APS leaders finally abandon the Pillars of Character Counts! altogether

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APS Supt. Luis Valentino and the board plan to abandon without justification; APS' student standards of conduct; the Pillars of Character Counts!.

Like them or no; the Pillars of Character Counts! have been APS' student standards of conduct for more than two decades.  They were adopted by a unanimous school board in 1994.  Every year since, by means of the Student Behavior Handbook, students have been told that they are expected to model and promote honest accountability to the pillars, link;Trustworthiness, Respect, Responsibility, Caring, Fairness and Citizenship.

Whether the Pillars should be APS' student standards is moot.  They simply "are".  They "are" until the board changes student standards to some other.

Which is exactly what they intend to do.

They intend to lower student standards from a nationally recognized, accepted and respected code of ethical conduct to;

"Students are expected to be good members of the community".

If that is not a lowering of standards, what is?

Is that really what we need to do right now; lower standards of conduct for students in public schools?  Has anyone asked teachers how they feel about lowering student standards of conduct?

It is scandalous that this decision is being made without public input.

Stake and interest holders are completely in the dark - thanks in no small part to the heavy hitters in River City news; the likes of Journal Editor in Chief Kent Walz, and the owners and news directors at NMBA affiliates KRQE, KOAT and KOB TV.

The decision will be railroaded through at the following meeting.

The school board and their new supt. intend to lower student standards of conduct without ever having to explain why.  They will reject the standards they have been endorsing for two decades without renouncing them.  They won't point to flaws in the CC! model or advantages in their new, lower standard. 

Along with the Character Counts! quilt, link, the Pillars are going to simply disappear from the the student handbook, the fenders APS Police cars, link, and from the bottom of the administrative letterhead.  There will be a simple Stalinesque erasing of the past.

They will lower student standards of conduct rather than be held actually, honestly accountable to higher standards of conduct than the law.  Rather that be held accountable to any standards of conduct requiring truth telling, and character and courage.

This is a momentous decision.

If we really want students to grow into adults who embrace character and courage and honor, someone has to show them what they look like.

To educate a person in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.
Theodore Roosevelt, American adventurer and president (1858-1919)

The formation of character in young people is educationally a different task from and a prior task to, the discussion of the great, difficult ethical controversies of the day.
William J. Bennett, author and former U.S. Secretary of Education (b. 1943)

If we want our children to possess the traits of character we most admire, we need to teach them what those traits are and why they deserve both admiration and allegiance. Children must learn to identify the forms and content of those traits.
again - William J. Bennett

Stake and interest holders have a right to participate in the lowering of expectations for students.

The establishment's so called "press", steadfastly refuse to inform stake and interest holders;

there is an ethics, standards and accountability
crisis in the leadership of the APS
The leadership of the APS can not survive an independent examination and review of their ethics, standards and accountability.

Standards are being lowered; accountability is being diminished.  More operational dollars will be spent on litigation and legal weaselry in an effort to sever them from accountability even to the law.

Nobody, save the readers of this blog will know what's going to happen; what is at stake.

Because Kent Walz is in cahoots; part of a cover up of an ethics and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS.

Complicit is he, in the squandering the people's trust and treasure by the leadership of the APS.





photos Mark Bralley

Luis Valentino's defining moment?

It is unclear at this point, what it is that APS Supt. Luis Valentino has in mind for his presentation during a special school board meeting next Wednesday. The board will meet in special session at 5pm to consider changes to the Student Behavior Handbook.

The handbook is an administrative brainchild.

It is written above the 14th grade level; far above the reading level of even the best student readers.  The handbook is reviewed and approved by the school board.  The annual review, approval and vote has already taken place.  This reconsideration is unprecedented.

The agenda has no public forum; no opportunity for the public to weigh in on the "semantic" changes.  There will be an audio recording made, but it will not be posted on APS award winning website.  A video record will not be made of their faces as they discuss and determine the standards for students, and if you believe in role modeling, their own standards of conduct.

... we don't need no stinkin' input!

The Policy and Instruction Committee is chaired by David Peercy.  Peercy harbors a disregard for public comment that borders on contemptuous.

It is his decision, link, that there will be no public discussion of student and adult standards of conduct.  It is his will that not only will a role modeling clause be not be restored to his standards of conduct; but that there will be no public discussion or review of his determination.

The "semantic" changes Valentino proposes are still secret.  They cannot be linked to from the agenda, link.  My request for them has gone unanswered.  Normally, those are not good signs of impending transparency.  I wouldn't be surprised to find their refusal to publish when they published the agenda, the records that will be discussed and decided upon, violates the Open Meetings Act meetings notice requirements - in spirit if not the letter.

One of Supt. Valentino's greatest responsibilities will be the enforcement and execution of the district's student discipline policies and procedures.  Student discipline is never discussed out loud.  Solving problems is hampered by an historical practice of first hiding the problem and then trying to fix it.

Part of the student discipline problem is that for at least the last 21 years, there has not been a single school board member or senior administrator who was obviously accountable to the same standards of conduct they establish and enforce upon students.  Their public record is of the most egregious lack of accountability, spending untold operational dollars on efforts to escape earned consequences.

There has never been in two decades, a senior administrative or executive role model of student standards of conduct.  Student standards of conduct happen to be the Pillars of Character Counts!, and have been since they were adopted in 1994.

If there were ever anyone, even one person, who held themselves honestly and actually accountable to the same standards as students, there would be a record of that accountability.  Accountability, real honest to God accountability creates a record.  They have no record of accountability against their will.

The buck stops with Luis Valentino when the need is for a senior administrator to stand up and tell students;

this is how we expect you to behave at school.

and then show them what that looks like.

There is no such thing as do as I say, not as I do.  People act like there is; every generation expects the next generation to be the first generation to hold itself accountable to higher standards of conduct, but it has never worked for the same reasons it does not work now and will not work ever.

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Whether he likes it or not;
whether he admits it or not;
whether he embraces it or not,

Dr Luis Valentino is now, the
senior-most administrative role model of student standards of conduct; whatever they are.

Because the school board adopted and has not rescinded the adoption of the Pillars of Character Counts!; it is up to Luis Valentino to stand up in front of students and tell them that they are expected to model and promote honest accountability to the Pillars of Character Counts!; nationally recognized, accepted and respected higher standards of conduct.

There is no such thing as an inconspicuous role model.  The whole idea is to set an example.  APS students are in need of role models of accountability to whatever standards are established and enforced upon them.  It could be argued, students have a right to positive role models and role modeling in and from their senior-most role models.

Valentino's problem is that there are double standards of conduct in the APS;

• one for students; standards than are higher standards than the law, and 

• one for politicians and powerful public servants; the law (subject to spending without limit and without oversight on litigation and legal weaselry the purpose of which is to escape accountability even to the law).

Valentino cannot continue the double standard.  I say that as a matter of conscience not of practicality.  From a practical standpoint, he could easily continue the double standard and continue to get away with it; continuing to enjoy the cover of the Journal and NMBA affiliate station news directors.

There is a better than even chance that the "semantic" changes that Valentino plans will in fact lower the expectations for students.  The last time the board met in similar circumstances, it was to remove the role modeling clause from their own standards of conduct.

The only information we are given about the changes he intends is;

In the interim, Administration would like to make semantic changes to the current Handbook to better reflect our expectations of the document to serve as a guide or a reference for students on how to conduct themselves. It should serve to empower students to make decisions. The student handbook would reflect our expectations of students and if those expectations are not met to outline the appropriate consequences.

It appears there will be a defining moment early in Luis Valentino's superintendency.

As far as I can see, his choices are;
end the hypocrisy by;

• restoring the role modeling clause and expectation to their standards of conduct, because 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.

• lowering student standards of conduct far enough the he and the rest will hold themselves accountable as role models of accountability to them, or

• explaining to students in words they can understand; why it is; they expected to hold themselves accountable to higher standards of conduct than their senior-most role models.

or continue the hypocrisy by

• continuing to stonewall in spite of the student standards of conduct, of which he is the senior-most administrative role model, which prohibit all acts, including half-truths, out-of-context statements, and even silence, that are intended to create beliefs or leave impressions that are untrue or misleading*.

*such as,

the leadership of the APS is actually, honestly accountable to higher standards of conduct, just like students.

photo Mark Bralley

Will Walz cover for Winter in yet another election?

Former APS interim Supt Brad Winter is running for re-election to city council.  This despite the fact that he played a pivotal role in the cover up of state and federal felony criminal misconduct involving senior APS administrators.

The proof of the allegation is the abject lack of any evidence to the contrary.  Accountability creates a record;  a cover up does not.

No one has ever denied that the activity reported in the Journal in February 2007, link, constituted felony criminal misconduct.  You can't take cash from evidence and spend it as your own without committing a felony under state law, and you can't do NCIC criminal background checks to harass whistleblowers and vet deputy superintendent's girl friends without committing a felony under federal law.

None of the felonies, not one, were ever investigated by any bonafide agency of law enforcement, ever.  The leadership of the APS simply decided to handle it all "in house".

New flash for the leadership of the APS; you don't have the authority to make the decision whether to prosecute felonies; that decision lies with the DA; who never saw a shred of evidence.

The criminal misconduct was covered up.  It is still being covered up.  To this day, operational dollars are being spent underwriting a bunch of legal weaselry in order to keep ethically redacted public records from being made public.

Winter knowingly permitted or
negligently allowed corruption in the
leadership of the APS police.  Here
seen with Steve Tellez who oversaw
the investigation of corruption and
incompetence of which he was part.

All Brad Winter has to do to prove he didn't orchestrate a cover up of felony criminal misconduct is to demonstrate that he ever did anything at all to bring the allegations of felony criminal misconduct to any agency of law enforcement.

There is no such thing as an investigation done by bonafide law enforcement that does not produce a single record.

That there is no evidence of any criminal investigation is evidence of a cover up.   Legitimate investigations by bonafide agencies produce records.  The crimes were either investigated or they were not.  If they were not; that is a cover up.  If they were, where is the record of the investigation?

Winter's cover up has been enabled by the Journal and Editor in Chief Kent Walz.

Through many school board, mill levy and bond issue elections; Walz has dutifully declined to investigate and report on the cover up and the ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS, of which the cover up is just one part. 

All Kent Walz has to do to prove he isn't part of the cover up is to investigate and report on the outcome of the story the Journal first broke.

He's in a bind.  Walz can't report credibly on the cover up without first reporting credibly on his failure to report on the cover up heretofore.

And he would look like a real ass for giving form APS Supt. Winston Brooks a hero of transparency award in spite of Brooks' part in the cover up of felony criminal misconduct.

A contrary truth would be completely exonerating.  Walz can't point to it because it doesn't exist.




photos Mark Bralley

Persistent Journal editorial ignorance

Journal editors come this morning, link, with a reminder that middle schools need attention.  Elementary schools are in the spotlight over reading; high schools are lit by concern over graduation rates, but middle schools are falling through the cracks (in Journal coverage too).

In their post, the editors wrote of "disciplinary problems including truancy".  With respect to "discipline problems"; truancy is the least of them.  Truancy's impact is on the truant.  The impact of out of control students and chronically disruptive students impact everybody.

The editors relentlessly refuse to deal with the truth about student discipline and chronically disruptive students in APS schools.  Their record does not a include a single report on discipline in general in APS classrooms, hallways and campuses.

APS chooses to not report on student discipline.  APS does not gather, compile, nor publish data on student discipline;

• because the data is upsetting and

• because the data reflects an administrative failure*; teachers are supposed to be teaching not dealing with chronically disruptive students.

*If the board and their supt. could somehow blame teachers for the discipline problems in schools, they would in a heartbeat.   They have to hide the problem because its their problem; the failure to maintain discipline in schools is theirs; an administrative and executive failure.

Stake and interest holders depend on the press and their sacred obligation to inform the democracy.

The people's trust in the leadership of the APS and in the media has been betrayed, not only by the leadership of the APS in hiding the truth about discipline in schools, but also by the so called press; the Journal, and NMBA affiliates KRQE, KOAT, and KOB TV.

Not one of them can point to any investigation and report the did ever, on student discipline in particular, or to standards and accountability in general, in the APS.

It is fair to hold Journal editors more accountable than anyone.  No one is more invested in covering up an ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS than Journal Editor in Chief Kent Walz.

Walz went so far to rub it in, as to bamboozle the NM FOG to giving their coveted Dixon Award for transparency to APS Supt. Winston Brooks while he, and they, were hiding public records including evidence of involvement by senior APS administrators in state and federal felony criminal misconduct.

Enough is enough already.




photo Mark Bralley

The first responsible use of power ...

... is to protect that power from abuse.

Nothing is more important than protecting the people's power and resources from abuse.  Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

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Monday last, upon becoming the superintendent of the Albuquerque Public Schools officially, Luis Valentino was given control over an enormous amount of power.

Socrates would have us believe Valentino will be corrupted by that power, absolutely.

Abraham Lincoln suggested; 
if you want to test a man's character, give him power.

But not just power.  If you want to test a man's character you have to give him power and temptation; the opportunity to abuse the power without consequence.  It is temptation, not power, that tests our character.

The circumstances in which Dr. Valentino finds himself include opportunities to abuse power without consequence.  Luis Valentino's character is under assault; not "in question" - under assault. There's temptation everywhere he looks.

There is only one way out.  There is only one way to escape temptation and that is to eliminate it.

1.  Establish standards; clear, unequivocal and high enough to protect the public interests, and then

2.  Establish swift and certain enough accountability, that escaping consequences for failing to meet those standards, is regarded as a practical impossibility.

Dr Valentino needs to act decisively and rather immediately, or he will appear to intend to do nothing at all. 

The longer there are insufficient standards and accountability in the leadership of the APS, the more likely it will appear that Valentino's ultimate intention is to not make waves.  His character really will come "in question".

"When plunder becomes a way of life ..."

My attention has been drawn to a years ago post and the following;

"When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it"

Frederic Bastiat - The Law

Then, as now.

Should APS spend taxdollars on legal weaselry? Should any politician or public servant?

Legal weaselry; Juris Mustelidae;

escaping liability for criminal and civil misconduct, 
by exploiting  loopholes and technicalities,
to get the better of justice.

APS school board members and senior administrators routinely use operational funds* to underwrite their legal defenses.

*dollars that should be, could be and would be spent in classrooms were they not being spent without limit and without oversight in litigation against the public interests. 

It would be fairer to say, they routinely use operational funds to buy admissions of no guilt, in order that politicians and powerful public servants who break the law, never, ever have to admit that they did anything wrong.

Don't believe it?  Search for a public record describing any limit on spending in defense of one school board member's ego.  Search for a public record of oversight,  Neither exist in any public record. There isn't any limit; there isn't any oversight, link.


It represents a failure of character and of courage; if you ask me.  And I can't for the life of me, understand why we put up with it; in APS, or from any politician or any public servant.

Why are we letting them spend our money to escape the consequences of squandering our trust and treasure?  It is irrational.

Journal uses D word - oh my!

In the Journal this morning, link, a report on a Legislative Finance Committee report suggesting that middle schools have slipped through the cracks; receiving little attention compared to emphasis placed on elementary school reading and high school graduation issues.

The reporter doesn't work for the Journal; the story came from the AP.  That explains how the d word must have slipped through;

... disciplinary problems tend to increase during the middle school years.

Were the Journal honest, they would investigate and report upon discipline in public schools; historically, contemporaneously and in future.

They, Editor in Chief Kent Walz et al,
have instead, been covering up problems for years; steadfastly refusing to report that APS doesn't even gather data on discipline issues; preferring to pretend they don't exist while addressing them.

Hiding a problem while trying to mitigate or eliminate it, makes the solution exponentially more difficult to find - if not impossible.

Trying to hide problems while solving them is central to APS' lack of success in problem solving in general.  Ask anyone who knows.




photo Mark Bralley

APS Stealth Supt?

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If you search the Journal for APS Supt. Luis Valentino, link, you will find; About 33 results in (0.27 seconds).

Not one of them has to do with the fact that he is now the superintendent of the Albuquerque Public Schools, the future of nearly 90,000 of this community's sons and daughters and fully a fifth of the entire state budget.

Why is that not newsworthy?  At least as newsworthy as the smashing of a number of ridiculously expensive windows at three schools, link.  The change in the hands on the tiller was not reported by KRQE, or KOB TV.  KOAT posted pre-coverage, link.

Their lack of coverage strikes me as inexplicable,
not that any of them will ever have to.

Any response except yes, means no, Dr Valentino

If the question is;

are you ready, willing and able to bear the mantle of senior- most administrative role model of student standards of conduct?

any answer except yes, means no.
No answer at all, means no.
Stonewalling, means no.

Role model;

a person looked to by others 
as an example to be imitated.

In the case of APS Supt. Luis Valentino;

a person looked to by students
as an example to be imitated.

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If Luis Valentino intends to continue to expect students to "model and promote" honest accountability to a nationally recognized, accepted and respected code of ethical conduct, he is inescapably obligated to show them what that looks like.

If he says nothing; if he does nothing, indicating that he intends to step up as a role model of honest accountability to the standards of conduct he and they establish and enforce upon students, his answer is no;
he does not intend to step up as the senior-most administrative role model of student standards of conduct.

Inconspicuous role modeling is oxymoronic; there is no such thing.  Some where, some time, some place, you have to stand up, draw attention to yourself, and model the behavior you hope to encourage.

Every generation expects the next generation to be the first generation to hold themselves honestly accountable to meaningful standards of conduct.

Every generation tells the next generation about a young man, a new hatchet and a cherry tree, in the hope that the story will inspire them to embrace higher standards of conduct.  It is nonsense on its face and everybody knows it.  It just that we would rather offer them fiction than our own personal example.  We would just rather not be held actually, honestly accountable to higher standards of conduct than the law.

My every effort to find out if Luis Valentino has the character and the courage to deal ethically and honorably with the double standards of conduct in the APS have been stymied by "protocol".  Unless I want to spring out of a bush somewhere else,  "Protocol" prevents me from asking Luis Valentino, what are his intentions?

Until he answers the question, his own individual position on the role modeling of honest accountability as a role model will remain indistinguishable from those who will not hold themselves honestly accountable to higher standards of conduct, simply because they cannot summon the character and the courage it takes to so do.

Valentino expects all to "give their best" and it's small consolation

APS Supt. Luis Valentino penned and posted greetings recently on APS' award winning website, link.  Among them he writes;

We will strive to share clear expectations – the first being that giving your best is the expectation for all.

a manifestly "unclear" expectation on its face.

Many will assume that Valentino expects that all will do their best for students.  But that isn't what he said.

Consider APS Chief of Police Steve Gallegos.  He is doing his best; and his best is good enough.  He is doing his best to cover up a cover up of felony criminal misconduct involving senior APS administrators.

After years of lying about a police force self-investigation, the district finally admitted; oh yeah, I guess we did self-investigate a few state and federal felonies.

Steve Gallegos did that investigation.  He did his best.  And now, his findings; public records all, have gone missing.  He doesn't have a single scrap of paper that might have on it, the names of senior APS administrators who were part of felony criminal misconduct.

He gave them all to the the guy he investigated* Steve Tellez.

*The corruption and incompetence in the leadership of the APS police force could not have gone unnoticed by the deputy chief.  Steve Tellez could not have not known.  Unless he so mind-numbingly incompetent to notice he was swirling in a cesspool,  he knew.

Any honest investigation would have pointed to Tellez.  But since he had been in the meantime promoted to chief, it wouldn't look too good for Beth Everitt or Winston Brooks to see Tellez held accountable for his incompetence and or corruption.

Knew or should have known

So Steve Gallegos did his best;
he turned over to Tellez,
everything that might implicate
him in felony public corruption
and incompetence;
all of his findings.

Later, Gallegos would find himself
promoted to deputy chief, where he
would suffer a vote of no confidence
from the rank and file, and then,findings still missing, be promoted to chief.

Asked for the public records of his supposed contact with the DA's office at the time; evidence that the crimes were not being covered up, Gallegos claims it all happened over the phone.

Gallegos is still doing his best; still chief of a publicly funded private police force. Not a police department; a police force;

• accountable to no one,
• certificated by no one,
• certified by no one;

taking orders directly from, and only from, the leadership of the APS.

They get away with it all because the establishment's media is doing their best as well.

Journal Editor in Chief Kent Walz could have had the same reporter who exposed the scandal in 2007, link to investigate and report on the cover up.  But not without exposing his complacency or complicity in the cover up.

Colleen Heild still investigates and reports for the Journal.

Walz hasn't assigned her to uncover the cover up.


He won't.

He's doing his best; but not for students.

And don't think that goes unappreciated by the corrupt, the incompetent, and those who want to cover it all up, in the leadership of the APS.




photos, save Gallegos, Mark Bralley

Valentino talks collapse - "protocol"

For awhile, there was reason to believe that APS Supt. Valentino and I were going to sit down and engage in open and honest two-way communication regarding the ethics, standards and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS.

Following an effort to actually schedule the meeting, I have been informed;

it is protocol that the superintendent does not meet with anyone when there is a lawsuit pending or in process.

I have to admit, there is a lawsuit "in process".  The district is a million dollars into a non-viable defense of a former school board member's ego.

The protocol,

like every other protocol that prevents superintendents and school board members from finding themselves in situations where they can be expected to respond in good faith to legitimate questions,

is their own creation. No one more powerful than they, ordered them to refuse to respond candidly, forthrightly and honestly to legitimate questions about the public interests and or about their public service.  They wrote it and they will enforce it when it suits their interests.

That there is an ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS is evident to anyone who knows their record.  Any examination, however cursory or in depth, of their record shows it is one of a lack of accountability even to the law.

Ethics, in this context, are any standards of conduct higher than the law; the lowest standards of conduct acceptable to civilized human beings.  There is a (higher) standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS.  Senior administrators involved in state and federal felony criminal misconduct have escaped accountability to the criminal justice system, and continue to spend operational funds to prolong their escape.

The crisis become a scandal when operational dollars, dollars that should be, would be, and could be spent in classrooms instead, are spent on litigation and legal weaselry in order to hide public records from public knowledge.

Tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars into litigation, and they have yet to articulate even one good and ethical reason that the records they want to hide, the Caswell report and others, actually need to be hidden from public knowledge.  The only interests served are those who committed felonies and those who have been covering up their crimes ever since.

The big rub comes, in my opinion, when you consider both;

• student standards of conduct and 
• their individual and collective obligations as role models of honest accountability to those standards.

Student standards of conduct, link, are clear and unequivocal on the subject of accountability.

You hold yourself honestly, actually accountable to ethical standards of conduct, or you forfeit your good character.

There are those who would argue that telling children an old fable about a young boy, a shiny hatchet and a cherry tree, will inspire them to character and courage.

If we really want children to grow into adults who embrace character and courage and honor, someone is going to have to show them what it looks like.

Every generation expects the next generation to be the first generation to hold itself honestly accountable to meaningful standards of conduct.

It's one thing to claim to be accountable to standards of conduct.  It's a whole different thing to be able to point to the due process by which even the most powerful can be held accountable, even against their will.  The leadership of the APS cannot point to due process for complainants.  Their record is diametrically opposite.

How then, can people who are manifestly unaccountable even to the law, serve as "role models" of accountability to ethical standards of conduct?  By their own admission, their own code of ethics is utterly unenforceable; much less a nationally recognized, accepted and respected code of ethical conduct.

The crisis became a scandal when when the media picked the side of their friends in leadership of the APS over any effort to hold them honestly accountable for conduct and competence in their public service.

The Journal, KRQE, KOAT, and KOB TV have a record.  Their record does not include an investigation and report on ethics, standards and accountability in the leadership of the APS.  This though they have known about the crisis for years.  They know because I told them; over and over and over.

There are two reasons as far as I can see, that the local media would legitimately choose to not investigate and report upon the ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS;

1. there is no ethics, standards and accountability crisis, or
2. an ethics, standards and accountability crisis is not newsworthy.

With respect to the second; if there is an ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS, of any order of magnitude, it self-evidently newsworthy.

With respect to the first; every few years the district goes to voters for approval of hundreds of millions of dollars in mill levies and bond issues.  If there really are high enough standards to protect the public interests in the public schools, and if there is actual, honest accountability to them, how is that not information of interest to voters?

And even if Journal Editor in Chief Kent Walz can't see why actual accountability to meaningful standards within public service is not newsworthy, surely someone in APS' million dollar a year public relations department would find it worthy of publication; hell, it would be on electronic billboards all over town.

The leadership of the APS, Kent Walz and the Journal editors, and Paula Maes' friends among news directors and owners of the NM Broadcasters Assoc. affiliate stations, have made a deliberate decision; they are aiding and abetting a cover up of an ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of an organization that burns through more than a billion tax dollars a year.

All any of the has to do to refute the allegation of a lack of accountability is to

• point to any evidence at all that there is actual, honest accountability to meaningful standards of conduct for administrators and school board members.

All any of them has to do to refute the allegation that their lack of attention is not due to complicity or even complacency, is to explain how the crisis is "not newsworthy".

"You pick a side when you don't pick a side."

unk

All that is necessary for the leadership of the APS to continue to cover up their crisis, is for Journal readers and TV news viewers to do nothing."

Edmund Burke derived

Put what pressure you can on the media, to investigate and report on ethics, standards and accountability in the APS. 

Do it now - lest you forget.
Journal, link
KRQE, link
KOAT, link
KOB, link

APS to spend $2M on cameras for schools

Albuquerque schools will be getting about $2 million to be used toward new camera and alarm systems, link.

It's a good idea; money well spent.
They should have done it long ago.

 Recently fired Chief Steve Tellez
reported directly to Brad Winter.

School security wasn't improved long ago, because when APS COO Brad Winter had a half a million dollars to spend on cameras and security, he decided to spend them to create the most heavily surveilled and secure space in the entire district; their castle keep at 6400 Uptown Blvd.

More officers "guard" the administration than guard any school.  As many as three of them at a time, guard board members and senior administrators during public meetings and fora.

The APS police force answers to the leadership of the APS; the police force is publicly funded private police force accountable to no one but the administration and school board; they is uncertified,  unaccredited, unaccountable to anyone except the supt and board.  The MOU under the Bernalillo County Sheriff's Office is ignored as a matter of routine.

So many dollars were spent on "security" here;
they won't tell you how many.

Winter, and they, spent a quarter of a million dollars bullet proofing the dais behind which board cringe during public fora, just in case "somebody" starts shooting at them in support of his belief that they should be better role models of the standards of conduct they establish and enforce upon students, link.

Brad Winter was asked, over and over and over, for a candid, forthright and honest accounting of spending during a time when auditors had uncovered the trifecta of public corruption, embezzlement and fraud;

1. inadequate standards, and
2. inadequate accountability and 
3. inadequate record keeping

He stonewalled and now he has gotten away with it.

Taxpayers will never know,
at least from Brad Winter,
how badly their trust and
treasure were squandered.

Journal readers and watchers
of TV "news" will remain equally ignorant.

Shame on Journal Editor in Chief Kent Walz and his ilk among the affiliates of Paula Maes' NM Broadcasters Association;establishment's media, for their ongoing aide and abet in the cover up of the ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS.




photos Mark Bralley

Higher standards or not? Let's settle it; at once and for all.

The likelihood of success in any endeavor depends on two broad variables;

1. those which are largely or completely beyond control, and
2. those variables over which we are largely or completely within control.

Of variables over which we have, in this case, absolute control, I submit that there are none more important than standards and accountability.

Clearly an organization like the Albuquerque Public Schools has to have for their human resources, (high enough) standards of conduct and competence.  It is equally clear that if standards are not enforceable, the highest and lowest standards are indistinguishable in their effect.

By definition; "higher standards" means higher than the law.  "The law" is the standard that every higher standard is higher than.

There is a lot of talk about "higher standards" of conduct and competence for politicians and public servants.  It is only talk.  "Higher standards" are utterly unenforceable in a court of law.   School board members and administrators can be held accountable for their conduct and competence, only in courts of law; the lowest standards of conduct acceptable to civilized human beings. 

Were that not crippling enough, the table can be further tilted by means of limitless spending without oversight on "legal weaselry"; an option available to pols and public servants in proportion to their power.

The "leadership" of the APS refuses to talk openly and honestly about ethics, standards and accountability.  It has been fully two decades since the board adopted higher standards of conduct for students.  It has been almost a decade since the voted unanimously to strike the role modeling clause from their own standards of conduct.  It had read;

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

Ever since, there have been double standards of conduct in the APS.  Students are expected to model and promote honest accountability to a nationally recognized, accepted and respect code of ethics.  School board members and administrators are only accountable to the law, and spend millions of dollars a year in efforts to escape even that.

APS image

We are at a fork in the road.

Monday next, incoming Supt.
Luis Valentino will join us there to lead the district down one road or the other.

The fork to same old, same old requires nothing of anyone.  It simply requires paying no notice to ethics, standards and accountability in the APS.

Walz, caught by macquigg

Kent Walz, the Journal and the establishment's media are content with same old, same old.  I can't imagine them actually lobbying in favor of inadequate standards, inadequate accountability, and inadequate record keeping, but you sure won't see them advocating for the other path.

Unclear still, how Valentino feels about higher standards of conduct and role modeling.  The question was kept from him at the public fora where he and other candidates answered questions.

Progress down the right path requires nothing of Valentino except a single act of courage; point to a time, a day, and a place where there will be a public meeting.  Allow open and honest two-way communication with stake and interest holders on ethics, standards and accountability in the APS; from students to school board members.

Those who would maintain low standards and selective accountability cannot defend their positions out loud.  They have been successful only because they have hidden their indefensible position behind a stonewall.

They have been successful only because of Kent Walz and his ilk.

APS Police Chief blames predecessor for records snafu

photo cmacq

APS Police Chief Steve Gallegos says
the current snafu over public records
of an investigation into felony criminal
misconduct involving senior APS
administrators is, Bill Reed's fault.

Bill Reed became APS Chief of Police
when former Chief Gil Lovato was
sent packing after the Journal, link,
exposed the public corruption and
incompetence in the leadership of APS' publicly funded private police force.

Felonies had been committed.  Cash was taken from evidence and spent without record; a felony under state law.  Several whistleblowers and a deputy supt.'s girl friend had NCIC criminal background checks done on on them for no good reason; a felony under federal law.

Nobody has denied that felonies were committed; no one, ever.

Investigations were done.  They were all done internally or through APS' lawyers in order to keep the findings inaccessible to public knowledge.

One investigation in particular was most unseemly;
the APS police force did the only criminal investigation of its own corruption.  No other agency of law enforcement ever investigated, no evidence was ever turned over to the DA for her consideration.

The investigation was done under the command of an interim chief Steve Tellez.  Tellez was second in command during times relevant and either witnessed the criminal misconduct going on around him and did nothing to expose it (corruption) or he had his head so far up his ass he couldn't see what was going on (incompetence).

Tellez appointed a loyal subordinate, one Steve Gallegos (APS' current chief), to investigate the mis, mal and non-misfeasance of his superordinates including Steve Tellez.  The investigator went on to become deputy chief and finally chief.  Coincidentally, every single copy of his findings (were) disappeared on his way to chief.

When I began asking Tellez and APS for the results of their criminal self-investigation, Tellez told me the investigation was not yet complete.  It went on for years.  It went on while statutes of limitation expired on felony criminal misconduct.  At one point, the delay became denial and they began denying that there was any investigation ongoing or otherwise.

In the meantime, in 2010, fully three years and more after the investigation was begun and long after the statutes of limitation expired, their criminal self-investigation was finally "finished".  From email archives;

Sent : Friday, June 18, 2010 5:26 PM
To: Reed, Bill W
Subject:Investigation update

I am wondering if the investigation related to Gil Lovato is complete. grateful for your time and attention.

From: Reed, Bill W
Monday,June 21,2010
RE: Investigation update

Investigation is completed. Report is being finalized and will go to the DA's office shortly. Once it goes to the DA's office it will be available for public inspection.

Chief Reed "inaccurate".

Upon Reed's departure, Tellez was put back in charge and the report (detailing Tellez corruption and or incompetence) is not available for public inspection still.  APS has been denying, even in response to requests for public records, that any self-investigation was ever done.

"There is no APS Police report of an investigation into alleged misconduct in 2007. "

Gallegos now claiming;

… Bill Reed did not accurately
explain what had transpired.

This after finally Gallegos finally admitted, link, after all these years; oh yes, I remember now, I did do an investigation but I handed everything I had over to Steve Tellez.  And, now there are no copies of it anywhere.

There was felony criminal misconduct committed.
That felony criminal misconduct was either;

1. covered up or
2. not covered up

There isn't a third possibility.

Evidence of a cover up is hard to come by.  The very nature of cover ups is to destroy evidence or hide it; in this case behind litigation and legal weaselry.

Evidence of a "not covered up" on the other hand should be easy to come by.  "Not covering up" by its very nature creates and exposes evidence.

APS cannot produce a shred of evidence of "not covering up"; there isn't a single sheet of paper that proves they ever didn't cover up felony criminal misconduct involving senior APS Administrators.

There is evidence of a cover up.  The evidence is being hidden from public knowledge by trading teacher salaries for legal bills for litigation and legal weaselry in an effort to hide ethically redacted records from public knowledge.

Blame the Journal.  Blame Journal Editor in Chief Kent Walz and the like who decide what and what not the people should know and who have decided that the best interests of students are not served by the people learning of an ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS.

Not really.   Walz and the rest couldn't possibly believe it's in the best interests of students.  Whose then; their cronies in the leadership of the APS?

Bingo.




photos except as noted, Mark Bralley

Ever wonder why APS and Walz never fight back?

Have you ever wondered why the leadership of the APS never denies the existence of the ethics, standards and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS?

Have you ever wondered why Journal Editor in Chief Kent Walz never denies his part in the cover up of the scandal?

Could it be because the allegations are true?

Could it be that if any one of them tried to deny the allegations, they couldn't produce any evidence that would refute them?  None.  Not one shred; not one iota.

If there were high enough standards of conduct and competence and, if there were actual, honest accountability to them,  one of them could point to those standards; one of them could point to the due process by which they can be held accountable.

Could it be that Kent Walz can't report the truth credibly now, because he cannot report credibly on his failure to report the truth heretofore?




photo Mark Bralley

APS top "Good ol' boy" Winter hands over reins; end of an era?

APS reports, link, that APS interim Supt. Brad Winter will retire this week, handing over the reins to the incoming Supt. Luis Valentino.

The reins run to bits in the mouths of members of APS' good ol' boys club.

One of the identifying characteristics of good ol' boys clubs is cronyism; partiality, especially in appointment to positions of authority, regardless of  qualifications.

Recently, the Council of the Great City Schools audited the administration of the APS.  They found rampant cronyism.  They found;

Administrative evaluations were subjective and unrelated to promotion or step placement.

There is no evidence that anything has changed since the audit.

According to the Wikipedia;

Cronyism is contrary in practice and principle to meritocracy.  Often, the appointor is inadequate to hold his or her own job or position of authority, and for this reason the appointor appoints individuals who will not try to weaken him or her, or express views contrary to those of the appointor.

And there you have the leadership of the APS in a nutshell.  Just ask anybody who isn't a member of the club.

If ever there was a good ol' boy, Brad Winter was and still is.

Consider that Winter hiding still;

• the truth about spending at 6400 Uptown Blvd, and
• the truth about APS' cover up of felony criminal misconduct involving APS senior Administrators and the hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars they have spent on litigation and legal weaselry in order to keep secret public records including findings of investigations into the allegations, and
• the truth about student discipline and the effects of chronically disruptive students, and
• the truth about the wholesale abdication of the entire "leadership" of the APS as role models of student standards of conduct, and
• the standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS.

If ever there was a good ol' boys' club,
the leadership of the APS has been and still is.
The question is, will it continue to be?

Is this the end of an era cronyism in the leadership of the APS? It seems unlikely; nothing has changed.  The administration is still composed of people who were promoted to positions of power and influence based on the unlikelihood that they will make waves.

photo cmacq

Take for example, the chief of APS' publicly funded private police force.

Steve Gallegos was promoted to chief, not because he is any great shakes as an administrator (the APS police voted no confidence in Gallegos) and, not because he is any great shakes as a cop, link.

Gallegos is the chief of police because he investigated the corruption in the police department, and his findings (naming the names of senior APS administrators who were involved in state and federal felony criminal misconduct) have disappeared; missing without a trace.

There is no reason to believe Kent Walz and the Journal intend to tell the truth ever about the ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS.

There isn't one single person in the entire leadership of the APS who is willing to talk openly and honestly about standards and accountability; not their standards; not even student standards.


APS culture of corruption and incompetence will not without candor, forthrightness and honesty from the leadership of the APS.

Since there is no indication of incipient truth telling, the wise money will continue to be bet on continuing the cover up instead.




photos Mark Bralley

APS' Standard and Poor's rating falls

In a meeting on June 15th, APS Chief Financial Officer Don Moya will explain to the board's finance committee, why Standard and Poor's rating "has been revised" AA/Positive to AA/Stable.

According to the ever reliable Wikipedia, "Positive" meant that APS' AA rating was likely to improve.  Apparently, it no longer is.

APS writes, link;

The outlook has been revised from AA/Positive to AA/Stable

They use the words

"has been revised" 

because they sound better than

"fell".

photo Mark Bralley

Tuesday June 23 will be one day too late for Valentino

You never get a second chance to make a (good) first impression.

wise person long ago

APS image

June 22 is supposed to be Luis Valentino's first day in charge of the administration of the Albuquerque Public Schools, the spending of more than a billion dollars a year, and the success of nearly ninety thousand of this community's sons and daughters who are students in the APS.

It may not be on that day, but it will be on some day very soon thereafter, Supt. Luis Valentino will make apparent (overtly or tacitly), his intentions with respect to the cornerstones of his administration; standards and accountability.

He will identify the standards of conduct and competence to which he and his subordinates will be held accountable.  He will point to the process by which the least powerful can hold the most powerful accountable to those standards even against their will.

Or, he won't say a word, which means same old, same old;

• inadequate standards and

• inadequate accountability to those standards.

• and inadequate data gathering and record keeping;

the trifecta of public corruption and incompetence and, the reasons why the APS is not doing a better job of preparing our children to be positive and productive community members.

The standards of conduct, link, for which Valentino will become the senior-most administrative role model in the entire APS, have this to say about truth telling;

All acts, including half-truths, out-of-context statements, and even silence, that are intended to create beliefs or leave impressions that are untrue or misleading come at the cost of one's good character.

No ifs,
no ands,
no buts.

It has not been the history of the leadership of the APS to talk about standards and accountability.  Their silence; their stonewalling, is intended to leave the impression that the leadership of the APS is actually, honestly accountable to meaningful standards of conduct and competence within their public service. They are not.

If they were actually honestly accountable, there would be somewhere;

1.  clear and unequivocal standards of conduct and competence high enough to protect the public interests in the public schools, and  

2.  due process for complaints filed against school board members and administrators.

For example, consider the APS board of education Code of Ethics, link; the first of which reads;

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

The ethic itself is clear, unequivocal and high enough to protect the public interests in the public schools.  But, it is not enforceable. By their own free admission,  there is no due process anywhere, where a complaint can be filed over school board members' violation of the ethic.

Any honest search for the truth will reveal that they are really not accountable even to the law.  They have spent, are spending, and will continue to spend operational dollars without limit and without oversight in order to avoid accountability to the law.

Witness the nearly one million dollars, that could, should and would have been spent in classrooms, but was spent instead in defense of Marty Esquivel's ego.  They are not done spending yet; if the case goes to trial, taxpayers will pony up well over a million dollars.

One has to wonder how the ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS has escaped exposure in "the media"; the Journal, KRQE, KOAT, and KOB TV.

The wonder stops at the word "media".

Were they representative of the "press" rather than the "media", they would feel some obligation to inform the democracy of the squandering of their trust and treasure, and likely would.

As the "media", they are accountable to no standards of conduct that require them to do anything except stay afloat financially.

There is no place for instance, where Journal Editor in Chief Kent Walz can be held accountable for his betrayal of the trust placed in him by Journal readers.

There is no place where Walz can be held accountable for his aid and abet in APS' cover up of their cover up of felony criminal misconduct involving senior administrators.

I bring this up because APS Supt. Luis Valentino needs to know that if he does decide to address standards and accountability openly and honestly, he will make waves.  Those waves will swamp a number of boats; boats belonging to powerful people who are accustomed to "media" support and will expect its continuation.

Walz and "media" support will remain solidly behind school board members and senior administrators who have personal interests in never, ever, ever, allowing open and honest public discussion of standards and accountability in the leadership of the APS.

Valentino, if he tries to expose the truth, could find himself standing alone.




Walz photo Mark Bralley

Journal APS reporter Swedien gone?

My email of this morning, to Journal
education reporter Jon Swedien,
"was aborted after 1 second".

I guess he's gone; who knows why.

Swedien joins a list of Journal and TV reporters who have sat with me at some length and were read in on the ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS and on, the part Journal Editor in Chief Kent Walz and TV news directors play in the cover up of that crisis;

• the cover up of felony criminal misconduct involving senior APS administrators, and

• the wholesale abandonment by the leadership of the APS of their obligations as the senior most role models of student standards of conduct, and

• the spending of operational dollars* without limit and without oversight, on legal defenses for administrators and school board members in order that they can be absolved of their guilt in "legal" settlements admitting no guilt, and enabling them to escape the legal consequences of their corruption and incompetence. 
  
  *Operational dollars are those that could be, should be and would be spent in classrooms if they were not being squandered along with our trust, buying admissions of no guilt for the likes of Winston Brooks and Marty Esquivel.

Journal reporter Hailey Heinz, David
Peercy and the architect of the cover up
of corruption in the leadership of APS'
publicly funded private police force,
APS' interim Supt Brad Winter.

The only Journal reporter who flat out refused to hear the truth (from me) was Hailey Heinz who maintained for years, that she was "too busy" to meet.

Aside from Heinz, it must be tough for any real journalist to learn the truth about the corruption and incompetence in the leadership of a school district that spends more than a billion tax dollars a year, and then not be allowed to write about it.

Kent Walz

I would like to believe Journal
reporters at some point tell their
boss to take his cover up and
shove it.

Likely; just wistful thinking.




photos Mark Bralley

What does Valentino know about APS?

aps image

Everything incoming APS Supt.
Luis Valentino (thinks he) knows
about the administration of the
Albuquerque Public Schools
can be sorted into two piles;

1. stuff that's true, and 
2. stuff that isn't.

Were my advice solicited,
it would be; trust data, and
assurances, not so much.

Every bit of knowledge Luis Valentino accumulates will come from personal observation, researching and reading the record, and listening.  The records and research is hard to fake.  The personal assurances not so hard. People like Brad Winter; people with a self-evident conflict of interests in the truth being known, will offer Valentino their assurance;

• that adults are in charge in APS classrooms and schools. 

but will not show him any data on discipline and chronically disruptive students.

• that administrators upon whom he will depend, are accountable to meaningful standards of conduct and competence.

but will not show him the high standards or the due process by which even the powerful can be held actually, honestly accountable to any standards at all, even the law.

• that the leadership of the APS has not been and is not now, part of a cover up of felony criminal misconduct in the leadership of their police force.

but will not produce a shred of evidence that testimony and evidence of state and federal felony criminal misconduct were ever turned over to the DA for prosecution.

• that the leadership of the APS has worn honorably, the mantle of senior-most, executive and administrative role models of the standards of conduct they establish and enforce on students

but cannot point the time the day and the place where even one of them acknowledged their duty to model honest accountability to student standards of conduct.

Valentino needs honest accounting of, and solid data regarding serious problems. He is in a bind; he needs data, there is none, and he surrounded by people whose livelihoods depend on the no making of waves.

Only at this time may your concerns be addressed ...

If you go to a regular school board meeting, you will sit through a reading of the rules for public forum.  The very last words that are read read;

The board of education encourages you to stay for the entirety of the meeting so that you may listen to board members’ comments before we adjourn. Only at this time may your concerns(*) be addressed at the discretion of each board member.

*"Your concerns" is code for "any inconvenient questions or challenges" you might want to ask or offer.

• why are you using operational funds to hide ethically redacted public records of felony public corruption involving senior APS administrators? and or

• Is there a single one of you with the character and the courage to hold yourselves honestly accountable to the same standards of conduct you establish and enforce on students? and or

• any other question, to which a candid, forthright and honest answer would be embarrassing, shaming or indicting.

There are at least two ways you can interpret their use of the word "may";

• they "may" address your concerns, as a matter of possibility; maybe they will - maybe they won't, which seems exceedingly cavalier even for them, or,

• only then "may" they address your concerns, as a matter of "permission"; only then is it "legal" or ethical.  That of course is complete nonsense.

Two things are clear;

1. they don't want to address "your concerns" publicly and on the record, and
2. they want you to believe that the only reason they won't answer inconvenient questions or respond to challenges, is that they are not "allowed" by the NM Open Meetings Act.

They want to create a belief that is untrue and misleading;
something they tell students, if they do, it is at the forfeit their good character.

That's wrong, right?