So what is a Journal endorsement worth exactly?

The editors get it; they wrote that school board members have the responsibility of “preparing our children for whatever comes next”.

Though “preparing our children for whatever comes next” clearly includes helping them develop their good character, the Journal is covering up the board’s abdication of the responsibilities of the senior most role models in the entire school district. 

Not one single school board member will respond candidly, forthrightly and honestly to a pivotal question; why won’t you restore the role modeling clause to your own standards of conduct?  Why will you not hold yourself honestly accountable to the same standards of conduct that you establish and enforce upon students?   

It used to read;

“In no case shall the standards of conduct for an adult be lower that the standards for students.”

The editors get that “board members have to oversee what this year was a $1.6 billion budget”.   

But they don’t think voters need to know that school board members are spending millions of dollars on cost-is-no-object legal defenses for school board members and senior administrators, in meetings in secret and of which they make no recording.

Editors get that “School board members need to have a clear-eyed view of the challenges facing the district”.   

They do not get apparently, that voters also need a clear-eyed view of the challenges facing the district, not the least of which is the ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS.

Whatever other qualifications they are endorsing, the editors are endorsing continuing the cover up of an ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS.