It's the lack of accountability, stupid*

*it's the economy stupid wikilink

In the Journal this morning, link, we find a gem.  If after reading the investigation and report, you are not concerned that there is a profound lack of actual, honest accountability over the spending of our resources and the wielding of our power by politicians and public servants, I can't imagine what could.  Do you need to be hit in the head with a brick?  (Disclaimer and note to Marty Esquivel's lawyer; I'm not really suggesting that anyone should or would hit anyone with a brick ever, and especially not Monica Armenta.)

The success of every endeavor depends on factors within and beyond our control, within our sphere of influence or not.  Forget for the moment things we cannot control.

That leaves standards and accountability; two factors over which we have absolute control and that correlate directly with the likelihood of success.

An endeavor will succeed if the people who engage in it are actually and honestly accountable to standards of conduct and competence that are high enough to enable their success.

Standards without accountability are meaningless; no matter how high those standards are claimed to be.  There isn't a whit of difference between the highest standards and the low, if neither is being enforced.

There is no problem in government that cannot be traced back to one of two wells;

1. the failure to establish high enough standards of conduct and competence for politicians and public servants within their public service, or
2. the failure to hold politicians and public servants actually and honestly accountable to them.

There is an opportunity to hold one small group of politicians and public servants actually and honestly accountable for their public service; a simple independent examination and review of the standards they have established and enforce.

1.  Have they established high enough standards of conduct and competence to protect the public interests in the public schools?

2.  Are those standards being enforced?  Are school board members and senior administrators actually and honestly accountable to those high standards by due process; free of appearances of conflicts of interests and impropriety?

The answer is, you really have no idea what standards they claim or whether any of them can actually be held accountable to them.  How would you know?

APS PIO Monica Armenta

How would you know except to hear them tell it?

They spend a million dollars a year spinning the truth.


There is a reason they won't allow an independent examination of their standards and accountability.

It isn't because they don't want to toot their own horn.

It isn't because they can't afford it.  The leadership of the APS is spending a million dollars in federal court just to defend two board members egos; Marty Esquivel and Kathy Korte.

That they can, suggests;

1.  the standards of conduct and competence that bind them don't prohibit spending our power and resources in their own self interests, or

2.  if those standard exist, they are not being enforced.

I'll save you the search.  They do have a standard that prohibits them from making decisions in their own interests and no, they are not accountable to it.

They avoid accountability by self investigation of misconduct and by spending millions of dollars a year litigating against the public interests to create exceptions for themselves from the law and from the consequences of ignoring it.

If the Journal dug as deep into standards and accountability in the leadership of the APS as they dug into the report on WIPP, you would know about a standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS.

Their effort to cover up the crisis is scandalous.
There is a standards and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS.

That there is no Journal investigation and report on standards and accountability in the APS, even to report that

• there is no scandal, there is no cover up, 
• there are high enough standards and that 
• the leadership of the APS is actually and honestly accountable to them 

suggests that the Journal is part of the cover up of a scandal or failure to seize upon an administrative success story.

Hmm, covering up a scandal or missing a wonderful success story?

Hmm?




photo Mark Bralley