APS; shameless spending

The leadership of the APS burns through well over a billion tax dollars a year.

They spend in two areas; capital and operational.  Simply put, capital funds buy buildings and operational dollars buy actual education; teachers and their ancillary support.

One of the things the leadership of the APS chooses to spend huge numbers of operational dollars on, is litigation. 

They spend millions of dollars every year on litigation.  Not just on litigation, but on cost is no object litigation.  APS' insurance premiums were raised a few years ago, expressly because they spend so much money on litigation, far more than comparable school districts. 

They spend on litigation to escape the consequences of their corruption and incompetence; litigation against the public interests and against the best interests of students.

As an example of money spent against students interests; APS has hired some lawyers willing to charge me with a "... fanatical dedication to Character Counts ..." 

The same dollars could be spent actually developing character in students, had they not been already been spent trying to convince a judge that trying to hold the leadership of the APS accountable as role models of the standards of conduct the establish and enforce upon students is "fanatical".

My "fanatical dedication" to Character Counts! includes pointing out that

1.  APS students are expected, link, to model and promote the Pillars of Character Counts! link; a nationally recognized, accepted and respected code of ethical conduct.

The School Board has it's own Code of Conduct.  You cannot find it by searching, link, their awarding winning website.  It can be found if you know where to look, link.

By their own admission, they cannot be held actually, honestly accountable to it.  There is no venue where a complaint can be filed, that a board member has failed to obey their code of ethics.

2.  Leaders are role models, whether or not they like it; whether or not they agree that they are.

They can have any number of codes of conduct they want. 

That doesn't change that they are de facto role models and therefore accountable to, whatever standards they establish and enforce upon students.  (That is the "fanatical" part)

3.  The only way to model standards of conduct, is to hold oneself honestly accountable to them.

The leadership of the APS steadfastly refuses to hold themselves actually and honestly accountable as role models of the standards of conduct the establish and enforce upon students.

They are spending operational dollars in a effort to avoid being held accountable as role models of student standards of conduct.

Character education and character development in the Albuquerque Public Schools is newsworthy.  It is at least as newsworthy as stories the Journal has published instead.  Seriously, which would sell more papers, an expose on the abandonment of character education and development in the APS, or a story entitled; Americans are likely to seek especially good deals?

The ethics and accountability scandal in the leadership, the shameless spending on litigation to escape the consequences of their incompetence and corruption, the cover up of felony criminal misconduct in the leadership of the APS (police force), are all newsworthy.

Journal Managing Editor Kent Walz won't investigate and report on any of it because he is up to his eyeballs in covering it up.

If Walz could write that there is no ethics and accountability scandal, why wouldn't he?

If Walz could write that people were held accountable for their criminal misconduct, why wouldn't he?


If Walz could write that APS isn't wasting money on self serving litigation, isn't having lawyers working without contracts, isn't hiding case analyses from the school board whose job is oversight over such spending, why wouldn't he?



photo Mark Bralley