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Like them or no; the Pillars of Character Counts! have been APS' student standards of conduct for more than two decades. They were adopted by a unanimous school board in 1994. Every year since, by means of the Student Behavior Handbook, students have been told that they are expected to model and promote honest accountability to the pillars, link;Trustworthiness, Respect, Responsibility, Caring, Fairness and Citizenship.
Whether the Pillars should be APS' student standards is moot. They simply "are". They "are" until the board changes student standards to some other.
Which is exactly what they intend to do.
They intend to lower student standards from a nationally recognized, accepted and respected code of ethical conduct to;
"Students are expected to be good members of the community".If that is not a lowering of standards, what is?
Is that really what we need to do right now; lower standards of conduct for students in public schools? Has anyone asked teachers how they feel about lowering student standards of conduct?
It is scandalous that this decision is being made without public input.Stake and interest holders are completely in the dark - thanks in no small part to the heavy hitters in River City news; the likes of Journal Editor in Chief Kent Walz, and the owners and news directors at NMBA affiliates KRQE, KOAT and KOB TV.
The decision will be railroaded through at the following meeting.
The school board and their new supt. intend to lower student standards of conduct without ever having to explain why. They will reject the standards they have been endorsing for two decades without renouncing them. They won't point to flaws in the CC! model or advantages in their new, lower standard.
Along with the Character Counts! quilt, link, the Pillars are going to simply disappear from the the student handbook, the fenders APS Police cars, link, and from the bottom of the administrative letterhead. There will be a simple Stalinesque erasing of the past.
They will lower student standards of conduct rather than be held actually, honestly accountable to higher standards of conduct than the law. Rather that be held accountable to any standards of conduct requiring truth telling, and character and courage.
This is a momentous decision.
If we really want students to grow into adults who embrace character and courage and honor, someone has to show them what they look like.
To educate a person in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.
Theodore Roosevelt, American adventurer and president (1858-1919)
The formation of character in young people is educationally a different task from and a prior task to, the discussion of the great, difficult ethical controversies of the day.
William J. Bennett, author and former U.S. Secretary of Education (b. 1943)
If we want our children to possess the traits of character we most admire, we need to teach them what those traits are and why they deserve both admiration and allegiance. Children must learn to identify the forms and content of those traits.Stake and interest holders have a right to participate in the lowering of expectations for students.
again - William J. Bennett
The establishment's so called "press", steadfastly refuse to inform stake and interest holders;
there is an ethics, standards and accountability
crisis in the leadership of the APS
The leadership of the APS can not survive an independent examination and review of their ethics, standards and accountability.
Standards are being lowered; accountability is being diminished. More operational dollars will be spent on litigation and legal weaselry in an effort to sever them from accountability even to the law.
Nobody, save the readers of this blog will know what's going to happen; what is at stake.
Because Kent Walz is in cahoots; part of a cover up of an ethics and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS.Complicit is he, in the squandering the people's trust and treasure by the leadership of the APS.
photos Mark Bralley
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