No matter what the final APS calendar looks like, one thing never changes.

APS has published the school calendar for school year 2015-2016, link.  Ever notice that first semester finals are always the week before the winter break and not the week after?

Charles "ched" MacQuigg
APS School Board Dist 4

For whatever other reason first semester always ends before the winter break, finals are taken before the break because if the same tests were given to the same students when they came back two or three weeks later, their test scores would be lower, significantly lower.

It speaks to the transience of most "learning" and by logical extension the ridiculousness of trying to make children learn and be tested in unison over the very same material on the very same day for twelve years.

Individual lifelong learners created at the earliest opportunity.

Which would you rather;

• try to form thinking and learning "choirs" of  30 or more individual students who by their very nature resist standardization,

or

• enable students to learn out of control, under close supervision?

Worthy of civil discourse imho.




photo Mark Bralley

One minute is the new "two minutes" at APS public forum

Once, long ago, speakers at school board public forums were allowed to speak for three minutes.  Now it is two.  Except that now it's one - at any meeting where more than15 people show up to speak.  Of late, a lot of people are standing up at public forum.

After years of neglect, public forums are building steam;
the simplest manifestation of government of the people
and by the people.

The last time School Board Member Marty Esquivel ran for the school board, he, I and others were participating in a school board candidate forum.  He was addressing some issue and prefaced his response by pointing out that the two minutes he had to speak, were not enough to build a cogent argument on any substantial issue.

I nearly laughed out loud.

Because as a school board member he has never given the community members he serves more than two minutes to speak.   And that, only once every two weeks, or less.

Esquivel is the architect of the Board's new governing rules over public forum.  The rules declare; if more than 15 people stand up to speak, their two minutes just became one.

The "speech" that speakers might have spent hours shortening, is now two times too long.  What are they to do; read the first half, the last, the middle, every other word?  Frustration lead one speaker to leave the meeting rather than play the game on a lopsided field.

The board, according to Esquivel's rules, will accept a written presentation from those who cannot say what they need to say in 60 seconds.  But first, the written presentation will be reviewed and abbreviated as necessary by school board staff

Once, NM State Representative Janice Arnold-Jones stood up at the public forum in a school board meeting and delivered a petition carrying more than 100 signatures of community members in support of the board's recognition of a Citizens Advisory Council on Communication.





When asked some time later in a different context, why the board had seemingly ignored that petition, School Board Member David Robbins said he/they had never read nor even seen it.


There is a new camera covering school board meetings from the back of the room.  They won't say why they need that perspective, but, if you viewed the record from that camera during public forum, you would see school board members "not looking at speakers".

Whether they're tapping, texting, tweeting or twerking
is hidden from cameras and public view behind a
couple of hundred thousand dollars worth of Kevlar and hardwood.

I have participated in public forums in public meetings of the APS School Board more or less regularly since 2006.

I began attending regularly at the time when the board had voted unanimously remove the role modeling clause from their own ethics and standards.  The role modeling clause once read;

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

I found their abdication outrageous; cowardly and corrupt.

I found it so, in the context of a set of beliefs I held and hold still.

I arrived at those of beliefs at the behest of my employer; the Albuquerque Public Schools Board of Education.

Thirty teachers had been selected, I among them, to attend training in Character Counts!; a nationally recognized, accepted and respected code of ethical conduct.

APS paid my salary, my sub's salary, and for Character Counts! Founding Father Michael Josephson to come to Albuquerque to enable us to embrace a set of beliefs.  We were to take it so seriously that we were to go out into schools and communities and "preach" those beliefs - on behalf of the board!

The Pillars of Character Counts!, link, are APS student standards of conduct.  Whether they should or should not be is moot; they are. Every year since 1994, when the board unanimously adopted them, the board has reiterated it's expectation that students "model and promote the Pillars of Character Counts!"

It was, and still is outrageous that they would simply (try to) abandon their obligations as the senior-most role models of accountability to the same standards of conduct they establish and enforce upon students.

Rather than listen to me ask them;

Is there even one of of you who will explain to students, in words they can understand;

why students are expected to hold themselves actually and honestly accountable to higher standards of conduct than the law, 
and
school board members are not.

They have gone to some pretty extraordinary; illegal and unethical lengths to keep me from asking the question and them from being on the record stonewalling instead of responding on the public record.

They have edited the tapes they broadcast to stake and interest holders, deleting my questions and more importantly, their unwillingness to response.  At one time, they once moved the public forum outside the meeting to keep if off the record.

There is not one of them willing, to this day, to explain why there are two standards of conduct in the APS;

• one set of higher standards for students and 

• other much lower standards for school board members, superintendents, and anyone else they decide to shelter under the umbrella of legal weaselry, unlimited budgets and self and subordinate oversight.

photos Mark Bralley

The fight over Character Education in the APS

It would help if we agreed at the onset, to not get bogged down in endless debate on the definitions of terms like "character education" and "ethical".  The endless debate serves the interests of those who would rather debate than be held actually and honestly accountable to higher standards of conduct than the law, however they are defined.

There is some evidence that at least some people think it is important to teach children to embrace honest accountability to "ethical" standards of conduct. 

For example, we think honest accountability to meaningful standards of conduct is important enough that we are willing to repeat a centuries old fable, link, which had been repeated to us when we were children, about a child, a hatchet and a cherry tree.

The leadership of the APS thought character education was important enough to resolve unanimously to adopt ethical standards of conduct, link, for students, and the continue annually, to require them to model and promote (honest accountability) to those standards.

The leadership of the APS thought character education was important enough, at the time, they had written in their own standards of conduct, a standard which read;

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

They have since removed the role modeling clause from their own standards of conduct; by unanimous decision.  They think by so doing; they are no longer "legally" accountable as role models of student standards of conduct.

At the very least, the decision  

whether we should introduce students to higher standards of conduct than the law and further, encourage students to embrace them, 

should be made after at least some open and honest public discussion.

The leadership of the APS will not provide for that discussion.  The leadership of the APS will not support the Citizens Advisory Council on Communication and the effort to open two-way communication between the leadership of the APS and the community members they serve.

Whether you ask deferentially or more
insistently, their answer means no.

The leadership of the APS will not allow that discussion in any venue they control.

They have a publicly funded private police force willing to follow their orders to "eject" anyone who pushes the issue.

One moment, peaceful demonstrators quietly hold up posters some of which had to do with opening two-way communication and others having to do with Character Counts!.  Clearly, they are "disrupting" nothing.

Moments later, APS Praetorian Guard rolls on the poster holders,
 giving them the "APS thumb"; you're making them feel
 uncomfortable, you have to leave.

Whether there is community support or not, for character education in public schools should be determined in civil discussion in advance of the school board election and their hiring of;
a superintendent who;

• is

or

• is not 

expected to step up as the senior-most administrative role model of the standards s/he establishes and enforces upon nearly 90,000 of this community's sons and daughters in the APS.

If we really want students to grow into adults who embrace character and courage and honor;
somebody has to show them what it looks like

to be held honestly, actually accountable to meaningful standards of conduct and competence

instead of showing them what it looks like

to squander the public trust and treasure in an in secret, cost is no object, effectively oversightless effort to escape the consequences breaking the law; the lowest standards of conduct; the standards of conduct that every higher standard is higher than.

photos Mark Bralley

Petition to be delivered to the APS Board of Education

We the undersigned, sign in support of the petition;

the timely preparation and presentation of;

A candid, forthright and honest accounting of

ethics, standards and accountability in the APS

(an examination and review of the ethics and standards that apply to APS school board members, 
employees and students, and of the due processes by which those standards are enforced)

 

1. ____________________________

2. ____________________________

3. ____________________________

4. ____________________________

5. ____________________________

6. ____________________________

??? ___________________________

How many signatures would it take, do you think,
before the leadership of the APS finally has to tell the truth?

Marty Esquivel says, it's not about Character Counts!

In the strictest sense, what APS School Board Member Marty Esquivel says is correct; it isn't about Character Counts! per se;  the Pillars of Character Counts! are only one of a number of higher standards of conduct than the law.

The real question is whether Esquivel intends to hold himself honestly accountable to any higher standards of conduct than the law, not just the Pillars of Character Counts!.  It seems unlikely given the enormous amount of money he and the board are spending to escape accountability even to the law.  It is only about Character Counts! because those are the standards unanimously approved by the school board every year in the APS Student Behavior Handbook.

That Esquivel and the board are so unwilling to even talk openly, honestly, and on the record about their standards of conduct and their accountability to them, is a tell*.
*a sign, a behavioral clue that reveals something one tries to hide

They wouldn't have to hide the truth
if the truth didn't need hiding.

The truth is;

the leadership of the APS is not honestly, actually accountable to even run of the mill standards.

Their usurped power and resources enable them escape honest accountability to any standards at all.

Else,

• they would point to their meaningful standards of conduct and competence, and

• they would point to the due process by which they are actually and honestly accountable to them.

Ethics, standards and accountability are important issues in the election of school board members and the appointment of a new superintendent.  They are the most important issues because they are the most fundamental issues.

If success is possible;
if we aren't trying to do a thing that can't be done,
then success depends solely upon;

• the standards of conduct and competence that apply to the people who are responsible for success, and upon

• their honest and actual accountability to those standards.
  because there isn't one whit of difference between the
  highest standards and the lowest, if there is honest, actual
  accountability to neither.

Ethics, standards and accountability are legitimate issues in the political discourse surrounding the election of school board members and their appointment of the next superintendent.  They are issues that deserve open and honest public discussion; two-way communication between the leadership of the APS and the community members they serve.

APS Ethics, Standards and Accountability will not see open and honest public discussion.

They will not because Marty Esquivel and board have something to hide; an allegation he and they could refute simply and in an instant by pointing to the due process that holds them actually and honestly accountable to meaningful standards of conduct and competence within their public service.

He cannot.  He would if he could.

This is about Character Counts! Board Member Esquivel.

• It is about Character Counts! because the Pillars of Character Counts!, link, are student standards of conduct and you will not even admit that you are a role model of student standards of conduct.

• It is about Character Counts! because you and the board have re-established those as the student standards of conduct every year since the board unanimously adopted them in 1994.

• It is about Character Counts! because you are among the seven senior-most role models of accountability to those standards.  Never mind that no other school board member or senior administrator is any more inclined than you, to step up as an honest to God role model of higher standards of conduct.

It takes character and courage to be held actually and honestly accountable to higher standards of conduct.  It takes more than re-telling a fable about a kid, a hatchet and a cherry tree to encourage students to grow into adults who embrace character and courage and honor.

Character is taught (only) by personal example.

Neither Esquivel, nor any other school board member, nor senior administrator has ever suggested any reason other than

their individual and collective lack of character
and courage

keeping them from stepping up as role models of standards of conduct that require candor, forthrightness and honesty.

As much as ethics, standards and accountability in the APS should be on the table for open and honest discussion, they will not, because Esquivel and the board own the allegiance of the media; an allegation that could could be refuted simply by any one of them; the Journal, KRQE, KOAT, KOB TV, or the Duke City Fix.  All they have to do is just;

1.  point to any investigation and report any one of them has done on ethics, standards and accountability in the APS or,

2.  offering some good and ethical reason why they have not.

Instead, the questions of ethics, standards and accountability are stonewalled.

Stonewalling is explicitly prohibited by the standards of conduct they establish and enforce upon students which preclude the use of;

"... half-truths, out-of-context statements, and even silence, ... intended to create beliefs or leave impressions that are untrue or misleading". (emphasis added)

I would offer that it is fair to say;

• anyone who won't talk about role modeling has no intention of standing up as one, and

• anyone who is unwilling to step up as an honest to God role model of accountability to student standards of conduct has no business being on the school board, in the administration, or for that matter, in the classroom.

If;

• we concede that we need role models of accountability to student standards of conduct if we expect students to hold themselves accountable to them, and

• there are no adults willing to role model honest accountability to higher standards of conduct, and,

• we recognize that we must finally end the hypocrisy of two standards of conduct in the APS; a nationally recognized, accepted and respected code of ethical conduct for students and the lowest possible standards for board members and senior administrators;

we must lower student standards of conduct.

We have to lower student standards of conduct to a point low enough that adult role models are comfortable being held honestly and actually accountable to them.

That discussion is newsworthy.  That discussion needs to be held in time to sort school board candidates into one of two piles;

1.  those who will step up as role models of APS student standards of conduct however high and,

2.  those who will not.

In the APS School Board Election, District 4,

• I am a candidate who will step up without hesitation, and

• Defendant Marty Esquivel is a candidate who will not.

Charles "ched" MacQuigg

Honest accountability for everybody, including school board members and superintendents, to meaningful standards of conduct and competence within their public service,

Candid, forthright and honest accounting of the spending of
the power and resources that the people entrust to the stewardship of leadership of the APS.  Transparency limited only by the law.

Meaningful participation by interest and stakeholders, in decision making that affects their interests.






photos Mark Bralley

Upon further refection; forget about an independent audit, but only for now.

I am still in favor of annual independent examination and reviews of;

• Ethics,

• Standards and

• Accountability

in the Albuquerque Public Schools, from Kindergarteners to school board members meeting in secret.

There is something we can demand right now,
fully expecting a rather immediate response;

a candid, forthright and honest accounting of Ethics,
Standards and Accountability in the APS.

All of the ethics, standards and accountability that exist in the APS, exist in public records; policies and procedural directives.  They are immediately available.

If applicable ethics, standards and accountability are not immediately available in public records, it would be fair to ask, why are they not?

How can they be actually honestly accountable

• to ethics and standards they can't immediately find,

• by processes they can't immediately find either?

What would happen if the leadership of the APS was asked to create just such public record?

A candid, forthright and honest accounting
of ethics, standards and accountability
in the Albuquerque Public Schools

I can tell you exactly what would
happen and rather immediately.

The leadership of the APS, the board,
administration and their lawyers, will
tell APS Public Records Custodian and
Communications Director Rigo Chavez
to send a letter explaining that the NM
Inspection of Public Records Act does
not "require" APS to "create a public record."

Interestingly, APS' student standards of
conduct; established by the board and enforced by the supt,
require students, at the expense of the forfeiture of their good character, to expect from themselves,
more than the law requires and less than the law allows.


I can tell you what else will (not)
happen,  Journal Editor in Chief
Kent Walz will not have a reporter
assigned to investigate and report
upon ethics, standards and
accountability in the APS.

Nor will any news director at any
NM Broadcasters Assoc Affiliate
TV stations in town.


Creating such a record,
one would think, would
fall reasonably within the
duties of an "Executive
Director" of Communications
such as Monica Armenta.

One would think she could be expected to put together a candid, forthright and honest accounting of ethics, standards and accountability in APS because that's what we pay her $111K a year to do;
communicate.




photos Mark Bralley

Susana Martinez reneged on accountability pledge

It is apparently alright for campaigning politicians to deliberately mislead people.

It is alright to spend millions and millions of dollars openly and shameless to create beliefs or leave impressions that are untrue or misleading.

Supposedly, it is not alright for them to continue to deliberately mislead the people once they are elected, though of course they do.  To the extent that their silence gives consent, the people are good with that.

The people's oversight over government, politicians and public servants is provided by the government.  If you want to know how politicians and public servants are spending public resources and wielding power that belongs fundamentally to the people, they will tell you.

If you would like to hear it from someone else,
someone who is not conflicted by their own self interests,
you're out of luck.

Yes, yes, yes I would

When Gov Susana Martinez was running for office, I asked her, in essence, if she would support independent investigations of government looking for waste due to corruption and incompetence and authorize the investigators to report directly to the public record and not only to those whose character and competence were under investigation.

I couldn't get the questions out of my mouth without being interrupted;

"yes", "yes", "yes", "yes I would." link

Of course she never has.

Has there ever been an independent examination and review of ethics, standards and accountability in any government agency?

I propose that before we elect new APS school board members, before we hire another superintendent, there be;

an independent examination and review of 
the ethics, standards and accountability that 
protect the public interests in the public schools.

Why not?

Why not now?

... except that any honest examination and review would find inadequate records of inadequate accountability to inadequate standards of conduct and competence.

Suppose just for the hell of it; there is actually
adequate record keeping of adequate accountability to 
adequate standards of conduct and competence.
Suppose there is honest accountability to meaningful standards of conduct and competence; where is the evidence of them?

Why, if you search APS' award winning website for Executive and Administrative Standards of Conduct and Competence you find nothing, link?

Why can't you link to due process for complaints filed against board members or administrators?

... except that they don't exist?

Demand a timely independent examination and review of APS executive and administrative ethics, standards and accountability.

Demand that the findings be ethically redacted and surrendered to public knowledge.

How, where, when?

Glad you asked;

• the public forum

• at the APS school board meeting

• Wednesday, November 19, 2014, agenda

photo Mark Bralley

Independent learning at the earliest opportunity

“Imagine a world in which every single person
on the planet has free access to the sum
of all human knowledge.”

Jimmy Wales, Founder of Wikipedia

That world is not too far away.
Are students being prepared for it's potential and pitfalls?

Of what use is the sum of all human knowledge to
anyone who cannot mine it effectively and efficiently?

Imagine a world where at the earliest opportunity, every student learns how to access the sum of all knowledge independently.  "Independently" does not mean without oversight.

Instead of trying to standardize individual educational performance, why don't we try instead to create independent lifelong learners at the earliest opportunity?

Creating independent learners can be dangerous.
As Theodore Roosevelt observed;

"To educate a man in mind and not in morals
is to create a menace to society."

Theodore Roosevelt 

Because of the increased learning there is increased opportunity and increased risk.  There must be commensurate attention paid to protecting students by helping them develop the character that might prevent them from becoming the menaces Roosevelt predicts.

If our obligations as role models could be increased, they will be increased the more and the faster students learn.  We are compelled therefore, to step up our game on their behalf.

Instead of abandoning our obligations as role models of meaningful standards of conduct and competence, we should be redoubling our efforts to provide students with the information and examples they need to grow into adults who embrace character and courage and honor and the protection they provide.

Can we please stop talking about "graduation rates" as if they're meaningful?

In the Journal this morning, link, a report on the "gender gap" in academics.  The gap has been measured in terms of "graduation rates" and "reading proficiency".

The measurement of reading proficiency is more or less scientific.  In start contrast, graduation rates vary simply by redefining the terms.

For example; It was recently decided that graduation rates would be calculated based on five years rather than four.  The effect is; graduation rates climbed, but for no valid reason.

And another; APS recently decided that when they established "cohorts"; the groups of students they would track for their graduation rate calculations, they would not include in the cohort, and 9th graders who had already failed the 9th grade at least once. 

In plain language, they took a 9th grade class with (let's say) 1,000 students and then four years later graduated 540.  Instead of dividing 540 by 1000; a graduation rate of 54%, they divided by (let's say) 900 students who had not already failed.  Their graduation rate is now 60%; about 11% higher.

Graduation rates climbed again, but again, for no valid reason.

So please, let's stop acting as if gradation rates are valid measures of success.


Suppose there is a gender gap.  So what?

It only makes a difference if one arbitrary established group (males) performs differently than another group (females), if the "gap" is significant AND if you intend to close the gap with "group fix".

Somebody is going to make a lot of money and accumulate a lot of power selling a group fix solution that will make all males better readers.

It will fail of course, for exactly the same reason that every plan to make all students better readers has failed; there is no group fix for individual deficiencies.

You can't take groups of 30 kids with little in common but their age and expect them to learn in unison.

The expression is "herding kittens".
Even if you could, why would you want to?

There is only one education gap we must pay attention to;
the gap between where an individual student is and
where that individual student could be with our help.

All education gaps are individual.  There is no meaningful remediation that does not need to be individually applied.




photo Mark Bralley

"Therefore, we urge you to re consider ... redaction decisions made by staff."

That line comes from a letter written New Years eve, 2009.

It was written by then NM FOG Executive Director Sarah Welsh on behalf of FOG in a letter to the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission.  She was concerned that records the FOG had requested, results of a PRC employee ethics survey, had been redacted beyond usefulness.

She was expressing the position of the FOG that, when they asked for the results of a PRC employee ethics survey, the commission had redacted the records improperly.

We believe that for several surveys, the redaction was improper and/or overzealous and would not stand up under a court review.

Five years later, politicians and public servants still self-redact the record of their own public service.  Five years later, there is still no penalty for politicians and public servants who zealously over-redact their records.

Every time a pol or public servant redacts their own record, they create the appearance of a conflict of interests and the appearance of impropriety.

I can't imagine why people writing public records law would even consider self-redaction. 

I can't imagine why it is still allowed.




photo Mark Bralley

More in-secret investigations of APS superintendents?

The agenda, link, of the Special Meeting of the APS School Board this morning included the following item;

Consideration to Ratify the Hiring of an Independent Investigator to Conduct an Investigation of Complaints made Against the Superintendent (Discussion/Action)

Their next in-secret investigation won't be their first.

The dust is yet to settle from a recent in-secret investigation done at the behest of School Board President Analee Maestas.  She hired an investigator to look into some allegations made against then APS Supt Winston Brooks. 

She was afraid that she and the rest of the board, should they be sued by an employee who had been intimidated or retaliated against.

We, she wrote; 

"... would honestly have to admit that we had been made aware of these issues."

In a letter to the board about the hiring their own investigator, she wrote;

YES we are indeed aware of (incidents of intimidation and retaliation by Winston Brooks), including to one of our own board members and we would be liable for not taking any action.

See, it's a problem for the board,

• if the board is being sued for allowing their superintendent to intimidate and retaliate employees, and
• it can be proved they knew about it, and 
• they let it go unaddressed.

So the private investigations are all about finding the truth and being able to keep it secret.  It's all about creating for themselves; plausible deniability. link.

When they sit in sworn deposition and they are asked what they know about Brooks intimidation and retaliation, they want to be able to say what Sgt Schultz said;

I know nothing! YouTube

Except that they did.

The last time they hired a private investigator/lawyer and than announced that they were going to keep the findings secret, they got in trouble for it.  "In trouble" being a relative term; their lawyer cronies are going to make a bundle litigating the issue for as long as it takes to make it go away.  Without limit; without oversight.

Having their lawyers investigate in order that the findings can be declared lawyer work product is shameless effort to get around the NM Inspection of Public Records Act.  

As wrong as it is for anyone to get around the law deliberately, it is an order of magnitude worse if that person is a politician or public servant, especially if they are acting in their own self interests; covering up their own incompetence and corruption.

It is exponentially worse that money they spend to underwrite their "legal weaselry; their Juris Mustelidae, link, are operational dollars; tax dollars that could and should be spent in classrooms instead.

When the leadership of the APS 

• hires an "independent investigator";

• when they have their publicly funded private police force self- investigate felony criminal misconduct, 

it is with the intention of keeping the findings secret from stake and interest holders.  It is with the intention of escaping the consequences of the truth being known about their character and their competence.

The board has already done (at the least) one in secret investigation on Brooks and got burned, link.

The "personnel" and "attorney-client privilege" dodges aren't working anymore, perhaps they think writing a school board policy enabling the activity will somehow legitimize their abuse.

Consider APS School Board Member Marty Esquivel's carelessly crafted policy and procedural directive on public participation in school board meetings.  He/they think they can write a policy and procedural directive with unconstitutional provisions (according to NM FOG, link) in a naked effort to give Esquivel and them cover in lawsuits they are losing.

It time for a audit.  In anticipation of the school board election and the hiring of a new superintendent, it is time for an independent investigation of ethics, standards and accountability in the leadership of the APS;

An annual examination and review of executive and 
administrative Ethics, standards, and accountability.

photo Mark Bralley

More tax dollars down the drain in Esquivel escapade

More filings in federal court over APS School Board Member Marty Esquivel's several violations of my civil rights.

More filings means more operational dollars.

More operational dollars means more dollars that could have been spent in classrooms, will be spent on lawyers and litigation instead.

Without limit and without real oversight.  Esquivel and the board's self-oversight in meetings in secret, and the subordinate oversight of their underlings are not oversight; they are oxymora.

The operational dollars that Esquivel is spending can be divided into three piles;

1. I will get one; the smallest.
2. Our lawyers will share one, and 
3. Esquivel's lawyer friends will share one.

Piles one and two will be spent in the people's best interests.

They are being spent in defense of the right of the people to stand up at a public forum and question the character and competence of politicians and senior public servants.  Our lawyers earn theirs by crafting such as our Response in Opposition to a Motion for Summary Judgement, link.

Pile three is being spent by Esquivel in his own interests; postponing his inevitable conviction on the complaints that have been filed against him.

Esquivel is not the only school board member who will benefit from the delay; he is their leader; the provocateur of their abandonment of their obligation to the people to spend the people's power and resources in the best interests of nearly 90,000 of this community's sons and daughters.

Pile three, for example is being spent to prevent ethical redaction of the truth about public corruption and incompetence in the leadership of their publicly funded private police force.

How exactly, is it in the best interests of students to spend operational dollars to cover up a cover up of felony criminal misconduct involving senior APS administrators?

If Marty Esquivel decides to run for
another term on the school board,
he will be endorsed by his crony,
Journal Editor in Chief Kent Walz
and the Journal.

In for a penny, in for a pound.  

wiktionary

81 days until the APS School Board election.



photos Mark Bralley

Korte looking for four more years on APS board

In a report on page C2 this morning, to which I can establish no link, the Journal announced APS School Board Member Kathy Korte's candidacy in the upcoming school board elections.

Korte made her announcement at a "news conference". 

The Journal was invited to the presser on on APS property in the castle keep at 6400 Uptown Blvd.

The press conference was called because Korte was unhappy with earlier coverage in the Journal, link, which she called misogynist Kathy-bashing.

And, to announce her political aspirations and deliver her first campaign speech.  That she spoke as a school board member on school board property is inappropriate.  The conflict of interests could hardly be more egregious.

That nearly 100 people posted comments on the Journal article, indicates there is substantial interest in Korte and, by logical extension, in the upcoming school board elections.

The Journal did not ask or asked and was not told whether Marty Esquivel and Analee Maestas intend to run for re-election.

Esquivel shouldn't run, but he might in order to remain in the drivers seat in oversight over his spending on his own legal defense.

Korte is unhappy in particular because the Journal describer her as "emotional".  She would argue, I suppose, that it is alright for a school board member to be "emotional".  In principle I agree; in her practice thereof, perhaps not so much.

The problem is; during a meeting in secret, Korte voted in favor of, or simply went along with, the spending three quarters of a million operational dollars on fellow school board member Marty Esquivel's legal defense of his ego.

She agreed to pay Esquivel's lawyers to argue that someone (the plaintiff) who was (far less) "emotional" than Korte, during his turn at the public forum at a school board meeting, "disrupted" meetings.

Korte can have it one way or the other, but not both.

Except of course, in Journal coverage.




photo Mark Bralley

Korte's conduct; crosses a line?

APS School Board District and Community Relations Chair Kathy Korte has "misbehaved", again, Journal, link;

During an emotional outburst at last week’s Albuquerque Public Schools board meeting, member Kathy Korte said she is “so goddamn grateful she (her eldest of four children, a high school senior) is leaving the public schools” system at the end of the school year.

Board member Don Duran
took a stand on at least one
aspect of Korte's outburst;
“It does not do us any good 
in our discourse over public 
education to use poor language 
or to curse other people, or 
to curse at all.”

Then he walked back his criticism; pointing out it that he doesn't want to tell other school board members what to do.

School Board Member Lorenzo Garcia, according to the Journal, has no recollection of the outburst, despite his position at her elbow and what appears to his full attention to her.

He can, if he would like to refresh his memory, review the videotape of the meeting, link, click on video, November 5th meeting, FF to 1:34:20.

The rest of the board "could not be reached" by the Journal Monday.

Korte has a history of "misbehavior".  The Journal pointed to some of it;

• Korte ... has become emotional on issues in past meetings
• Korte has made controversial statements before. In July, she referred to Rep. Paul Pacheco ... as a “traitor”...
• Korte and board president Analee Maestas traded barbs over emails in April in a dispute ...
• Last December, she irked Esquivel and then-Superintendent Winston Brooks when she belittled the $1 million Broad Prize for Urban Education ...

Misbehavior is misbehavior only if it is prohibited by applicable standards of conduct.

Korte is one of the seven senior-most role models of standards of conduct that explicitly prohibit disrespectful behavior; student standards of conduct; the standards she and board established and enforce upon students; a nationally recognized, accepted and respected code of ethical conduct.

Korte's solution;

"I'll put a penny in the cuss jar ..."

So, when a student yells out;

I'm so goddamn grateful that the bell is about to ring.

A penny in the cuss jar should even things up.

As an utter aside, but during her outburst, Korte admits her children can't type, and blamed APS. This is only noteworthy because Korte has oft mentioned her conviction that parents need to step up to their own responsibilities in the education of their children.  

Korte, moments after attacking photojournalist Mark Bralley.

The Journal chose to not mention Korte's attack on a reporter at a school board meeting, link, though they did report on it at the time, link.

The Journal is yet to report that Bralley is suing Korte and the district in federal court over an abundance of violations of his civil rights.

The suit will cost taxpayers at least, hundreds of thousand of dollars - yet the Journal doesn't find it newsworthy enough to investigate and report upon.






photos Mark Bralley

Esquivel defense; record setting expensive

I will of course, bow to controverting evidence.

In the abject absence of any evidence to the contrary I aver;

No member of the leadership of the APS;

neither superintendent nor school board member

has ever spent more operational dollars, than has

APS school board member and Defendant Marty Esquivel in his own defense.

The ultimate loss to classrooms nears, may surpass a million dollars.

Newsworthy?  Apparently it is not, not in the eyes of those who run the Journal, KRQE, KOAT, KOB TV and the DCF.

Without any oversight
but self-oversight and  
subordinate oversight,
Esquivel and the board,
in in secret meetings
they refuse to record,
have already squandered
money enough to pay for
a new superintendent and
the golden parachute.

Money enough to hire 20 teachers for a year.

Money enough to hire twice as many social workers.

... in defense of his ego and the APS education/litigation complex; a local multimillion dollar a year, family industry.

There is no explanation for the relentless refusal of Journal Editor in Chief Kent Walz, local news directors and website publishers, to investigate and report upon the ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS except their complicity in and or complacency over the cover up of that crisis.

If only to report that there is no scandal because there is no crisis; it's all good.

Why wouldn't an investigation and report on high standards and honest accountability in spending of more than a billion tax dollars a year, be newsworthy?

Seriously, the election of three new school board members happens in 106 days; three months.   How is it not newsworthy that the people's trust and treasure are protected or not, by meaningful standards of conduct and competence, and honest, actual accountability to them?

Why. if there are those standards, if there is that actual, honest accountability, is there no link to it?

Why can't any one of all of the Kings horses and all the Kings (wo)men, wikilink;

the board, the administration, the Journal, the affiliates of the NM Broadcasters Assoc, the publishers of the DCF, 

point to a link to meaningful standards of executive and administrative conduct and competence, and to actual, honest accountability to those standards?

Their record is of the trifecta of public corruption and incompetence;

inadequate reporting of
inadequate enforcement of
inadequate standards.

Recent Meyners & Co audit.

The fact that a school board member can spend a million dollars to prolong and postpone the inevitable consequences of his own incompetence and corruption, is proof.  How much more would they have to spend to prove they cannot be held accountable?  How many more than a million dollars spent in defense of an ego, must be spent before finally too much has been spent?

.    .    .   .   .   .   .   .    .    .    .   .   .   .   .   .    .    .    .   .   .   .   .   .

There are ethically redacted records of findings of investigations into felony criminal misconduct involving senior APS administrators in and around the leadership of APS publicly funded private police force.circa 2007   Not that those "public records" exists; but that they could be produced if the leadership of the APS was inclined to be candid, forthright and honest with stake and interest holders.

All of the unredacted findings are in the hands of school board members, including Esquivel, and their multitude of lawyers.  A million dollars buy a lot of lawyers.  It buys a lot of lawyers sans qualms over litigating against the public interests.

Operations dollars are being squandered to this day, in an effort to prevent the people from seeing public records of public corruption and incompetence in the highest levels of the leadership of the APS.

Who ever among the media circus that is the River City press, gets Marty Esquivel, or any board member, senior administrator or any one of their quarrel of lawyers to explain "why"

it is in the public best interests and not their own,
to spend operational dollars hand over fist,
to keep ethical redactions of those records secret?

wins.

... a modicum of redemption.

Some one of them will be the first to tell the truth.
All of the rest of them will be among the last.
Some one of them will be the very, very last.




photo Mark Bralley

"National Search Wanted; District Can Expect to Pay More for New APS Superintendent"

read the headline in the Journal, Tuesday, July 10, 2007, link,

The Supt was leaving over a scandal in the leadership of APS'
publicly funded private police force.

• "It's going to cost some money, and it's probably going to cost more money than we pay Beth Everitt," board member Marty Esquivel said.

• Everitt, whose current salary is $183,740, insisted her decision to leave was not due to recent controversies that have rocked the district ...

• Albuquerque Mayor Martin Chávez weighed in ... "We have a school district that's in a crisis," he said. "It's going to require somebody who's not afraid to make enemies, including on the board."

• (Everitt) first told the school board at a closed-door meeting early Monday, where it was discussing the lawsuit against the district filed by former APS Police Chief Gil Lovato and Everitt's upcoming annual evaluation.

• "My feeling was we were going to extend the superintendent's contract and the board was feeling the same way about extending her contract," said Maes, the board's president.

It's like déjà vu, all over again.  

Yogi Berra

Is truth telling by government a principle worth fighting for?

I have long averred; the sacrifices made in defense of a principle and the intrinsic value of the principle correlate directly.  Causally, even.

In simpler terms; the greater the principle, the greater the sacrifices people will be willing to make to defend it, and coincidentally the greater the sacrifices that will be needed to be made, to defend it.

That simple math is complicated by a few variables.  The most obvious of those is; if no one knows there is a battle going on, they cannot be expected to show up.

There is an important principle under assault.

If they knew, the people who believe in that principle would step up to defend it.  They would show up.

That principle is;

the people have a right to know the truth about the spending of resources and the wielding of power belonging fundamentally to the people.

The entire truth belongs to the people.  The people have agreed, that under some select circumstances, politicians and public servants can and should "redact" records before producing them to public knowledge.

Self-redaction of public records of public service is nonsense on its face.

If an inspection of public records act were written from scratch, who in their right mind would propose allowing pols and public servants to self-redact the record of their own public service?  They would be laughed out of the meeting.

The only purpose self-redaction in public records and open meetings law is to prove to us;

the people have lost control over their power and resources.  

Our power and our resources are no longer any of our business.

If we don't like it, we can sue them.  We can sue them and their teams of lawyers with their unlimited budgets for cost is no object litigation in order to create for themselves, exceptions from the law.

For as long as unlimited public resources are available to politicians and public servants who want to hide the truth, the truth will be hard to find.

There is no legitimate agenda for governmental reform that does not move forward on the day the people have access to the ethically redacted truth about the spending of their resources and the exercise of their power.

Case in point;

• Seven years ago, the Journal exposed felony public corruption and incompetence in the leadership of the Albuquerque Public Schools Police force, link.

• At least three investigations were completed, of allegations of felony criminal misconduct involving senior APS administrators.

• The findings of those investigations are being hidden from public knowledge by the APS School Board, their superintendent and their lawyers, to this day.

• The findings of the self-investigation done by the APS Police force leadership, have not been turned over to the DA, to this day.  Statutes of limitation on felony criminal misconduct have expired

and

• nobody knows about it

The leadership of the APS and the leadership of the local media; the Journal, KRQE, KOAT, KOB TV and now the DCF, do not want the people to know about the squandering of their trust and treasure.

The leadership of the APS and leadership of the media are one and the same in that they are members in a privileged class of people who look after each others interests first.

How else can it be explained that Journal Editor in Chief Kent Walz and the other "media" heavy hitters relentlessly refuse to acknowledge the ethics, standards and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS?

If only to report that there isn't one.

If the school board members and senior administrators are honestly, actually accountable to meaningful standards of conduct and competence, why won't Walz point to those standards and to that honest accountability and to, what a monumental achievement they are considering their record.

Honest accountability in the leadership of the APS was replaced long ago, with legal weaselry and a profound lack of oversight*.

*Self-oversight and subordinate oversight over their spending on their own legal defenses are not oversight; they are oxymora.

It's time to fight.  Pick a side. Cowboy up.

All that is necessary for evil to prevail in the world
is for good people to do nothing.  Burke derived

If you, and or someone you know, believe that as a matter of a principle worth defending;

it is wrong for the leadership of the APS to use dollars otherwise destined for classrooms, to fund cost is no object efforts to hide the ethically redacted truth about the spending of your resources and the exercise of your power

and are willing to stand up for what you believe in for two minutes, the time, the day and the place are;

5:00 Wednesday, November 19, 2014,
the public forum at the next school board meeting link.

photo Mark Bralley

Journal headline; "Intimidation, retaliation claims preceded Brooks departure"

no shit!*

*Expression said to people who state the obvious. 

Our Journal comes this morning, link, with blockbuster coverage of problems in the Winston Brooks administration.

Talk about a day late and mile shy.

The dollar short; the Journal concedes;

APS has refused requests by FOG and the Journal to make Padilla’s report public, citing attorney-client privilege and the personnel matters exception to the state’s Inspection of Public Records Act.

There has never been question or doubt about the "how" APS relentlessly refuses to be candid, forthright and honest with the people whose resources they spend and whose power they wield;

• attorney-client privilege and 

(drum roll ...)

• "personnel" matters

The question is not how they hide the truth.  The question is why they need to hide the truth?

Why do they refuse to be (as) candid, forthright and honest with the communities they serve (as the law will allow)?

Why won't he ask, why?

Why don't school board members have to justify hiding the truth from stake and interest holders beyond the requirements of the law?


Why won't Journal Editor in Chief Kent Walz ask them why they refuse to provide as much candor, forthrightness and honesty as the law will allow?

Whose interests are being protected by legal weaselry and it's journalistic equivalent?

School board members don't have to justify their public service because they have the press in their pocket; they are in cahoots.  That, and they don't answer questions at school board meetings.

"A stipulation of the district’s resignation agreement with Brooks says the report will remain in a secret file and that neither side will make disparaging comments about the other."

Why not?  Not, how not? Why not?

It isn’t clear whether Brooks and his attorney were made aware of the report’s contents during the closed meetings in which they negotiated his buyout and resignation with the board.

Why not? Not how not? Why not?

"APS attorney Art Melendres said ...
Melendres wrote ...
In his letter, Melendres said ...
Melendres said ...

Every time "Melendres says"
dollars that could be spent in
classrooms, flow into his and
Modrall's pockets instead.

... cha-ching ...

... cha-ching ...

... cha-ching ...

In the best interests of students,
how exactly?




photos Mark Bralley

APS School Board will meet in secret tonight

According to their agenda, link, the APS School Board will meet in secret tonight;

"... for the Purpose of Discussing Contents of Competitive Sealed Proposals Solicited Pursuant to the Procurement Code Regarding RFP #15-034SS-SL, Superintendent Search Services (Action)"

I suppose there are a number of good and ethical reasons to meet in secret.

There is no good and ethical reason to not record the meeting.

The leadership of the APS do not record their meetings in secret by their own deliberate decision.

What if tonight; after the doors have closed,

one of them says; OK vender D has offered the largest bribe;
I move that we accept their proposal.
And some other one of them says; I second that motion.
And then they vote to accept it unanimously.

It would be nice, if you were them, to have a record that proved that conversation never took place; should someone seriously allege that it did.

Conversely, it's nice to not have a recording if conversations like that do take place.

It would be nice to have a record that was accessible to a court of competent jurisdiction.

If there was a recording made of the in secret Audit Committee meeting on August 25, 2010, there would be proof of a violation of the law when they ejected Mark Bralley and I.

photo Mary Ellen Broderick

Speaking of photojournalist Mark Bralley, it is interesting that the Journal has not reported on his complaints against the leadership of the APS individually and in various combinations, filed in federal court on August 19 of last year, link.  Hundreds of thousands of dollars are in play and the people whose dollars they are, have no idea that the complaints have been filed and litigation is on going - at taxpayer expense.

Modrall on the hook in APS litigation

APS School Board Member and Defendant Marty Esquivel is losing in federal court.  Despite the cost is no object litigation in defense of his ego, Esquivel is losing.  He has no evidence in support of his defense; he has no reliable testimony to support it.

All Esquivel has is; all the lawyers, guns and money he wants, to use to forestall his eventual conviction for as long as the law will allow.

A large part of Esquivel's defense is his contention that he relied upon the advice of his lawyer when he penned what amounted to a lifetime ban on my participation in public meetings of the APS school board.

That would be Esquivel's friend and Modrall lawyer Art Melendres.



Melendres has been APS' lawyer for as long as I can remember.

The APS Modrall relationship has been a long and profitable arrangement for Melendres and Modrall.  To say they are close doesn't begin to cover what, at one time, for a long time, included the Presidents of Modrall and the APS School Board being married to each other.

Modrall has made so much money off taxpayers and APS, that you can't find out how much they have actually made.

In any case, Esquivel was given bad legal advice, and when Esquivel loses, Modrall loses.

The quality of the work Melendres and Modrall is manifest in the Public Participation in Public Meetings Policy and Procedural Directive.  The NM FOG weighed in on its flaws; link.

In any case, one might expect to Melendres advise his friends on the school board and in the senior administration, to continue to spend as much money as it takes to keep their communal fat out of the fire.

The dollars they're spending are dollars which if they weren't being squandered in litigation against student interests, would be being actually spent in student best interests.


It's all a big secret from
interest and stakeholders
because the establishment
media, including former
APS school board heavy
hitter, Modrall wife, and
head of the NM
Broadcasters Assoc
Paula Maes' friends in
the broadcast media, and
everybody's friend in

Journal Editor in Chief Kent Walz and the Journal, steadfastly refuse to investigate and report upon the squandering of the public trust and treasure, even in the face of school board elections and the appointment of the next superintendent.




photos Mark Bralley

"Ex-APS police chief won’t face charges" Journal headline

... albeit down in the very bottom corner of page B6.

I would provide for you, a link, except that a search of the Journal's website using the title does not provide one.

The Journal has now "covered" two former APS Chiefs of Police who were involved in felony criminal misconduct.  They have in common; neither was prosecuted by Bernalillo County District Attorney Kari Brandenburg.

The reasons they were not prosecuted are the same.

Former APS Police Chief Steve Tellez was not prosecuted apparently because the package of evidence and testimony that finally reached the DA (actually a Deputy DA) did not warrant prosecution.

That's fine.  Those are the calls DA's are supposed to make; decisions in the best interests of the people they serve.  I mean seriously; a search warrant executed a month and more after it should have been!

The reason the case of the APS Chief before, Gil Lovato, was not prosecuted was entirely different.  The DA never considered his prosecution one way or the other.    District Attorney Kari Brandenburg never saw the evidence of felony criminal misconduct involving senior APS administrators.

The reason Brandenburg never saw the evidence, and never therefore decided one way or the other, whether the people's interests would be served by criminal prosecution, was because the evidence was deliberately withheld from her examination.

I know she knew they were withholding evidence because we talked about it.  She told me that she was powerless to make APS hand over the evidence. 

The only investigations ever done of allegations of felony criminal misconduct involving senior APS administrators were done by APS' own private investigators and their own police force; a publicly funded private police force accountable directly to, and only to, the leadership of the APS.

The findings of those investigations were never turned over to the DA. They have been hidden behind APS lawyers and unlimited budgets for legal weaselry and litigation, ever since.

Right now, today in fact, taxpayers will spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars on lawyers and litigation against the public interests in APS' ongoing effort to keep public records hidden, in utter disregard for the spirit or the letter of the NM Inspection of Public Records Act.

So why is the fact that Tellez won't be prosecuted, apparently newsworthy, while at the same time the fact that Gil Lovato and others were never prosecuted (and why they were not), is not?

Why is the cover up of a cover up by APS School Board and their lawyers, of felony criminal misconduct involving senior APS administrators, not newsworthy?

Well, it is newsworthy.  If anything ever was, this is.
If the allegations were nonsense, it would be news.  If for no other reason than the number of operational dollars that would be saved if Esquivel and his lawyers actually had a leg, upon which to stand.

So there must be some other reason that Journal Editor in Chief Kent Walz will not investigate and report upon the cover up of the cover up of felony criminal misconduct involving senior APS administrators and the millions of dollars being squandered.

Remember with me, link, it was Walz along with his buddy Defendant Marty Esquivel who got together and bamboozled the NM FOG into giving APS Supt Winston Brooks an award for being a "hero of transparency" while the three of them all knew full well that felonies had been committed, findings had been hidden and statutes of limitation on felony criminal misconduct were expiring.

Kent Walz is not alone of course.  No one in the establishment's press will ask the board to explain why they will not produce ethically redacted records of findings of investigations of allegations of felony criminal misconduct involving senior APS administrators.

If I suggested there is a conspiracy afoot, that would make me a nut, right?




photo Mark Bralley

Esquivel ratchets up your tab

"Your" tab if you are a taxpayer, interest, or stakeholder.

APS School Board Member and Defendant Marty Esquivel is in defense of his own ego, spending operational dollars to argue nonsense and worse.

Operational dollars are dollars that could be, and would be spent in a classroom if they were not being spent to pay one of his lawyer friends a few hundred operational dollars an hour to write as an undisputed material fact;

47.  On two occasions after the issuance of the September 1, 2010 letter, APS police officers caught Plaintiff trying to sneak through a side door at 6400 Uptown Blvd ...

Esquivel's so-called undisputed fact rests on the testimony of the former and now disgraced APS Chief of Police Steve Tellez.

• nothing from the "officers" who allegedly "caught me", and more importantly, 

• nothing in the videotape of the whole thing that Tellez claimed to have watched and then negligently allowed to be destroyed.

I never had an interest in being in that building in defiance of the banishment letter Esquivel and Modrall lawyers wrote; the banishment a federal court judge has already undone.  Being in the building would serve no useful purpose and utterly destroy my own credibility.  In essence, by attempting to enter the building I would have had absolutely nothing to gain and absolutely everything to lose.  It did not happen: one once: not twice.

So I sat with my legal defense for four hours yesterday, and we are not yet done.  The operational dollars that Esquivel is spending on a non-viable but lucrative defense of his ego, are unlimited.  And they are being spent without real oversight by anybody.  Self-oversight and subordinate oversight are not oversight; they are oxymora.

If there is real oversight, why wouldn't they just point to it?

The only protection stake and interest holders have is "trust".  That trust is demanded by people who decide your interests in meetings in secret from you, and that they do not record, by their own deliberate decision.  The manifest failure of the rest of the board to curb his spending is motivated in part by the fact that the all have fat in the fire; their interests are conflicted.

In normal circumstances, a school board member squandering the public trust and treasure would draw the attention of the press.  By press, I mean press in the sense of a human right to communicate facts and ideas worthy of Constitutional protection as imagined by the framers.

The so-called press in River City; the Journal and the affiliate stations of the New Mexico Broadcasters Association and its President and CEO Paula Maes, and now Duke City Fix, don't find it at all newsworthy.

Even in the face of elections, and the appointment of a new superintendent and another golden parachute.