Westphal and the Journal create quite a brouhaha

D'Val Westphal and the Journal stirred up quite a hornet's nest of comments in response to Westphal's "Looking for the lowdown on student testing" link.  There are 180 comments posted as I write.

A lot of them are from APS
School Board Member
Kathy Korte.

They are pretty uncivil.

Does that make any difference?

It's a fair question.  Korte, if she decides to run for re-election, will be running for election.  Her effort will be to become among other things, one of the eight senior-most role models of student standards of conduct.

Student standards of conduct prohibit incivility.  As a role model of student standards of conduct, Korte should not be modeling incivility.

In fairness, there is some manifest confusion over what are APS' student standards of conduct and, who is accountable to them; honestly, actually accountable.  There isn't a single senior administrator or school board member who admits to honest accountability to student standards of conduct.  The most cursory examination of their public record, reveals that the leadership of the APS is not only not accountable to student standards of conduct; they are barely and only occasionally accountable to the law.

We presume students are accountable to student standards of conduct.  They aren't of course, but for the sake of discussion, let's say students are expected to hold themselves accountable to a specific set of standards of conduct and competence.

Those standards are called the Pillars of Character Counts!, and they have been APS' student standards of conduct since 1994.  Every year since, the school board has reiterated their expectation that students

...model and promote (accountability to) the Pillars of Character Counts! link,

a nationally recognized, accepted and respected code of ethics.

Any discussion or debate over the whether the Pillars of Character Counts! should be APS' student standards of conduct is not germane to the question whether they are; they are.

That

• Kathy Korte and

• David Peercy and 

• Donald Duran and

• Marty Esquivel and 

• Lorenzo Garcia and

• Analee Maestas and

• Steven Michael Quezada and

• interim Superintendent Brad Winter

will not look us in the eye, and explain why there are two standards of conduct in the Albuquerque Public Schools;

• one for senior administrators, school board members... and

• one for students.

and why their standards of conduct;
the standards that higher standards are higher than,
are by far the lower standard means something.
Saying nothing says something.
Inconspicuous role modeling is oxymoronic.

How can they categorically refuse to discuss student standards of conduct?

If the Pillars of Character Counts! are no longer an appropriate set of standards, some one of them has to say in an open meeting; I move to lower student standards of conduct.

And then, some other one of them has to say; I second that motion.

Then every other one of them has to agree, by saying "I".

And then they will be free to lower student standards of conduct
as low as their own.

Are the individual members of the leadership of the APS
accountable as role models of the standards of conduct
they establish and enforce upon students?  Or are they not?

In principle; they don't get to win that argument by not having it.

In practice; they are winning that argument by not having it.

All they have to do is not have it.
All they have to do is stonewall.

All they have to do is pretend
there is nothing wrong with
holding students accountable
to higher standards of conduct
than senior administrators and
school board members.

All they have to do is pretend that

• they have meaningful standards of conduct and competence, and that 

• they are actually and honestly accountable to them.

The "credentialed" press should be investigating ethics, standards and accountability in the leadership of the APS and informing the democracy.  They won't.

The complicity of the establishment press in covering up an ethics, standards and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS,  allows the leadership of the APS to

• never defend their abandonment of their obligations as role models, and

• never defend removing the role modeling clause* from their own standards of conduct.

More importantly, the complicity of the establishment's allows them

• to never defend their relentless refusal, link, to put in back.

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

photos Mark Bralley