounting means an absence of accountability.

There is no accounting, and there is no timely, honest and actual accountability to meaningful standards of conduct and competence, in the leadership of the APS.

There is an ethics and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS.

School Board President Marty Esquivel will not hold himself honestly accountable to APS Student Standards of Conduct, even for the measly few hours a day he serves as their senior-most role model of student standards of conduct.

He is running away from his obligations and responsibilities as a role model of student standards of conduct.  Along with the rest of the school board and the entire senior leadership.

There is not one of them who will stand up and pledge their honest accountability to the Pillars of Character Counts!, even within their public service.  Not one.

Not one.

Marty Esquivel, the senior-most role model of actual, honest accountability to the Pillars of Character Counts! said he's not a role model for students because he is not an "educator".

He gets away with it, they all get away with it, because of Journal Managing Editor Kent Walz and his ilk.

I'm not saying Marty Esquivel and Kent Walz are "evil".  But when Edmund Burke wrote;

All that is necessary for evil to prevail in the world, is for good men to do nothing

these are the kind of people he was writing about, and you are the people he was writing to.

Where are the champions of Character Counts!  Where are people like Terri Cole, President of the Greater Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce and newly elected NM FOG President.?

They were there when tens of thousands of dollars in federal grant money needed to be spent, courtesy of Character Counts! founding father US Senator Pete Domenici.  Community leaders were falling all over themselves endorsing Character Counts!

Former Mayor Marty Chavez called himself a founding father of Character Counts! and is nowhere to be found.  The membership of APS Character Counts! Leadership Council, of which Paula Maes was the President, is an APS secret.

I asked Mayor Richard Berry once, to stand for character education in the APS, Character Counts! in particular. 

He declined.

The simple truth is, there is not a single community leader willing to talk about honest accountability to higher standards of conduct than the law; even within their public service.

Where are the people who want students to grow into adults who embrace character and courage and honor?  Where are the people who are willing to show them what character and courage and honor and honest accountability to meaningful standards of conduct looks like?

In the meantime, we'll continue to milk a centuries old fable about a hatchet, a cherry tree, and role model of the moral courage it takes to hold oneself honestly accountable to higher standards of conduct than the law.

Because we cannot point to a single contemporary example in the entire leadership of the APS or in the community.



photos Mark Bralley