Steven Michael Quezada speaks out on settlement

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Actor, comedian and school board member Steven Michael Quezada stepped up tonight for an interview with KRQE, link, regarding the very expensive settlement of my complaints against Marty Esquivel and the board.

He became the first one of them, as far as I can remember, to accuse me of suing them for the money;

“I don’t think that we should settle with people who come to disrupt meetings and use that kind of format to make a living or make money.”

In the first place, I never came to a meeting to disrupt it.  Ever.  If a meeting was disrupted, it was not by me, it was by some board member's reaction to whatever lawful and ethical act I was engaging in.

As far as being in it for the money; if I total just the hours I've spent blogging about their steadfast refusal to hold themselves honestly accountable to meaningful standards of conduct and competence, and divide $95,000 dollars by that number, the "format" paid considerably less than minimum wage.  Never mind the hours I spent preparing for and participating in, public forums at APS school board meetings.

As far as "making money"; if someone had offered to pay me $95,000 to spend a third of my life fighting against some of the most powerful people in Albuquerque in a fruitless effort to hold them accountable for their public service, I would have declined.  It was, and is, a fool's mission.

Quezada thinks I am "disrespectful".

Whether I am or not is moot; disrespectful isn't illegal.
His feeling "disrespected" doesn't justify (in any Constitutional sense) banning me from school board meetings for the rest of my life.

Quezada admitted to KRQE;

“We’re wasting our funds fighting this."

Damn right they are.  Quezada and five other board members knowingly permitted or negligently allowed Marty Esquivel to squander $833,000.00 on a non-viable defense of his ego.


Quezada is disturbed when I walk up to the podium at a public forum and tell anyone who is listening that;

• he and the board are spending operational dollars covering up felony criminal misconduct in the leadership of their publicly funded, private police force. and that

• he and the board  are covering up an ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS. and that

• he and the board are shirking their responsibilities as role models of student standards of conduct.

He probably didn't like it when I wrote about the number of school board meetings he misses, link.

And what he really, really doesn't like, is when I stand up at the podium and ask;

Is there even a single one of you who can summon the character and the courage to hold yourself honestly accountable to the same standards of conduct that you establish and enforce upon students?

They don't like it because it makes them feel ashamed. 
They can't summon the character and the courage
to hold themselves actually, honestly accountable
to student standards of conduct,
even for the few hours they are serving as the senior-
most executive role models of student standards of conduct;
ethical standards of conduct.

If we really want APS students to grow into adults who embrace character and courage and honor, someone has to show them what they look like.  That obligation falls first on leadership; the board and their superintendent.

Not one of them has answered the question, yes.

Ever.

And, they find the questioning "disruptive".

When the question is;

are you willing to step up as a role model? 

any answer except yes, means no.

When asked to step up as a role model,
Steven Michael Quezada's response means no.

Steven Michael Quezada is a coward.

I could not give one shit less what he thinks are my motives.

APS press statement lacks, candor, forthrightness and honesty - not surprisingly

In a statement from APS' million dollar a year public relations department and released by their marketing manager, we find;

“The Albuquerque Public Schools has settled ongoing litigation with Charles MacQuigg who was removed from attending APS Board meetings based on disruptive behavior and not the content of his speech. Due to some adverse court rulings, continued costs of taking this matter to trial and the unavailability of certain witnesses, a difficult decision was made to settle the matter with a majority of the funds coming from insurance proceeds and not from APS operating funds.

MacQuigg will receive $480,000 for his attorney fees and $95,000 for alleged damages after a federal court mediation. APS attorneys’ fees were $288,000, which are counted toward the $350,000 deductible on its insurance policy. Therefore, APS will pay the remaining $62,000 of its insurance deductible toward the settlement, with the remainder of the settlement ($513,000) to be covered by the district’s insurance policy.

The APS Board welcomes input during the public forum of its board meetings to hear from its stakeholders. It welcomes all input but encourages individuals such as MacQuigg to conduct themselves respectfully during Board meetings.”

There are some specific issues;

• my supposed misconduct; A federal court judge watched the videos of my supposed misconduct and ruled in our favor.  There is no videotape, no audio tape, and not one photograph of me being any more disruptive than truth ever is when it is spoken to power.  They don't want to explain, defend, deny or even acknowledge their abandonment of their duties and responsibilities as the senior most role models of student standards of conduct.

• adverse rulings of the court - they were losing.  All they had was a non-viable defense of Marty Esquivel's ego and all the money in the world wasn't going to help.  They did by the way, have all the money in the world to spend in meetings in secret and without real oversight.

• "alleged damages" The damages stopped being alleged when they paid me $95K in compensation for them.

• The "unavailability of certain witnesses".  Who, Winston Brooks and Steven Tellez, both of whose reputations are in tatters?  They're still available and so are their sworn depositions.

• "the majority coming from insurance proceeds" Like the district (taxpayers) aren't going to pay for it in increased premiums.  Insurance companies are not in the business of underwriting million dollar defenses of board member egos.  APS (taxpayers) have already had their premiums raised as the result of inordinately expensive litigation engaged in by the district.

A more candid, forthright and honest statement would have read;

Former APS School Board 
Member Marty Esquivel, 
as the direct result of the 
abject lack of any real 
oversight over the money 
he was spending to avoid 
the personal embarrassment
of being convicted of 
violating my civil rights, 
wasted nearly a million dollars.

It doesn't make a rat's ass worth of difference out of whose pocket the money finally came.

They weren't Marty Esquivel's.




photo Mark Bralley

NM Secretary of State Brad Winter - seriously?

NM Governor Susana Martinez could have appointed any one of a number of highly qualified and honest people.  She choose instead, former APS good ol' boy and city councilor Brad Winter.

For as long as he was APS' COO, Winter hid the truth from stake and interest holders about at the very, very least, two significant issues.



Brad Winter was behind the wheel when the leadership of the APS decided to hide the truth about their squandering of public resources when they fortified and renovated their castle keep at 6400 Uptown Blvd.

When the buildings were purchased by taxpayers, the purchase came with a promise;

one of the towers would be rented out to pay for the other. 

The purchase, they promised, was going to save taxpayers' money.

Did Winter spend more than $800 a piece for board member chairs, link?

Instead, there was a stampede, link, that filled both buildings to the gunwales.

The leadership of the APS went wildly over budget making both towers "livable" for senior administrators and school board members.

This during a time when Meyners & Co. auditors found in their finance department, the trifecta of embezzlement, theft and fraud;

1. inadequate standards and
2. inadequate accountability to any standards there were, and
3. inadequate record keeping.

Winter kept the spending under wraps, link.  Deliberately.

If anyone just can't accept that fact, all they have to do to disprove it is to produce a candid, forthright and honest accounting of the squandering of the public trust and treasure in the money pit at 6400 Uptown Blvd.

They can ask Brad Winter for a copy; see what he says.

The other cover up led by Winter, was of felony criminal misconduct involving APS senior administrators and the leadership of the APS Police; a public funded private police force; a Praetorian guard if ever their was.  The Journal reported on the scandal in 2007, link.

The leadership of the APS and the APS Police, self-investigated the public corruption and incompetence of their leadership.

They hired lawyers to investigate and keep the truth secret.

They never turned over  to the District Attorney for prosecution;

• evidence of administrative felony criminal abuse of the FCIC database to harass whistle blowers, or

• evidence of administrative felony misappropriation of money in evidence.

The leadership of the APS covered up the scandal by promoting the deputy chief to chief.  This though the deputy chief was fully aware of the corruption and incompetence and never did anything about it.

photo by macquigg

The investigation was conducted by a sergeant who turned over his findings to the corrupt chief, did not keep a copy of his own, did not file a copy anywhere where it still exists, and who is now the Chief of APS Police Steve Gallegos.

He makes nearly $110K double dipping, and keeps his mouth shut about his investigation of the felony criminal misconduct of his chief and deputy chief.

Brad Winter covered it up.  He was there when a decision was made to spend operational dollars, not in classrooms as they were intended by the folks whose dollars they used to be, but spent instead on lawyers and legal weaselry in a, so far, successful effort to hide the truth from stake and interest holders.

He got away with it because the Journal steadfastly refused to investigate and report upon it.

Journal Editor in Chief Kent Walz relentlessly refuses investigate and report upon the ethics, standards and accountability crises in the leadership of the APS.

He and his like at the NMBA affiliate stations KRQE, KOAT, and KOB have given aid and abet to the cover ups for as long as I have been trying to get them to expose them.

Walz and the owner/news directors have an obligation as the press (not as the media, as the press) to inform the democracy.  In particular, they have an obligation to inform the democracy in anticipation of elections; elections like the upcoming APS Bond Issue election.

They have chosen another path.

They need to be held accountable.

Who will hold them accountable?
When?
Where? and
How?




photos Mark Bralley

Who is the Equity Advisory Council, and why do they want to lower APS student standards of conduct?

Ever since 1994, APS students have been expected to "model and promote" the Pillars of Character Counts!. The Pillars represent a nationally recognized, accepted and respected code of ethical conduct.

For as long as they have been the student standards of conduct, they have been the standards of conduct for their adult role models as well.  That's how role modeling works.

School board members and superintendents are the senior most administrative role models of the standards of conduct they establish and enforce upon students. That's what "role modeling" means.

Ten years ago, after about a decade of relentless pressure hold themselves actually and honestly accountable as role models accountability to the Pillars of Character Counts!, they abdicated. By unanimous vote, the board struck their role modeling clause from APS School Board Policy. It had read;

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

That reprehensible act created double standards of conduct in APS; one for students and one for board members and superintendents.

• Students are expected to hold themselves honestly accountable to the Pillars of Character Counts!; higher standards of conduct than the law; or else forfeit their good character.

• School board members and superintendents are expected to hold themselves accountable only to the law; the lowest standards of conduct acceptable among civilized human beings.*

*In fact, they are not even accountable to the law. They routinely spend fortunes in operational dollars settlements including "admissions of no guilt"; even for those among them who are guilty beyond any reasonable doubt.

The board is about to eliminate the shameful double standard. But not my raising their own. They will not show students what it looks like to hold oneself honestly accountable to meaningful standards of conduct.

Instead, they intend to lower student standards of conduct. The mention of Trustworthiness, Respect, Responsibility, Caring, Fairness and Citizenship will stripped from the student behavior handbook.

No longer will students be expected to model good character;
only that they will be "good members of the community".

The board hasn't the courage to publicly rescind the unanimous resolution to adopt higher standards of conduct for students. They haven't the character and the courage to admit that they haven't the character and the courage to hold themselves honestly accountable as role models honest to God accountability to the Pillars of Character Counts!

Or for that matter, will that be held accountable to any standards of conduct that require candid, forthright and honest answers to questions about the public interests and about their public service.

There will be no public comment allowed tomorrow in the District Equity and Engagement Committee Meeting when the board follows the recommendation of the "Equity Advisory Council" the membership list of which is not posted on APS' award winning website, and I cannot find.

Public comment will be "limited" the following day at the public forum during the regular board meeting where the board will administer the coup de grace to any district wide effort to teach students

• not only that there are higher standards of conduct, but that 
• it is in their (and our) best interests that they establish some allegiance to them.

Does "character" count in the leadership of the APS?

The APS School Board is taking another run at removing the Pillars of Character Counts! from their own standards of conduct.

In a meeting of the District Equity and Engagement Committee, link, Tuesday night, the board will attempt again to resolve the problem of double standards of conduct and hypocrisy in the APS, by lowering student standards closer to their own.

Their act is one abject moral cowardice.

Moral cowardice is not new to the board.
The board has a code of ethics of their own, link.
Which is by their own admission, utterly unenforceable.

The APS student standards of conduct are the Pillars of Character Counts!, link.  Because they are the student standards of conduct, they are the standards of conduct of their adult role models.  Else, is naked hypocrisy.

The leadership of the APS would like stake and interest holders to believe that they are accountable as role models.  They are not.  There is not one of them who will use the phrase Character Counts! and role modeling in the same breath.

This isn't so much about Character Counts! as it is about character education in general.

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

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.

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.  - William J. Bennett, author and former U.S. Secretary of Education (b. 1943)

If we want students to hold themselves honestly accountable to meaningful standards of conduct, someone has to show them what (self) accountability looks like.

In 2006, the board voted unanimously to strike the role modeling clause from their own standards of conduct.  It used to read;

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

Ever since, there have been two standards of conduct in the APS;

1.  Students are expected to model and promote the Pillars of Character Counts!; a nationally recognized, accepted and respected code of ethics.

2.  The record of school board members and senior administrators is that they are demonstrably unaccountable even to the law; the lowest standards of conduct acceptable among civilized human beings.

In July of this year, then Supt. Luis Valentino tried to remove mention of the Pillars in the APS Student Behavior Handbook.  He wanted the Pillars, which have been in the Handbook for two decades, simply erased without discussion, link.

The board thwarted him, link, but have apparently changed their minds in some meeting somewhere sometime that I, who pays close attention to their meeting agendas, never saw on a. to be stricken again.

Now, they're about try it again.

In a meeting where no public input will be allowed, they intend again to strike the Pillars from mention in student standards of conduct.

The change will be approved, apparently, in a meeting the following night, link, depending on the meaning of the word "matters".

They must strike the Pillars from mention because there is not one of them with the character and the courage to hold them self honestly accountable to the same standards of conduct that they establish and enforce upon students.

I wish there was more public outrage.

I think there would be, except for the Journal's willingness still, to cover up the ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS.

I blame Journal Editor in Chief Kent Walz personally, though he can't be alone among editors turning a blind eye to the leadership scandal.

I can't help but notice that the Journal is yet to cover the settlement of lawsuit against the leadership of the APS.  One wonders; why not?




photo Mark Bralley

Should the APS' bond issue be denied?

In fewer than three months, voters will decide whether the leadership of the APS will become the stewards of hundreds of millions more tax dollars.

There are at least two ways to look at it.  First; will the tax dollars benefit the nearly ninety thousand of our sons and daughters in the APS?  A collateral benefit, though one they don't seem ever to want to admit, is the shot in the arm for River City's big builders, and ultimately the entire economy.  Is that enough of a reason to support the issue?

Another way to look at the issue is whether, regardless of all of the good reasons to pass the bond issue, there is trust in the stewardship of the leadership of the APS?  Can they, will they, be good stewards? 

Can we give them hundreds of million dollars to spend on worthy projects and expect them to spend them effectively and efficiently?

The sad truth is that stake and interest holders cannot trust the leadership of the APS to be good stewards of their resources.  They have not been before, they are not now, and there is no reason to expect that they will ever be, good stewards.

The allegation is easy to prove.  The capacity of the leadership of the APS to effectively steward more than a billion tax dollars every year is easily measured;

1.  Are the ethics, standards and accountability that govern the wielding of power and the spending of resources high enough to protect the public interests in the public schools? and

2.  Are school board members and administrators actually, honestly accountable to those standards?

Before the leadership of the APS and the local construction industry ask for another penny, it is reasonable to expect them to

1.  point to ethics and high enough standards that protect the public interests and then to

2.  point to their honest to God accountability to them.

The truth is they have few ethics and high standards.  And even those all but unenforceable.  There isn't one whit of difference between the highest and lowest standards unless there is actual, honest to God accountability to them.

The leadership of the APS is not actually, honestly accountable to any standards of conduct at all; not even the law*.

*Accountability to the law, the lowest standards of conduct acceptable to civilized human beings, can be avoided by school board members and superintendents spending utterly unjustifiable amounts of money on litigation and legal weaselry in order to "admit no guilt" when they break the law.

I cite as but one example;

• the APS Board of Education has a Code of Ethics, link.

• to which they are, by their own admission, utterly unaccountable.  It was unenforceable the night they adopted it and they have done nothing to rectify the situation.  They provide no venue in which any complaints can be filed against them for even the most egregious violations of their own code of ethics.

Stake and interest holders remain uninformed.  In particular, voters remain uninformed about the ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS.

They remain uniformed in no small part, because the heavy hitters in the local media have relentlessly refused for many years, to inform stake and interest holders about the ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS.

The simple proof of that allegation lies in the fact that;

• neither will any one of them report that there isn't an ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS.

Not even in the face of a bond issue election worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and where that information could not be more germane.

I believe it is fair to lay blame on Journal Editor in Chief Kent Walz, though the news directors (and or owners) of NM Broadcasters Association affiliates KRQE, KOAT, and KOB TV are equally worthy of blame.  And all of whom put personal and professional interests before the public interests.




photo Mark Bralley

Coverage of APS settlement begins in ABQ Free Press

in a report by Dennis Domrzalski, link.

APS settles lawsuit

APS has settled three years long litigation over my federal complaints of civil rights violations.

That's all I can say.

Except to extend my
deepest gratitude to
the many people who
offered me their support
at one point or another,
and especially to those
whose support I have
enjoyed throughout.




photo Mark Bralley

Reedy habilitation continues; bond issue promoted

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Interim APS Supt. Raquel Reedy has posted on APS' award winning website, link, her reaction to the habilitation piece recently provided for her in the Journal, link.

Her reaction included a self assessment;

"I’ve always been a behind-the-scenes kind of person ..."

In previous Journal coverage, link, Reedy admitted;

"I don't have the whole picture, nobody does."

Logically, one can't see "the whole picture" from "behind the scenes".

In that article, Reedy revealed that, in order to mitigate her ignorance of relevant data, she was going to instigate "reviews" of a handful of APS departments.  The issues that the reviews will address remain secret, as do the findings of at least one of the reviews.

The review of APS HR is done.  The findings are not posted on APS' award winning website.  Nor will they be, ever.  They will be made as hard to see, as is "legal".

They are "available for inspection" in APS Custodian of Public Records Rigo Chavez' office.

You will have to make an appointment.

He will not scan and email them to you.  He claims to not have electronic versions of the records and cannot be compelled under the law (short of litigation) to "create a record".*

*Update; I am now informed that some of the records are available electronically - meaning he will cause them to be written to a CD he is willing to sell me.

Chavez answers to APS Executive Director of Communications Monica Armenta.  Armenta answers (ultimately) to Reedy.  Some one of them decided to make the truth harder to find.

The buck stops on Reedy's desk.

She is knowingly permitting Rigo Chavez to obstruct the production of public records, or is negligently allowing him.

However well Reedy performs behind the scenes, there is no such thing as behind the scenes leadership.

Behind the scenes, behind closed doors leadership is why the leadership of the APS is in the  mess it is.

Right now, Reedy's record is of commissioning a "review" of the spending of public power and resources and then hiding the findings.

She is doing what the leadership of the APS has always done; gather what data you must and the hide it.

Nothing has changed.  Nothing, likely, will.




photos Mark Bralley

APS' Reedy gets Journal blessing; interim superintendency to be short lived

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If APS interim Supt. Raquel Reedy is going to be APS' next full time superintendent, there seems to be little point in prolonging the process by which that will happen;

• an effort will be made to make stake and interest holders think they have had "input" in the selection, followed by

• a few meetings in secret, after which

• Raquel Reedy will be appointed Superintendent.

If for no other reason than to insure that she be compensated appropriately.

The board would like "the people" to be on board with their next choice and that creates a need.

They can't just outright hire a public relations team to habilitate their selection and, their own public relations team,  Monica Armenta et al, are otherwise engaged.

Enter the Journal, link, feature status; front page, top of the fold support for the board's apparent selection.

This is not about whether Reedy is qualified, a good choice, or perhaps even the best choice, save one aspect; role modeling.

The Journal, let's say Editor in Chief Kent Walz, is on board with the cover up of Reedy's ugliest wart; her abdication from her duties and obligations as the senior most administrative role model of actual, honest to God accountability to the same standards of conduct that the board establishes and she has enforced upon students.

She has not once, any where, any time, stood up and said;

Students (and staff), this is what it looks like to be held honestly accountable to meaningful standards of conduct and competence*.

*The standards in question happen to be a nationally recognized, accepted and respected code of ethical conduct.  They are called the Pillars of Character Counts!, link.  Good, bad or indifferent, they were adopted by the board in 1994 and the adoption has been renewed every year since, including this.

There is no such thing as an inconspicuous role model.
The concept is oxymoronic.  If she has never, not once drawn attention to herself (holding herself honestly accountable to ethical standards of conduct), she has never role modeled honest accountability.  None of them have. 

Not since they adopted ethical standards of conduct for students, has a school board member or superintendent showed students what it looks like to be held accountable to ethical standards of conduct.  The school board's own code of ethics, by their own admission, is utterly unenforceable.

It is an important question; 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.  That obligation begins at the top, with the school board and their superintendent.

There are those who would rather not consider the question of ethics, standards, accountability and role modeling in the leadership of the APS.  They include every single school board member and every single superintendent they have hired since 1994.

Is Reedy ready to become the senior-most administrative role model of student standards of conduct?

Is she willing to answer the question?

When the question is are you willing to be held honestly accountable as a role model, any answer except yes means no.

No answer means no,; stonewalling means no.

FYI, I have inquired  with APS Director of Communications Rigo Chavez;

Is it written anywhere that

The superintendent is a role model for students and their standards of conduct?

By those words or any others, is the superintendent expected to role model accountability to the same standards of conduct established for and enforced upon students - I am talking about of course, the Pillars of Character Counts!.

He had the entire day to respond, and did not, for reasons unknown; he refused to even acknowledge that he had received my email.

Any answer except yes, means no.




photo Mark Bralley

It's really not fair to blame Rigo Chavez

Journal editors took a cheap shot recently, link, at APS Director of Communications and Public Records Custodian Rigo Chavez.

The editors referred to him as "APS spokesman Rigo Chavez, who has mastered the art of answering questions while saying absolutely nothing."

Are the editors really so unsophisticated as to believe that Rigo Chavez decides what questions will and will not be answered by vastly more powerful administrators and school board members?

Rigo Chavez, like every other government public information officer, has a choice.

• He can enjoy a nearly $80K salary and an office high over the city for and from which to answer questions while saying absolutely nothing, or

• he can find another job.

He isn't allowed or expected to be more candid, forthright and honest. 

I don't blame Rigo Chavez for the game he and I are now playing;

• I want to find out what an examiner from the Austin Independent School District was looking for and found in APS Human Resources Dept. and

• Chavez needs to obfuscate that process as much as he can.

Chavez has the public records that I requested in hand.  He says I must come his office if I want to inspect them.  If I do, I will subject myself to possible harassment by the leadership of their publicly funded private police and or by, Executive Director of Communications Monica Armenta, who if she see's me, will accuse me of stalking her.

Chavez wrote;

With regard to your request for “any public records of any communications between the leadership of the APS and Michael Houser, including his colleagues and subordinates at the Austin Independent School District regarding their upcoming investigations of several APS departments,” I have received documents that are responsive to your request. You may call my office at 880-3730 to schedule a mutually agreeable time to review these records.

Should you want copies of any documents located, the district charges $.50 (50 cents) per page.

Chavez could scan records and email them to me.  (full disclosure, Chavez has tried in the past to convince me that he honestly has no access to a scanner - who knows?)

But when I ask him to scan and email the records he refuses.  This isn't our first rodeo; it is "his" practice.

Chavez purports; scanning a hard copy in order to email it, is the same thing as "creating a public record" which he says, the law does not require him to do.  He writes;

With regard to your request that information be provided in an electronic format, I can provide it electronically if it is available. However, you should be aware that under the NM Inspection of Public Records Act, public entities are not required to create documents in response to requests for information: “14-2-8. Procedure for Inspection… B. Nothing in the Inspection of Public Records Act shall be construed to require a public body to create a public record.” Further, according to the “New Mexico Inspection of Public Records Act Compliance Guide (Eighth Edition – 2015 (Page 32))” put out by the New Mexico Attorney General’s Office, “The right to inspect applies to any nonexempt public record that exists at the time of the request. A records custodian or public body is not required to compile information from the public body’s records or otherwise create a new public record in response to a request.”

As ridiculous and indefensible as his actions are, I don't blame Rigo Chavez.  He's stuck between a rock and a hard place; defending his own character and defending a bunch of corrupt and incompetent administrators and school board members.

The truth is, it is the board and senior administrators who want questions answered by saying absolutely nothing.

Journal Editor in Chief Kent Walz

I do blame the Journal editors for acting like it's poor Rigo's fault when they know damn well that he's only taking orders.

The Journal editors are simply too chicken shit and or too corrupt to call out the board and superintendents for their relentless failure to be candid, forthright and honest with stake and interest holders.




photos Mark Bralley

"New Mexico Museum Of Political Corruption"

may be one of the best ideas that blogger Monahan has ever presented, link.

Not only would it be a money maker, but all anyone who believes that their "trust" in politicians and public servants will protect their interests, can tour the museum to be disabused of their boggle.

APS settles for $750,000 and "nobody done nuthin" I'll bet

First and and foremost; the size of the settlement reported in the Journal this morning, link, isn't about what the teacher did, it is about what the leadership of the APS didn't.  And by "leadership" I mean the administration and the school board who sets the tone for the administration of school board policies.

The settlement is huge because the knee jerk leadership response in a case like this:

1. is to cover up the problem 
2. and then export it. (not to protect students at the school, but to protect the school's public image.)

Nowhere in the process, will a stink be made.  Stake and interest holders will not be allowed to find out what was going on at their child's school, and what was (not) being done about it.

The offender, rather than be outed in a stink, is given another chance at another school. If the problem resurfaces, it is covered up again by containing and exporting it.  The "union" is routinely blamed for the outcomes like these, but has never supported it and never will. imo

Most importantly, I'd be willing to bet that somewhere in the settlement, there is an admission of "no guilt" on the part of the administrators and board who knowingly permit and or negligently allow this to go on.

The $750,000 the Journal reported represents only money settled on the plaintiffs. 

The Journal didn't ask or chose to not report on the hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on APS family lawyers and now missing from the operational fund.  Nor did the Journal report on the plaintiffs' attorneys' fees which must be nearly as much.

By the time the dust settles, $1,250,000 will have been spent.  It was spent in meetings in secret without any real oversight and from an unlimited budget.

If the Journal were into truth telling, they would investigate and report upon the number of operational dollars* the leadership of the APS spends on lawyers, litigation and legal weaselry every year.

*Operational dollars are among the dollars that the people entrust to the board in order to educate their children, and that could, should, and would be spent in classrooms, if they were not being spent instead in order to obtain "admissions of no guilt" by administrators and school boards who are guilty beyond any reasonable doubt.

Twenty teacher salaries are gone from the operational fund.

... and nobody done nuthin.

APS discipline data; red herring

In July of this year, APS created a report called Disciplinary Infractions For School Year 2014-2015.  It is not posted on APS' award winning website.   I wouldn't put it past them to have suppressed report while the wheels were coming off the Valentino administration and until the dust settled.

APS produced for, or released to, KOB TV, a copy of the report and KOB followed up with a report of their own link.  I asked KOB whether the district had sent them the report or if KOB had asked for it.  They didn't respond.

The deception begins with the title; it's misleading.  The report is actually of an over-representation of minority students in reports about discipline problems.  The over-representation of minorities appears real (the statistics are unreliable and often invalid) and likely flows from one or both of two springs;

1. minority students actually do break more rules more of the time, and or
2. minority students are disproportionately singled out for prosecution by racist enforcement.

Boys are reported more frequently than girls in every category; and begs the same question; are boys

1. over misbehaving, or is their apparent over misbehaving 
2. a manifestation of enforcement bias?

As you can imagine, the possibilities stir up some passion, but are not really the point.  Either or both are red herring.

The leadership of the APS would like to distract attention from student discipline in general.  The problem we need to keep our eyes on is discipline in general in schools and classrooms.

Student discipline overall, is getting worse every year.
Disruptive students are getting more disruptive and there are more of them.  They're having an increasingly negative effect on the learning by other students. 

Student discipline in APS is getting worse every year.
(I will bow to controverting data.)

If we want to do anything about student discipline problems, we need data.  The data used in the report in question is flawed in a number of ways;

• only the most severe of multiple infractions are recorded and only the most severe were considered in the report.

• in order to create a more manageable format "several infractions have been grouped together" (conflation) and

• there is little consistency in record keeping* (*Oh yes, by the way,  we almost forgot;
  there isn't any real, reliable record keeping going on).

The leadership of the APS doesn't collect data on student discipline, not really.  They never have.  Student discipline is first and foremost an administrative responsibility.  If there is a failure to keep schools under the control of adults, it is an administrative failure.

That administrators don't keep records documenting their failures is not hard to understand; it is human nature.  In the APS, it is encouraged and enabled by a lack of any real consequences for administrators who don't document their problems.

The data they do collect is often conflated to render it useless.  Once, they conflated bullying and vandalism statistics.  Not because one has anything at all to do with the other, but more likely, in order to render bullying statistics meaningless.  APS has bullying problems they would like not to fully acknowledge.

There is a conflict of interest that comes with administrators reporting disruptive behavior.  The more disruptive behavior an administrator reports, the fewer unhappy parents they have to deal with, and the less likely they are to be promoted, and the worse their school looks.

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The APS Executive Director, Office of Accountability and Reporting Rose-Ann McKernan candidly admitted; "It is impossible to address the issues at the heard of school discipline when the information available is based on variable record-keeping." emphasis added

"Variable record-keeping".  You have to love it.  Talk about bureaucratic doublespeak; administrators not doing their jobs, and instead of being held accountable, it is all excused as "variable record-keeping".

Nearly 28,000 reports were made of "generally disorderly conduct"; defiance of school personnel, disrespect, general disruptive conduct, inappropriate or abusive language, conflict with a student, fighting and general violence.

Considering that only a handful of these acts were reported, the real number of disruptions must be higher.  It is much higher.  I wouldn't be surprised it if were five times higher.

So what are we going to do about 150,000 disruptions a year?

We are going to do nothing.  We are going to do nothing because it is impossible to address the issue unless you have good data, and the leadership of the APS, by their own deliberate choice, will not collect that data.

KOB dancing around APS cover ups

KOB TV is leading the local affiliates in coverage, link, of the efforts of APS school board members to keep former APS Supt. Winston Brooks' misconduct secret from stake and interest holders.

KOB's current headline;

4 Investigates: Did APS Board break rules in Brooks investigation?

Well yeah, they did.

There is nothing new to conclude from KOB's "investigation".  Aside from specific examples, they have reported nothing that I haven't been writing for nearly a decade;

APS administrators and school board members are not actually, honestly accountable to meaningful standards of conduct and competence.

KOB is gathering the low hanging fruit.  They could, with just a little more effort, expose the ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS.

The downside for KOB, is that someone is bound to ask;

why didn't you investigate and report on the scandal years ago?

Is there "honest to God accountability" in the leadership of the APS, or not?

Nearly a decade ago, auditors from the Council of the Great City Schools found what they described as a “culture” of fear of retaliation against whistle blower and other complainants.

Nothing has changed.

The premise is easily tested; ask an APS employee at any level;

is there a widespread belief that retaliation will follow filing of a complaint against an administrator?

Their answer will be yes; hell yes.

Whether the belief is justified is moot; perception is reality.
In fact, it is entirely justified.

The test is simple; all you have to do is look at their record (after prying it loose in court). See what they do to complainants.

They're spending millions of operational dollars on litigation and legal weaselry in order to pound complaints into accepting their “admissions of no guilt” in settlements. Filing a complaint against any one of them is a brutal process; ask anyone who has filed one.

Filing a complaint against any one of them is filing a complaint against all of them, and against the APS/litigation industry and all the power and resources they have usurped. They and their lawyers wield power and squander operational dollars without limit and without real oversight.

A culture of fear of retaliation is a useful tool in the hands of the unscrupulous and the powerful; they use it (routinely) to escape accountability for their incompetence and or corruption.

There is no doubt that Winston Brooks created fear of retaliation against complainants. There is no doubt that, rather than admit their hire was deeply flawed, the school board tried to cover it all up.

It is important, in the face of the upcoming bond issue election, to know whether these are isolated instances of incompetence and corruption.

I have argued for decades that they are not. I have argued for decades that administrators and school board members are not actually, honestly accountable to meaningful standards of conduct and competence.

If I am correct;

• it would be reckless of taxpayers to trust their stewardship over another $70M tax dollars. And

• the Journal, according to their obligation to inform the democracy, should expose the ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS.

If I am wrong,

• the Journal should expose the honest accountability to meaningful standards of conduct and competence within politics and public service in APS. 

The Journal should reassure voters that their continued confidence in the stewardship over millions and millions of dollars is justified.

The editors will at some point, take a stance on the APS bond issue election. They will encourage voters to support a shot in the arm for the local education/construction industry.

What they will not do, is to investigate and report upon honest to God accountability in the leadership of the APS.  Why not? What good and ethical justification can there be?

At best, they are complacent about the ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS.

At worst, the Journal editors and or owners, are complicit in its cover up.

APS ethics, standards and accountability scandal coming to light

Coverage in the Journal, link, and on KOB, link, might lead a less cynical person to believe that APS' house of cards; ethics, standards and accountability, is about to collapse.

It isn't really so much what former APS Supt. Winston Brooks did, as it is, how did the school board handle the complaints about what he did.  Allegedly.

None of the nine people who filed legitimate complaints against Winston Brooks found due process for their complaints.

They filed their complaints with then School Board President Analee Maestas.  This though Maestas had no place in any legitimate complaint process; she was personally conflicted and officially powerless to oversee, or in fact even be, part of any complaint resolution process.

What complainants were treated to instead, was a cover up of their complaints while Maestas struggled desperately to "fix" them without acknowledging their existence.

That is their modus operandi; cover up problems while solving them.  It's why they are so pathetically bad at problem solving.

Again, and still, none of this would be going on except that the establishment's press (the owners and news editors and directors at the Journal, KRQE, KOAT, and KOB TV) are complicit in, or at the very best, complacent regarding the ongoing cover up of an ethics, standards and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS.




photos Mark Bralley

Toulouse Oliver demands transparency

Bernalillo County Clerk and
Secretary of State hopeful
Maggie Toulouse Oliver has
joined a long list of politicians
"demanding" more transparency
in state government, link.



In so doing, she becomes only
the latest to demand;

• what is not now and 

• what never has been.

Things are the way they are as the proximate result of human nature; power corrupts and the abuse of power is enabled by a lack of transparency.

There is no reason to believe state legislators will do anything any differently than they always have.  The best predictor of future performance is past and current performance.

Oliver offers no specific plan to address the nature of politicians, except to heighten the demand that it change.

Good luck Ms. Toulouse Oliver;
let us know how things work out.

APS board to ban "sagging". Why?

"Sagging is a manner of wearing trousers or jeans which sag so that the top of the trousers or jeans are significantly below the waist, sometimes revealing much of the underwear." wikilink

Tonight, the school board will approve the Student Dress Procedural Directive, link.  I am assuming it was passed last night during a their policy committee meeting, link; I did not attend.  I am assuming it will pass during the meeting tonight, link.  The procedural directive reads in significant part;

“Prohibited clothing and accessories include, but are not limited to …

• "Sagging", or the wearing of pants below the waist and/or in a manner that allows underwear or bare skin to show, and "bagging", or the wearing of excessively baggy pants with low hanging crotches.”

This isn't a new policy; sagging has been prohibited on APS campuses for decades.  Enforcement has been a nightmare, link.  If you go to any APS high school, you will see students sagging.  (I will bow as always, to controverting evidence.)

This is not about sagging. 
This is about the permission of prohibited behavior.

The board and senior administration have no intention to enforce the prohibition.  They will do as they have always done; prohibit sagging and then allow and enable it.

This is about telling students they can't do something and then letting them do it anyway, and right under your nose.  This isn't about kids sneaking a smoke behind a building somewhere, it is about a student lighting up and blowing smoke in the faces of adults who told him "smoking is prohibited".

It is in your face defiance.

Who is in charge at these schools; the adults who write the rules or the students who deliberately disobey them?

Students are in charge at any school where kids are permitted to sag.  Students are in charge whenever and wherever they openly disobey rules.

Major stakeholders in any procedural directive requiring enforcement, are teachers.  It is teachers, not administrators and not school board members who bear the brunt of the enforcement burden; instead of teaching!

Had they been asked, they might have advised; without executive and administrative support, enforcement of a dress code is exceedingly difficult, consumes enormous amounts of time and energy, is probably not worth the cost, and not a hill worth dying on in the first place.

All this though the procedural directive reads quite clearly;

Principals shall interpret and enforce the dress code of his/her school. (emphasis added)

The word "interpret" by the way, has its own special meaning for principals.  Every law that gets laid down by the board, comes with a "weasel clause" for administrators use when they want to not enforce a rule.  This particular dress code has it own weasel clauses, but the clearest statement of concept can be found in the Student Behavior Handbook.  It reads in significant part;

Nothing in the following is intended to prevent ... a principal or other administrator from using his/her best judgment with respect to a particular situation. (emphasis added)

A principal or other administrator's "best judgement" is not subject to review.  Whatever the judgement was, however bad, however indefensible, if it was their "best" judgement, it's alright.

The practical effect is that a teacher can bring a student to the office for consequences for their deliberate disobedience of a rule, and the principal can use his or her "best judgement" in providing no consequence.

Why would an an administrator provide no consequence for even deliberate disobedience? 

You aren't allowed to ask that question; "best judgement" is not subject to review. 

If you push it, you end up in a decades long battle battle with an army of lawyers invested in preventing senior administrators and school board members from bearing the consequences of their own deliberate incompetence and corruption.

A lot of people argue mistakenly, that teacher unions protect bad teachers from just consequences.  APS lawyers,

• underwritten by unlimited access to operational funds 
• to spend without any real oversight, 
• on litigation and legal weaselry, 

provide an equivalent service to board members and senior administrators; they keep incompetent and corrupt administrators and board members from feeling just consequences.

Nothing has changed.  After everything that has happened in the last year, nothing has changed.  The board remains oblivious to anyone but themselves.

State Auditor cites APS, Mora and Española schools districts for vetting failures.

"Today, the Office of the State Auditor (OSA) issued a statewide Risk Advisory, link, to alert schools and school districts to the risks of non-compliance with the School Personnel Act. The Act covers two key safeguards related to the professionals who educate the children of New Mexico: licensure and background checks. The Risk Advisory provides notice to management and administrators to review internal controls to ensure proper policies are implemented."

“Our state has seen problems with background checks and licenses in school districts in Albuquerque, Mora and Española,” said State Auditor Tim Keller. “Schools need to come into compliance to ensure the safety of children and educators, as well as to safeguard public funds.”

The question is not so much, is APS failing to properly vet employees, but why?  Why after nearly a hundred years in business, why isn't APS getting it right; why can't APS get it right?

Who dropped the ball?

Whose head should roll?

What will be their consequence instead?

Ball is in Reedy's court - we await her response

By way of background;

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Interim APS Supt. Raquel Reedy
is in a bind.  She has inherited a
whole bunch of problems up to
and including a cover up of a
cover up of felony criminal
misconduct involving APS senior
administrators and the leadership
of their publicly funded private police force.

Because there is so much secrecy surrounding problems in leadership of the APS, even Reedy really has no idea how bad things actually are.  She admitted as much to the Journal, link;

“I don’t have the whole picture – nobody does.”

Reedy needs to know the truth even if only to help her hide it more effectively.

aisd photo

So she "hired" former APS good ol' boy Michael Houser and a couple of his subordinates to come and "investigate".

In the absence of any evidence to the contrary; Houser's investigative findings are to become "the property" of the leadership of the APS.  They will disseminate them according to their own interests.

If the findings are embarrassing, shaming or indicting, the leadership of the APS will spend operational funds without limit and without real oversight, on litigation and legal weaselry in order to keep the records hidden until their relevance expires.

That is is exactly what they did with the findings and evidence of felony corruption in the leadership of their police force, link.  They hid public records behind an army of lawyers until statutes of limitation finally expired on felony criminal misconduct.

In any event, the Journal editors called bullshit on Reedy's plan in an editorial yesterday; link.

The ball is in Reedy's court; the editors have called her out.  She has only two choices; respond to their call or ignore it; change her plan or plunge ahead with it as is.

Reedy has no choice but to plunge ahead with an investigation that reeks of appearances of conflicts of interests and impropriety.  She has no choice because she has to do some kind of investigation and a real investigation by independent investigators would bring down their house of cards.

Reedy can only afford to "hire" an investigator who is willing keep what they find secret from stake and interest holders.

I expect that what she and the leadership of the APS will do, is to simply ignore the editorial.

I expect that what the editors will do, is to simply ignore her ignoring them.

Else, they would be order up an investigation and report of their own, on ethics, standards and accountability in the leadership of the APS.

Who wrote this morning's Journal editorial; what have they done with editors?

In the Journal this morning, link, someone wrote an exposé of circumstances you first read about here last Thursday;  APS wants to "hire" one of their old good ole boys to investigate their current incompetence and corruption*.

*Whatever it is that is wrong with the leadership of the APS, flows from one or both of two wells;

1. incompetence; misfeasance; people not knowing how to do their jobs, and or
2. corruption; non or malfeasance, people choosing to not do their jobs.

The 100% effective cure for incompetence and corruption is high standards and honest to God accountability to them.

The are only two kinds of circumstances leading to success or failure in any endeavor;

1. circumstances beyond control, and
2. circumstances within control.

By definition, we cannot do anything about the circumstances beyond control.  By definition, we can do something about circumstances within our control.  There are no two circumstances within our control that are more important than standards and accountability.

If the standards of conduct and competence are high enough, and if people are held actually and honestly accountable to them, their endeavor will succeed.  If the standards are too low, or if they are not really accountable to meaningful standards, the endeavor will fail.  It is that simple.

That the leadership of the APS refuses even to talk about their ethics, standards and accountability is "proof" of problems with one or all three.  Problems so bad, so embarrassing, shaming or indicting, that they need to keep them secret from stake and interest holders.

That the Journal is yet assign a competent reporter to investigate and report upon ethics, standards and accountability in the leadership of the APS is I believe, "proof" that Kent Walz and the Journal are part of the cover up of the ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS.




photo Mark Bralley

A broken clock on occasion tells the truth ...

APS photo

and so did the Journal this morning, link, when they reported that APS interim Supt. Raquel Reedy, despite her many, many years in the leadership of the APS, has hired an "independent investigator" to clue her in on "unspecified" problems in the leadership of the APS.

Not the entire leadership of the APS mind you, just the finance, information technology and human resources offices.

Reedy will see the investigative results I assume.  A small handful of others will be "read in" to varying degrees on a need to know basis.

Stake and interest holders will remain uniformed of anything - unless they stumble onto something that looks like good; real standards and honest accountability.

AISD photo

Reedy has "hired" to investigate
on her behalf, ex-APS good ol' boy,
Michael Houser.

Houser is the Chief Human Capital
Officer for Austin Independent
School District, link.

They're all tied together by the Council of the Great City Schools, an organization that among other things, conducts investigations for member districts whenever they need investigations and control over the findings.

Nobody likes to hear, "I told you so". But I did.

For nearly a decade, I have been writing that there are standards and accountability issues in the leadership of the APS, and by logical extension and for the same reasons, standards and accountability issues in all levels of government in general.

There is now corroboration of those allegations.  A study indicating a situation so bad, even the Journal is reporting on it, link.  A far better report was penned by one time NM FOG Executive Director and journalist Gwyneth Doland, link, on NM Politics in Depth.

Power (whether earned or usurped) and accountability vary inversely;

the more powerful you are,
the less accountable to the rules you become.

As but one example; there really are too many too count;

a local (former) school board member, Marty Esquivel, has managed to spend nearly three quarters of a million dollars in litigation and legal weaselry in federal court already, in what amounts to a non-viable defense of his and a communication directors' egos, and is not finished spending still.

Politicians and public servants are not honestly accountable to meaningful standards of conduct and competence, even within their public service, by their own deliberate choice.

To believe that the situation is going to be fixed by
the people to created and maintain it is absurd.

Is upcoming APS Supt. Reedy able to create a synergy?

Over the next few months, the APS school board will be out and about, "gathering input" from anyone who chooses to attend one of the "input gathering meetings" they will conduct.  There is no evidence of which I am aware, that they ever used any of this input during the in-secret meetings that characterize the actual selection procedure.

Nevertheless, a list will be created, of all the qualities and traits the next superintendent will possess.

At the top of the list, should be the demonstrated ability to create a synergy in response to a problem.

The leadership of the APS isn't good at problem solving because they still believe in the manifestly ludicrous assumption that there are only a handful of people who know how to solve problems, and all you have to do is to hire one of them as a superintendent.

There is no magic, there are no magicians.  There is no problem a child can have, that there is not someone in the APS already, who knows how to best mitigate.  

Ask anyone in the know, and you will be find that in the APS there are a great number of people who have the education, training and experience to create and execute solutions to the problems they face in educating children.  Among "teachers" alone, there is nearly 100,000 years of ongoing teaching and learning experience.

What those people have never had in a superintendent, is someone who could (or would) bring them together and empower them to make changes.  They've never had a supt. who could or would create a "synergy" among stake and interest holders;

• a cooperative interaction among groups for an enhanced combined effect.

• an interaction of elements that produce a total effect greater than the sum of the individual elements and contributions; and a

• a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects.

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Has APS Supt. heir apparent Raquel Reedy ever created a synergy on the scale of a school district?

Could she, if given the chance?

Would she, if given the chance?

Until she demonstrates otherwise,
a reasoned assumption would be
that she got where she is in the
leadership of the APS for a reason.

The leadership of the APS is not about creating synergies.  Synergies sap control over power from board members and senior administrators, and restores it to the people who know best how to employ it.

It's all about hanging on to power.

Reedy cannot or will not* create a synergy in response to the district's failing performance.

*A reasonable assumption unless and until she proves otherwise.

Is it just me, or

is blogger Joe Monahan a little crotchety lately?

Tuesday he reamed APD Chief Gordon Eden; called him a poseur.  I bit on poseur, and found;

a person who pretends to be what he or she is not ...

and wondered who of them isn't posing?

The only thing I would add to Eden's evaluation is that he doesn't have the support of the people he "leads".  They're not being led, they're following orders; a distinction and a difference.

I would point to the need for a survey of the rank and file; every last one of them.  We need to know what they think is wrong and how they think it needs to be fixed.  I doubt that their legitimate concerns over compensation are the only problems they would identify.  Is their education, training and experience of no account what so ever?  In whose interests are subordinates not surveyed?

photo GACC website

This morning, Monahan let the Greater Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce and its perpetual President and CEO Teri Cole experience what looks like his own growing frustration with the never ending bullshit that politics and government have turned out to be - my words, not his.




Monahan photo Mark Bralley

Of what use is the truth if you're too afraid of it to consider it?

There is a truth about ethics, standards and accountability in the leadership of the Albuquerque Public Schools.  It is an important truth because the only protection of the public interests in the public schools are the standards of conduct and competence that apply to the politicians, public servants and their stewardship of the people's power and resources.

That truth could be found by independent examiners.  They could identify every ethic and standard that applies to public service in the APS.  They could identify the processes by which administrators and school board members can be held accountable to those ethics and standards.  They could evaluate the effectiveness of those processes.

The truth they determine will make the leadership of the APS look good, bad, or somewhere in between.

If the truth would make them look good, or even not too bad, they would be pointing to it.

It is because the truth, that there are no ethics or standards to which they are actually and honestly accountable, looks very, very bad, that they need to hide it.

If interim APS Supt. Raquel Reedy is to solve the problems vexing the leadership of the APS, shouldn't she have a really good picture of what they are?

If we are to hold her and the board accountable for their conduct and competence, needn't we have a really good picture as well?

Is Reedy ready?

aps image

All we know about interim APS Supt. Raquel Reedy so far is that she has what it takes to get promoted to the top of APS' good ol' boy oligarchy.

We don't know for example, whether she's willing and able to be candid, forthright and honest with stake and interest holders. We don't know if she will respond in good faith to legitimate questions about the APS.

Is Reedy ready for example, answer a question that no APS supt. has answered, ever?

Is she ready to look us in the eye and promise;
to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the (ethically redacted) truth about the public interests and her public service?

Any answer except yes, means no.

First test question;

APS students are expected to model and promote honest accountability to nationally recognized, accepted and respected code of ethical conduct.

As the senior-most administrative role model of student standards of conduct, will you show them what honest accountability to those standards looks like?

Will you be held honestly accountable to the same standards of conduct that you establish and enforce upon students?

When the question is;

are you willing to be held honestly accountable as the senior-most administrative role model of student standards of conduct?

any answer except yes means no. There is no such thing as an inconspicuous role model; a concept that continues to elude the senior-most executive role models of student standards of conduct; the school board.

Or will you join the rest in spending operational funds hand over fist; without limit and without real oversight, on litigation and legal weaselry to avoid honest to God accountability even to the law; buying “admissions of no guilt” for violating the lowest standards of conduct acceptable to civilized human beings?

Any answer except yes, means no.

Spinning the PARCC results

PARCC test results are finally becoming available.  The "prediction"  from the NM PED and Secretary Hanna Skandera, that the results would be disturbing, has come true.

The upset will be addressed with a poultice of spin and distraction.  Forgotten will be the bottom line; most students are doing poorly in public schools and do more poorly every year - and not because "standards are being raised".

Wherever it is we find ourselves in the effort to educate children, we were led here.  We were not led here by teachers and others who work at the educational interface; where the system and the students meet face to face; the classroom.  We we not led here by those who really know what they're doing.  We were led here by supposed education experts who may or may not have any real, honest to God, teaching experience.

The focus will be deflected from those led us in the wrong direction, and placed on those who were (mis)led.  Teachers will be held responsible for the failure to "properly" implement the latest fad passed down from the supposed experts.

If the PARCC results show any thing at all, it is that decision making needs to include the people who are supposed to implement changes; in particular if those people are the most educated and experienced people at the table.