Journal editors mistaken in belief in APS "graduation" rates

The Journal editors would like you to believe that while things aren't very much better, they are at least a little better, link.

APS’ graduation rates have gone up. They would like you to think it is because they are finally doing a better job of educating nearly 90,000 of this community’s sons and daughters.

In fact, the graduation rate went up in no small part, due to at least two mathematical manipulations. The first was to change the grad rate calculation to include students who graduated a year late. The grad rate went up, but not because students were learning any more effectively.

The second manipulation was to exclude from the calculation, students who had previously failed 9th grade. Again, the graduation rate climbed, but not because anything good was happening.

Graduation rates are a poor measure of educational effectiveness; if for no other reason than they are so easily manipulated.

A better measure is one of the actual performances of graduates. Take for example, ACT and SAT scores. They are an apparently accurate measure of the performance of the group of students who normally take them. ACT and SAT scores of APS students are static. APS graduates are not performing any better on objective testing than they used to; they aren’t getting better.

“Graduating” more students with meaningless graduation certificates is not improvement.

"Lucrative gigs" and the leadership of the Albuquerque Public Schools

The Journal reported this morning that Luis Valentino has landed on his feet; for a few months at least, link.  In the report, it was mentioned tangentially, that a secret settlement had been reached with a player in Valentino's local scandal.  I posted a comment on his settlement;

"Terms are confidential for six months."

The leadership of the APS is in hope that in six months’ time, people will have forgotten what happened here.

What happened here is; school board members and senior administrators have spent untold hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars on yet another cost-is-no-object legal defense for APS insiders.

According to whoever wrote the headline, Valentino has landed a "lucrative gig in Portland". It is a shame (literally) that the Journal will not investigate and report upon the very “lucrative gigs” right here in River City; being a lawyer defending APS insiders; spending without limit or oversight from a large bore pipeline to the operational fund.

The APS school board has access to the operational fund. The operational fund is supposed to be spent educating nearly 90K of this city's sons and daughters. Operational dollars could, should and would be spent on education were they not being squandered instead on litigation and legal weaselry.

The board underwrites the cost-is-no-object defenses in secret from stake and interest holders. They steadfastly refuse to record their meetings in secret. They spend without oversight (subordinate oversight is not oversight; it is an oxymoron) and without (practical) limit.

“Terms are confidential for six months."

Then they keep the settlement secret from the taxpayers who thought their tax dollars were being spent on teachers and the others who actually work with children.

The Journal could have the record right now if they wanted it. APS tried to keep my settlement terms secret from the people who paid for the "most expensive lawsuit of its type" in the history of the United States.  We prevailed, link, and the Journal had no choice but to publish the details (albeit in a manner that steered accountability and the leadership of the APS in different directions).

Nor will the Journal investigate and report in six months’ time, how the leadership of the APS is squandering trust and treasure in order to buy admissions of "no guilt" in unjustifiably expense legal settlements in their effort to escape any real consequences for their public corruption and incompetence.

It runs far deeper than complacency about the scandal and the cover up in APS; they are complicit. Kent Walz and the Journal are part and parcel of a cover up of an ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership.

Else, they would prove otherwise. They would investigate and report upon stewardship and the leadership of the APS. Are the public trust and treasure being squandered or are they being well spent?

Either truth is newsworthy.

No truth is a cover up.

APS illegally wiretapping employees - "disturbing if true"

according the editors at the Journal, link.

That the Journal editors are "disturbed" is of zero import.

The bottom line is that they have no intention of investigating and reporting on the ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS, just the most resent manifestation of which is, this illegal wiretapping of an employee.

I posted a comment on the editorial.  It reads;

“disturbing if it’s true”

Dear editors,
Prepare to be disturbed.

Robert Caswell Investigations is part and parcel to a cover up of an ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS.

Caswell investigates (in particular) allegations and evidence of criminal misconduct against school board members and senior administrators. If they find evidence of criminal misconduct, even felony criminal misconduct, they turn the evidence and testimony over to the leadership of the APS who then hides it from stake and interest holders.

For example, in Feb, 2007, the Journal reported upon felony criminal misconduct involving senior APS administrators and the leadership of their publicly funded, private police force, link.

Caswell investigated and then turned the evidence over to APS to hide. This despite, what I understand to be, their legal obligation to turn any such evidence over to law enforcement.

There is NO record that any evidence was ever surrendered to the District Attorney for consideration for prosecution.

APS covered it up and then retaliated against anyone who tried to expose it.

The Journal knows about it and has made a deliberate decision to enable the cover up.

The Journal knows about the double standards of conduct in the APS; students are expected to model and promote honest accountability to a nationally recognized, accepted and respected code of ethics, while school board members and senior administrators (by means of cost-is-no-object litigation and legal weaselry) are demonstrably unaccountable even to the law; the lowest standards of conduct acceptable among civilized human beings.

The Journal knows about the ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS and relentlessly refuses to inform stake and interest holders, even to inform them that the worry is unfounded.

APS squandering millions on "cost is no object" legal defenses

The leadership of the APS continues to spend money like water; millions and millions of operational dollars spent on cost is no object legal defenses for school board members and senior administrators, link.

I sent following letter to the editor with no expectation of publication; it's just not the way they roll.

The leadership of the APS has (obviously unlimited) access to the district's operational fund - dollars that could, would and should be spent in classrooms were they not being spent in courtrooms on litigation and legal weaselry.  Students are being cheated out of millions of dollars in order to fund "cost is no object" legal defenses for school board members and senior administrators.  The board knowingly permits and/or negligently allows the spending in meetings in secret, and of which no recording is ever made (nothing that could be subpoenaed and used against them in court.

There are a very few law firms and lawyers who have been the beneficiaries of the board's largesse for decades.  At one point, the president of the APS school board and the president of APS' all-time favorite law firm; the Modrall, were married and reaping  the benefits together.  There is talk of making former school board member (and personal beneficiary of "cost is no object" defenses of his own) is going to get own private spigot off the operational fund pipe line.

Imagine for a moment that none of the above is true.  Imagine that the board actually has a record of appropriate spending.  By what logic would that not be newsworthy? 

If student discipline problems were not adversely affecting the educational process; if campuses and classrooms really were under the control of the adults, by what logic would that not be newsworthy?

If criminal misconduct on campuses were not being covered up by administrators and their own publicly funded police force, by what logic would that not be newsworthy.

If school board members and senior administrators were willing to stand up as role models of student standards of conduct, if they were willing to be held honestly accountable the same standards of conduct that they establish and enforce upon students, by what logic would that not be newsworthy?

Kent Walz has for years, enabled the cover up the ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS.  He and Marty Esquivel managed a “hero of transparency” award for Winston Brooks for God's sake.

When is the Journal going to investigate and report upon the truth about the lack of accountability in the leadership of the APS?  When are you going to stop enabling them?  When will interests of students and staff and the educations of nearly 90,000 of this community’s sons and daughters percolate to the top of your list of priorities?

The truth in Don Moya's allegation will be hard to come by

The Journal reports, link, that the leadership of the APS has spent $680K on their legal defenses regarding the whistleblower lawsuit filed by former APS CFO Don Moya.

Moya's lawyer Kate Ferlic, alleges that the district has “... spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in this case, and they’ve had every opportunity to let the truth be known.”

Unclear to me, what Ferlic meant by the leadership of the leadership of the APS has had

“... every opportunity to let the truth be known.”  

They've had every opportunity to let the truth be known and then what exactly; haven't? won't? can't?

I suspect that had Ferlic chosen to speak less politically correctly, she might have said;

the leadership of the APS has spent $680K trying to hide the truth from stake and interest holders.

Ferlic might have pointed out that the dollars being spent against the public interests, are operational funds; money that should, could and would be spent in classrooms, being spent in courtrooms instead.

$680K is the equivalent of 17 teachers salaries.
$680K will buy a whole lot of teaching supplies.
$680K would more than pay for middle school intramural sports.

There is an ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS.  The unassailable proof of which is

their abject inability to point to any standards at all to which they are actually and to which they are honestly accountable by any due process at all.  

Even the due process promised by the legal system is effectively denied to complainants by the legal weaselry practiced by APS lawyers (presumably) at the behest of their handlers in the leadership of the APS.  By which it is meant, whichever school board member or senior administrator who is personally responsible for authorizing the squandering of 680K tax dollars.

That the school board can spend $680K on cost-is-no-object legal defenses for themselves, is just tip of the iceberg.  The iceberg is manifest in their unimpeded, unmitigated squandering of trust and treasure without consequence; they simply but their way out of trouble at taxpayer expense.

They are enabled to squander money because they are unaccountable for their their conduct and competence.

Consider that the very first ethic in the school board's own code of ethics reads;

Make the education and well-being of students the basis for all decision making.

The decision to spend $680K to buy admissions of no guilt for school board members and senior administrators has nothing to do with education and student well-being.  They get away with it because, by their own free admission, the first of their ethics, and every ethic that follows it, are utterly and completely unenforceable.

Their decision has to do with the well-being of the leadership of the APS and their lawyer friends; who happen to be making a killing off the large bore pipeline to the operational fund and cost-is-no-object legal defenses.

The iceberg will remain unexplored for as long as the Journal and NM Broadcasters Association affiliate news outlets continue to not investigate and report upon the ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS.

Whether or not Don Moya's whistleblower complaint is valid, whether senior administrators and school board members were incompetent or corrupt will never be known.  The settlement will not allow the truth to be told and the media will let the whole thing slide.

Journal photo

To put a face to the cover up;
consider the new editor-in-
chief at the Journal, Karen
Moses.

Again, I feel quite confident
that it was Moses to whom I
complained many years ago
about the Journal's lack of
interest in the accountability
crisis in the leadership of the
APS, and by whom I was told,
if I could get 600 signatures from
Journal readers who cared about the alleged crisis, she might cover it.

I wasn't able to, she didn't.
I shouldn't have been required to collect any signatures at all.  It is the Journal's responsibility to cover the APS and report the truth to its readers.

Ever since, the Journal has been quite brazen about their part in the cover up of an ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS.  Their complicity is proved on its face by their ongoing failure to investigate and report upon the crisis, even to ensure readers that no such crisis exists.

Even to assure readers that the leadership of the APS is bound by ethics and standards that are high enough to protect the public interests in the public schools, and further that there is actual, honest to God accountability to those ethics and standards by means of any real due process.

She can't report the latter because is simply isn't the truth.  No evidence exists that supports such a claim.  She won't report the former, because the Journal has been part of the cover up for so long, and as far as I know, is still comfortable in remaining so.

Further, she can't report the truth; that there is an ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS, without first reporting on her and the Journal's failure to report on the crisis heretofore.

APS squandering millions on cost-is-no-object legal defenses

In the Journal this morning, link, news that the leadership of the APS, who has seen their (our) insurance premiums raised over uncharacteristically high spending on litigation, is still spending outrageous and wholly unjustifiable amounts of money in litigation.

The process by which the school board, et al, decides to spend a million dollars of operational funds is supposed to protect taxpayers; the board is supposed to provide stewardship over the spending of millions of dollars on legal defenses for school board members and senior administrators.

In fact, the process of spending millions of operational dollars on litigation legal weaselry, takes place in meetings in secret, of which no record is made. There is no oversight. "Subordinate oversight" is not oversight; it is oxymoronic.

The result being; school board members and senior administrators are afforded cost-is-no-object legal defenses without regard to their often manifestly obvious guilt.

Again, despite having too few resources to fund middle school athletics, the leadership of the APS has found money to squander on litigation and legal weaselry ("Ferlic said APS has buried her in nearly 100,000 pages of “meaningless documents ...").

If Ferlic's allegation is true, it is newsworthy. Politicians and public servants should not be using tax dollars to impede justice. Ferlic's allegation is also easily proved or disproved; all the Journal has to do is look at the public record.

The Journal steadfastly refuses to investigate and report upon the squandering of millions of dollars that should, could, and would be spent in classrooms were they not being spent unjustifiably, in court rooms.

As evidence of the Journal's complicity in the cover up of the ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS, consider that this report comes on a weekend; knowing full well that anyone who gets worked up over this outrage today, will have gotten over it by Monday

KRQE covering up for APS and Modrall

KRQE has reported, link, that the leadership of the APS has entered into a settlement agreement with an employee.

KRQE reports;

It took them more than a year to get APS to hand over the supporting documents.

(Why did it take a year; how much did the delay cost taxpayers. This is typical APS; they paid lawyers to obfuscate the surrender of public records.  KRQE chooses to let it slide - undoubtedly upon the advice of their lawyer Marty Esquivel(?).)

The suit ended up costing APS considerably more than the $65,000 settlement because the district also had to pay Broussard’s attorneys and pay a high-powered law firm to represent the district.

... his attorney declined to comment on the settlement.

KRQE should know; they should have found out, how much the leadership of the APS had to pay to the “high-powered law firm”. They know who the high-powered law firm is and didn't mention them.

KRQE decided apparently; neither fact is “newsworthy”; their viewers have no need to know those two salient facts.

KRQE furnishes a link to the settlement agreement which does not include the amounts that APS paid its own attorneys nor the amount paid to the plaintiff's attorney.

Viewers can read the actual settlement agreement; they can decide for themselves whether taxpayers have bought more admissions of no guilt in exchange for operational funds.
Operational funds are tax dollars that should, could and would be spent in classrooms if they were not being squandered instead in courtrooms; if they were not being spent instead on "high-powered", and really, really expensive lawyers and legal weaselry.

Secrecy surrounding APS and their lawyers is particularly important now because the leadership of the APS needs stake and interest holders to believe that APS is so strapped for cash that they cannot afford to underwrite middle school sports.

They need stake and interest holders to not know;
how much money they’re funneling to their friends at the Modrall and others.  Modrall makes so much money, through their large bore pipeline into APS' operational fund, that the amount they guzzle is secret.  The board spends without limit and without oversight.

The "oversight" that the APS school board is supposed to provide amounts to

1. meetings in held secret, 
2. of which no recording is made, and 
3. over which, there is no oversight. 
   Subordinate oversight is not oversight; it is an oxymoron.

KRQE has been in the bag for APS for a long time; for at least as long as, former school board member and direct beneficiary of APS’s willingness to squander millions of dollars in cost-is-no-object legal defenses for school board members and senior administrators, Marty Esquivel has been their lawyer.

In fairness, it’s not just KRQE covering for APS.
You will notice that there isn’t a word of this in the Journal this morning. Nor anything (a cursory search revealed) from KOB or KOAT.  No surprise there.

When the Journal finally does get around to it, if they get around to it, they cannot be expected to have honestly investigated and reported upon the wholly unjustifiable amount of money the leadership of the APS squanders every year on litigation and legal weaselry.

cc KRQE upon posting
KRQE responded "The settlement follows the dismissal order – just scroll down"

Pat Davis, Congressman, Role Model. Not.

With his announcement that he is running for Congress, and whether he has even considered it or not, Albuquerque City Councilor Pat Davis would have voters believe that he is ready to step up as one of New Mexico's five senior most Congressional role models.

Role models of what; and before whom?

What ever else and, for whom other else he wants to be a role model worthy of emulation, he claims to be ready for be a role model for a hundred thousand APS students and their contemporaries in charter and private schools, of honest to God accountability to meaningful standards of conduct and competence within his public service.

That seems unlikely in light of his current stand on role modeling, which is; that he finds compelling language "vague and coded".

To wit; a role modeling clause;

In no case shall the standards of conduct for an adult,

be lower than the standards of conduct for students.

The language could not be less vague; there is no coded language as Davis avers, link.

When given the opportunity to defend this indefensible position, he did not.

He still has not.  Nor will he ever.

Davis is not ready, willing and able to be held accountable as a role model, for students and the communities and community members he would serve, of honest to God accountability to the same standards of conduct as are public school students' higher standards of conduct; ethical standards of conduct.

There is no such thing as an inconspicuous role model.

Davis needs to explain to students, in words they can understand, why it is that he cannot be expected to model honest to God accountability to the higher standards of conduct that students are expected to "model and promote".

If we expect students to grow into adults who embrace character and courage and honor, someone is going to have show them what it looks like.  The obligation grows with (even political) stature.

The only thing that stops Davis and nearly every other politician I have ever met, from holding themselves accountable to higher standards of conduct than the law; the lowest standards of conduct acceptable to civilized human being, is their own individual lack of character, courage, or both.

If there is another explanation, I cannot imagine it, nor has it been suggested to me by any of them.




photo Mark Bralley

Restorative justice too little too late for APS students

The leadership of the APS will spend $4.3 million dollars in an effort to make student discipline “more educational and less punitive”, link.  They're calling it restorative justice.  In this context, restore meaning, reestablish, repair, rehabilitate, rebuild, reconstruct, redevelop …

The fundamental premise; the students in question are, for whatever reason(s) both within and outside of their control, are in need of restoration. And, certainly, we should spend money on their restoration.

Much better; we spend money on prevention. It is a given; dollars spent on prevention go further than dollars spent on repair.

So how much money will APS spend over these same three years on any district wide effort to develop the character in students that might help them minimize their involvement in criminal activity?

The answer; nothing, not one thin dime, not one red cent.

However much sense it makes to offer students restorative justice, it makes exponentially more sense to offer students some training in beliefs and skill sets that will help them “just say no”.

If Thomas Paine was right;

if character is much easier kept than recovered,

then it seems prudent to invest in keeping students from the need to be restored in the first place.

The leadership of the APS will not invest in character education for at least two reasons;

1. Character (education) is not measured in standardized tests, and therefore any attention paid to developing character would necessarily lower test scores in math perhaps, and more importantly,

2. The leadership of the APS cannot find the character and the courage to talk openly and honestly about student standards of conduct; ethical standards of conduct, and their honest to God accountability them.

They are unwilling to admit to, and deal with, the double standards of conduct in the APS; students are expected to model and promote honest accountability to a nationally recognized, accepted and respected code of ethical conduct. School board members and senior administrators are manifestly unaccountable even to the law; the lowest standards of conduct acceptable to civilized human beings.

APS leadership in a familiar pickle ... begging and prevaricating

The leadership of the APS went to the people last night, seeking their support during a radio "call in" show.  They seek support in securing more money for their failing enterprise.

They did not take questions directly from stake and interest holders.  They never do.

They claim, according to Blogger Joe Monahan this morning, link, it was technologically impossible for them to take phone calls directly from listeners (without having to spend $2,600 on the technology that would have allowed them to take questions directly, not only during this show, but during every other call in show they will ever have.)

And, all you have to believe is that APS with all it's hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of technology and technology experts, cannot manage to play a phone call live into a microphone.

photo Mark Bralley

The Journal wrote about it before, link, and after link.  It appears clear that despite the change in editors-in-chief, the Journal will remain in the tank with the leadership of the APS.

"We don't know about an accountability crisis (in the leadership of the APS)"

Blogger Joe Monahan quoted me in a post this morning, link, on the abject lack of availability of the leadership of the APS to the communities and community members they serve.  I had concluded by pointing out;

There is an ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS.

To Joe, and those who don't "know" about an accountability crisis, knowing is as simple as;

1.  ask the leadership of the APS to produce any ethics or standards to which they regard themselves accountable in their public service, and then

2.   ask them to point to the due process(es) by which they can be held accountable to those ethics and standards.

For example; 

1.  Were the school board asked to point to any codes of ethics to which they claim accountability, they would have to name their own code of ethics; link.

2.  Were they then asked to point to any due process at all, by which they might be held accountable to their own code of ethics, they would be compelled to admit that there isn't any.

Ergo, because there are more, equally incontrovertible examples of their lack of honest to God accountability to any standards of conduct at all, even the law, there is an accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS.

Because the media, the Journal in particular, are part of a cover up, it is fair to say that there is an ethics, standards and accountability crisis and scandal.

Current Journal Editor-in-Chief Karen Moses is the person I find most currently most culpable.  She and the Journal refuse to investigate and report upon the ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS.

If only to report that there is not one.

If only to report that school board members and senior administrators are honest to God accountable to meaningful standards of conduct and competence in their public service.

Journal photo

Moses will not report upon the one
and,
she cannot report upon the other.

APD leadership scores poo...

... reads the ironically truncated Journal headline on my list of open tabs.

It actually reads in full; APD leadership scores poorly in survey.

The article, link, goes on to point out that the survey itself, is statistically meaningless.  Begging at least a couple of questions;

1. Why was even one penny spent on a survey that lacked validity in its very design; you can let people fill out as many surveys as they want to, and expect valid survey results.
2. Why isn't a real survey being done? - one that can be expected to produce valid data.

As to the first, because the person or people who ordered it up, were incompetent, corrupt, or both.

As to the second, the only reason to not tell the truth is to avoid the consequences of the truth becoming known.

APD Chief Gordon Eden

Who in the Albuquerque Police Department, benefits the most from the truth not becoming known, the leadership who ordered up the survey, or the rank and file who never held it in their hands?

Time for a vote of (no) confidence?




photo Mark Bralley

Peercy win ensures continuing scandal cover up

David Peercy has scored a mighty win in the APS school board mini-election.

With that victory comes the end of any hope of an open and honest public discussion of ethics, standards and accountability in the (leadership of the) APS, for at least the next four years.

There is no one in the entire leadership of the APS, who is more responsible than David Peercy for the ongoing double standards of conduct in the APS; higher standards of conduct for students than for administrators and school board members.

We don't need no stinkin'
role modeling clause

There is no one in the entire leadership of the APS, more responsible than David Peercy, for blocking the reinstatement of the role modeling clause into school board and administrative codes of conduct.

As the Policy Committee chair, Peercy steadfastly refuses to hold an open and honest public discussion of the role modeling clause and the responsibilities for the senior-role models in the entire APS.

The board struck their role modeling clause more than a decade ago in order to mitigate their "legal" liability as role models.

Before the night of their unanimous abdication, their standards of conduct contained the following statement and commitment;

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

In the effort to not talk about ethics, standards and accountability in leadership, Peercy has some powerful allies.

The clause was recently maligned by a couple of Albuquerque city councilors.

Pat Davis and
Diane Gibson
say the clause
contains what
they call
"vague" and
coded" language".

During a recent
public forum,
they were given an opportunity to actually point out any vagueness and coded language they perceive, neither would; nor could.

The Journal, despite the retirement of Kent Walz, will remain an ally in Peercy's effort to cover up the ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS. 

Frankly, the Journal has no choice.  How can they report credibly upon the ethics, standards and accountability crisis without first reporting credibly on their failure to report upon it heretofore.

Journal image

As an aside; I'm pretty damn certain that Walz' replacement Karen Moses and I have history.  I'd almost swear that it was her that I contacted personally many years ago, trying to get the Journal to follow up in the abdication of the senior-most role models in the district and upon their cover up of state and federal felonies involving senior administrators in their publicly funded private police force.

She told me that if I could get a few hundred signatures of people who care about ethics, standards and accountability in the leadership of the APS, she might consider looking into it.

I wasn't able to gather that many signatures - but that's a whole nother story.





photos Mark Bralley

Gibson feigns ignorance, Davis says nothing

Alb City Councilors Diane Gibson and Pat Davis sent out a flyer, link.  Within the flyer, the following;

In District 3, Ali Ennenga talks about “reinstating the Role Model Policy” – which is vague, coded language.

I sent an email to Councilors Davis and Gibson reading;

Councilors Davis and Gibson,
I have to say that I reacted with horror when I was forwarded the following; which was attributed to the both of you;
    Ali Ennenga talks about "reinstating the Role Model Policy" - which is vague, coded language.

The clause to which Ennenga is referring used to read; In no case shall the standards of conduct for an adult be lower than the standards of conduct for students,
until it was removed from the board's own code of conduct in 2005, and in the board's self interests.
I know of no one who is better able to "fill you in" on the whole story than I. 
I was one of the first teachers in Alb. to be trained as a Character Counts! trainer of trainers, and am personal witness to the abdication of the board from their obligations and responsibilities as the senior-most role models of honest to God accountability to the same standards of conduct that they establish and enforce upon students.
School board policy is voted upon every year.  For more than two decades it has read; Students are expected to model and promote (accountability) to the Pillars of Character Counts!; a nationally recognized, accepted and respected code of ethical conduct.  (This is not about Character Counts! per se.  It is, only because the board unanimously adopted the standards in 1994 and has signed off on the language every year since.
My schedule is very flexible; I would like very much, to meet with the both of you, and anyone else that you would like to invite, anytime anywhere.  Obviously, the sooner the better.
There is a full blown ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership.  If the attributed feelings are actually yours, you are aligned on the wrong side of an issue that is having an incalculable negative effect on the thousands of your constituents who are students in the APS.
Whatever else you may have heard about me,  My efforts, and those who have stood around me, recently compelled the largest settlement of its kind, in the history of the United States, against the board.  The board and their lawyers spent nearly a million dollars in an effort to cover up civil rights violations.   They spent the money in meetings in secret, of which no record was made.  They spent without oversight (subordinate oversight is not oversight; it is any oxymoron) They knowingly permitted or negligently allowed a school board member, the superintendent and all of their lawyers to squander a million operational dollars in a non-viable defense of a board member's ego. 
All the allegations are easily, and incontrovertibly proven.

Councilor Davis did not respond; Councilor Gibson wrote;

Dear Mr Macquigg, 

Thank you for contacting me about the school board election. As a citizen of Albuquerque, I am also very interested in how this election will be decided. However as a City Councilor, I don't think a meeting would be productive since Council has little influence over the school board. 

Diane Gibson

When I confronted the two of them over the falsehood, during the public forum at a City Council meeting, I used the overhead projector to display the role modeling clause.  Then I asked them to point to the vague language and to the coded language they claim lies in the role modeling clause.

The interaction was recorded by Charles Arasim and published on YouTube, link.

After I finished, Gibson stated on the record;

"I really don't know what that was about. I have no knowledge of that."

Apparently having forgotten our recent email exchange.











Councilor Pat Davis simply sat there, waiting for the council president to explain that councilors don't answer questions.

He is yet to respond in any manner to allegations that he deliberately misled everyone he told; the role modeling clause is vague and contains coded language.




photos Mark Bralley

David Peercy; still a coward, still a liar.

David Peercy, whether or not he or any other school board member will admit it, is a role model for APS students, of accountability to the standards of conduct that he and the board establish and enforce upon them.

Else is hypocrisy pure and simple.
Do as I say, not as I do.

As school board President, David Peercy is in fact, the senior most role model of accountability in the entire APS; all eyes are upon him, looking to him for leadership by example.

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.

Character is taught by example;
character is taught only by personal example.

A little more than a decade ago, the APS School Board removed the “role modeling clause” from their own standards of conduct. The clause had read; in no case shall the standards of conduct for an adult be lower than the standards of conduct for students (as expressed in the APS Student Handbook)

The handbook requires yearly approval by the board and represents board policy on student standards of conduct. In the handbook, (written at a 14th grade reading level) their expectation of student’s conduct is clearly stated; students are expected to model and promote the Pillars of Character Counts!. The Pillars represent “higher standards of conduct” than the law.


Since the board openly abdicated their responsibilities and obligations as role models of honest to God accountability to the same standards of conduct that they establish and enforce upon students, there have been double standards of conduct in the APS. Students are accountable to higher, ethical standards while school board members and administration are accountable only the “the law”; the standards of conduct that higher standards are higher than; the lowest standards of conduct acceptable to civilized human beings.

Longtime APS Modrall
lawyer Art Melendres

They did it on the advice of their lawyers.

At the time, the board and their lawyers were refusing to “tell the truth” in state district court proceedings. Their obfuscation was of course, all “legal”. The board had been challenged in those proceedings, to live up to their obligations as role models of student standards of conduct; in especially those standards which required them to do more than the law requires and less than the law allows. They were being asked to tell as much truth as the law allowed rather than surrendering only as much as could be compelled in the face of cost is no object litigation and legal weaselry.

It is the obligation to answer legitimate questions “candidly, forthrightly and honestly” of which David Peercy and the entire leadership of the APS are so afraid.

David "we don't need no stinkin'
role modeling clause" Peercy.

There is no person in the entire APS who is more responsible for the fact that the board's role modeling clause will never be the subject of open and honest, two-way public discussion, than David Peercy, link.

Peercy and the rest of the "leadership" of the APS are at best unable and at worst unwilling to require from themselves, what they require from students; candor, forthrightness and honesty.

When David Peercy refuses to hold himself honest to God accountable to the same standards of conduct that he establishes and enforces upon students, it is not because, as he repeatedly claims, he is already accountable to even higher standards of conduct than student standards (the Pillars of Character Counts!; a nationally recognized, accepted and respected code of ethical conduct).  There is no such thing.

There are no standards of conduct higher than any standards of conduct that require candor, forthrightness and honesty in communications with stake and interest holders.

When asked to point to a single one of those supposed higher standards to which he claims accountability, he could not. He cannot.  There are none.

More importantly, when pressed on honest to God accountability and on the fact that their own Code of Ethics is utterly unenforceable, Peercy, clearly grasping for straws, suggested that complaints could be filed through APS’ whistleblower program, link. He suggests, in effect, any complaint regarding his or another board member’s failure to live up to the board’s Code, will see due process at the hands of a subordinate in the administration.

Peercy claims to be a scientist; he should not have to have the appearance of a conflict of interests explained to him. Nor should he need to have it explained to him, that appearances of conflicts of interests come at the expense of the appearance of due process.

When I reminded him that he, and they, could not even be held accountable under the law, he said he would not defend the excesses of former school board member Marty Esquivel, who squandered nearly a million operational dollars in an effort to escape honest to God personal accountability, and to buy for himself, admissions of “no guilt” over civil rights violations he committed while being videotaped, on David Peercy’s watch.

Peercy‘s response; “Marty Esquivel is his own man”.   Thereby absolving himself I suppose, of his failure to keep Esquivel's spending under control; within reason even.  Nearly a million dollars that should, could and would have been spent in classrooms except that they were wasted in court rooms, in Esquivel's from raid the district’s operational fund in order to underwrite his cost-is-no-object but nevertheless non-viable, defense of his ego.

Maestas has yet to pay
the piper for her failure
to role model honest to God
accountability to meaningful
standards of conduct

Finally, on the issue of the actual, honest to God accountability of school board members even to the law, much less their code of ethics, need I remind Peercy of the current status of school board member Analee Maestas?

David Peercy cannot summon the moral courage to hold himself honest to God accountable as a role model of student standards of conduct; he is a coward.

Alternatively, David Peercy claims honest accountability to higher standards of conduct; he is a liar.

His simple defense to both allegations could not be simpler. All he has to do is;

1. Point to any one of the standards to which he claims that he is accountable, that are in fact “higher” than student standards of conduct. And then he must;
2. Point the mechanism by which he and other school board members, senior administrators and their eloquence of lawyers can be held honest to God accountable to that standard, even against their will.

He cannot on either count.
None of them can.

That's why Peercy and the board will never tolerate an open and honest public discussion of ethics, standards, accountability and role modeling in the leadership of the APS.




photos Mark Bralley