Tuesday, August 12, 2014

School board burns "the media"

It is my surmise;
the APS board and the school board "credentialed" media had an agreement.  The media agreed to stand in the corner, link, while exercising their Constitutionally protected human rights both to be the press and to be "any person desiring" to record the meeting, in exchange for on camera interviews after the meeting.

There were no on camera interviews last night.  The leadership of the APS left the meeting though back and side doors, leaving news and camera crews with nothing but the memory of cooling their heels for five hours, waiting for said interviews.

Meetings in secret are justifiable, but not without limits.

Politicians and public servants who participate in meetings in secret must be reasonably specific about what they intend to discuss, and what they did discuss.

Answers like "no comment" lack reasonable specificity,
by any justifiable measure.  Slipping out side and back doors
lacks reasonable specificity.

There are at least two schools of thought about reasonable specificity;

  1. one can be as specific as the law will allow, or
  2. one can be as vague as the law will allow.
It is clear which school the leadership of  the APS attends.
If there were nothing to hide; they wouldn't be hiding.

There are higher standards of conduct than the law.  APS students are expected to model and promote honest accountability to one such, link.  School board members and senior administrators, as the senior-most role models of student standards of conduct, are accountable to one such; the same one.  Though if you ask them; if you watch them in practice, clearly they are not accountable to any standards higher than the lowest; the standards of conduct that higher standards are higher than.

Whether they should have or not, the leadership of the APS obligated itself to honest accountability to higher standards of conduct than the law when they decided to hold students accountable to higher standards of conduct than the law.

Holding them actually accountable as role models has proved impossible.  They cannot be held accountable as role models under the law because accountability low standards cannot be used to enforce accountability to higher standards, even if those higher standards were deliberately adopted by unanimous resolution, link.

Student standards, and likely any standards of conduct higher than the law, require politicians and public servants to respond candidly, forthrightly and honestly to legitimate questions about the public interests and about their public service.  They require reasonable specificity.  They require as much candor, forthrightness and honesty as the law will allow.

There are two courts where standards are enforced.  Court of laws are out of the question in this case, for the reason I just outlined.  The other court where one might look for relief is the court of public opinion, wikilink.

An essential element in taking a case to the court of
public opinion is the press.  No press; no case.

The leadership of the APS has so far managed to stay out of court of public opinion for abandoning their obligations as role models of student standards of conduct because the media; the Journal and NM Broadcasters Association affiliates, haven't been candid, forthright and honest with the people, about the cover up a standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS.

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