Hero story in Journal a worthy read

By "in the Journal" I mean mixed in the advertisements stuffed in the fold.

The story was published in a pamphlet called Athlon Sports Magazine. The story is about Yankee shortstop Derek Jeter.

By all appearances, Jeter is the kind of person we would like the next generation to emulate.  There would be some point in spending some APS class time talking about Jeter.

That won't happen because in a nutshell, spending time teaching kids about character won't raise standardized test scores; the holy grail of education administrators and school boards.

APS records include no expenditures in any district wide effort to teach children about character and courage and honor.  This despite a binding school board resolution, link, that reads in significant part;

• The Albuquerque Public Schools endorses ... ways to develop character based on six core ethical values; trustworthiness, respect, responsibility , fairness, caring and citizenship; (and)

• is committed to creating models of ethical behavior among all adults who serve students and schools; (and)

• the core curriculum should continue to give explicit attention to character development as an ongoing part of school instruction, (and)

• materials, teaching methods, partnerships, and services to support school programs shall be selected, in part, for their capacity to support the development of character among youth and adults; (and)

• that all schools examine school curriculum and practices to identify and extend opportunities ... which help students learn and model caring and ethical behavior.

Instead, the APS school board voted unanimously to remove the role modeling clause from their own standards of conduct.  Their role modeling clause read;

In no case shall the standards of conduct for an adult
be lower than the standards of conduct for students.

Journal Editor Kent Walz

I have a feeling, if Derek Jeter sat
at Kent Walz' desk; a reporter
would be assigned to investigate
and report upon ethics, standards
and accountability in the
leadership of the APS.


Do you suppose its too late for a trade? 
Maybe the Yankees might want Walz for some reason.




photo Mark Bralley