Why can't our state be number 1, for a change?

Why can't New Mexico be the model for transparent and
accountable government, instead of a national laughingstock?

Who is standing in the way?

What are their names?

1. _________________

2. _________________

3. _________________

... _________________



And, who is going to take them on?


Janice Arnold-Jones link,


and

2. _________________

3. _________________

... _________________




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

It's time to cowboy up. link




photo Mark Bralley

Lord Acton on secrecy.

"Everything secret degenerates,
even the administration of justice;
nothing is safe that does not show how
it can bear discussion and publicity."

No Child Left Behind is fundamentally flawed

It is based entirely on the premise that every child should
be on the same page, in the same book, on the same day,
in every school and circumstance, when in fact, they cannot.

It is ludicrous to suppose that they could, even if they should.
That is one giant "if", and, the subject of the following post.

Stodgy thinking for Ernie Pyle Middle School

I have been forwarded a copy of the letter that must be signed
by teachers at EPMS, in order to remain at that school and to
qualify for a $5K stipend. I would assume that teachers at
Rio Grande High School have been given a similar letter
to sign.

The plan is a mixed bag.

It begins with;

Caring and dedicated teachers will have high expectations
and rigorous instruction that motivates the students to
want to learn.

This is common language in educational reform. It is the second
most common statement, the first being;

Any child can learn.

It flies in the face of experience with disengaged learners;
experience which tells us that there is no such thing as a
disengaged learner. The premise is oxymoronic. The simple
truth is that;

you can lead a horse to water, but
you can't make it drink.

Yet here we are again, trying to "teach" children against their
will. The old saw has been rewritten, and now we are to believe
that;

You can make a horse drink bad tasting water
if you offer it to him in a deeper bucket.

The motivation to learn is entirely internal. You can tell a child
that you will reward them for academic success and the result
looks like motivation to learn. In fact, it is motivation to receive
the reward. The same hold's true with the threat of negative
consequences for academic failure; any apparent increase in
motivation is not an increase in the motivation to learn, but
motivation to avoid the consequences of failing to learn.

You are not creating students who want to learn.
The very most that you can expect is begrudged learning.

There is a world of difference between a student studying
because he wants to, and a student studying because he has to.

I have often argued that teaching is like herding kittens.
The worst possible plan, is to try to get them to arrange
themselves in five rows of six, and then herd them altogether in
the same direction and at precisely the same speed.

Common sense tells us that the best way to teach kittens is to
allow them to follow their noses, while protecting them from
pitfalls.

If we allowed students to follow their noses, we would have
engaged learners. We would have students learning how to
learn. We would have students who enjoy the learning process,
who approach learning with excitement and positive expectations.

So where is the rub, why not let students self direct their course?

There are those who would argue that if students are allowed
to plot their own course, they will not arrive at the same place;
each with exactly the same math skills, reading skills, writing
skills, ... They would argue that all students would not leave
high school adequately prepared for the next stage of their life.

I would argue that straight A's in any subject at all, is better
than C's, D's and F's in the traditional disciplines. Straight A's
in any subject at all is better than dropping out of school entirely.

Perhaps the answer lies in letting them follow their noses at
least for a while; at least until they grow up a little. At least until
they develop enough self discipline to learn things they really
don't want to learn.

Where are you more likely to find an engaged learner, in an
elective class or in an NCLB preparatory class?

NCLB testing is driving the curriculum.
The tail is wagging the dog.

Open offer to Ernie Pyle Middle School stakeholders.

Students at Ernie Pyle Middle School are accountable to
standards of conduct that have been established by the APS
Board of Education.

They are written in the APS Student Behavior Handbook.

"Students are expected to model and promote the
Pillars of Character Counts!"

I would like to make an offer to the folks at Ernie Pyle,
and for that matter, any school or stakeholder group.

I believe that in any circumstances, Character Counts!
offers salvation.

There is no legitimate agenda at Ernie Pyle that does not move
forward on the day the character counts in your school community.

I have considerable experience as a Character Counts! trainer.
I would be happy to come to your school to participate in a
discussion.


My schedule is flexible; anytime, anywhere, anyone.

I have a dream;

Hundreds of people on the steps of the Roundhouse right before
the Special Session begins, carrying signs that read;

First;

end the culture
of corruption.





.

Tacit approval of the culture of corruption

By any reasonable measure, there is a culture of corruption
in New Mexico State Government.

Who should we hold accountable?

There are a number of names that will come up as a result
of a number of investigations that are currently underway.

But what about every lawmaker whose name does not come
up as an overt participant in the corruption? Are they clean?

I would argue that they are not. In the absence of a record of
pointing to corruption and an overt effort to end it, they are
complicit.

I would suggest a dividing line; every law maker who stands
against the culture of corruption, will do everything humanly
possible to create transparency, and transparent
accountability to meaningful standards of conduct and
competence in state government.

All of the rest join the enablers, those who sit around doing
nothing beyond not joining personally in the corruption.

And that just isn't enough.

It's time for legislators to cowboy up, and take on those who
would have state government function to meet their selfish
interests.



"If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem."

Any legislator who is not fighting against the culture of
corruption, overtly, publicly, actively, aggressively, ...

is, the problem.

Bill Richardson has his own page on the Huffington Post

link

Why don't we just let bygones be bygones?

If you want to participate in a
"conversation" with
Winston Brooks,
there are some rules
that you must obey.

One reads;

Learn from the past,
let go of it and move forward.

If I obey Winston Brooks' rule, I am not allowed to ask any
questions about the scandal in the APS Police Department;
a scandal involving senior APS administrators and felony
criminal misconduct. Felony criminal misconduct for which
no APS administrator has ever been, or will ever be,
held accountable.

This is good ol' boy accountability.

I don't think that it is a very good idea to "learn from felony
criminal misconduct, let go of it, and move forward".

Why not?

My dog in this fight, is that telling the truth about the past
will vindicate me personally, and serve the interests of justice.

Neither of which amounts to a hill of beans in the over all
picture of the APS. So why bother?

It is, the missing element; honest accountability for felony
criminal misconduct.

It is not so much that we need to hold the last good ol' boy
who squandered the public trust and treasure, accountable,
as it is that, we need to hold the next good ol' boy who
squanders the public trust and treasure, honestly accountable
for their corruption and/or incompetence.

For as long as the number one priority of the leadership of the
APS is to escape the consequences of incompetence and
corruption, then no worthwhile goal can be the top priority,
not even providing a solid education for APS students.

For as long as the plan for dealing with administrative or
executive incompetence or corruption includes hiding the
truth, waiting for statutes of limitation to expire, and then
"learning from it and moving forward", without ever providing
honest accountability, even for felony criminal misconduct,

there is no reason to expect that administrative and executive
corruption and incompetence will ever end.

And there is no reason to expect that educating 90, 000 of
this community's sons and daughters, will ever be the top
priority of the leadership of the APS.

For a more contemporary illustration, consider APS' website.
Winston Brooks says it is one of the worst he has ever seen.

Learning from the past, letting go of it, and moving forward,
APS is going to have one of the best websites that money can
buy. It is a shame that very talented students could not have
been folded in, but that's a whole other story. link

Letting go of the past means, the administrator most
responsible for the current state of the APS website,
may or may not be held accountable for their incompetence.

My money is on; "not held accountable".

It is a long standing tradition in the APS to move administrators
laterally if they really screw up.

Is this same administrator now in charge of another
department that they can run into the ground?

Paula Maes said she would never allow any audit that named
the names of incompetent or corrupt APS administrators or
board members.

And she hasn't.

There is a desperate need for an independent audit of the
leadership of the APS.

There is a desperate need to name the names of the corrupt
and the incompetent in the leadership of the APS.

How can Winston Brooks sell a $650M bond issue while
refusing an impartial standards and accountability audit?

He will argue that the cash strapped APS cannot afford an audit.

If they can afford to mount a campaign to sell the bond issue,
they can afford to do an audit which would make any additional
campaign completely unnecessary.

Assuming the audit will come back clean. It won't.

Because all the leadership of the APS has done for more than a
hundred years is let bygones be bygones,
at least among the good ol' boys.




photo Mark Bralley

Winston Brooks charged with selling a $650M bond issue.

Early next year, voters will decide whether to allow the APS to
sell $650M worth of bonds in their name.

Winston Brooks is charged with
making that happen.

He needs to rehabilitate APS'
image with taxpayers.

He has his work cut out for him.
Taxpayers have little faith in the
APS to spend their money wisely.



APS' Executive Director of Communications,
Monica Armenta has the lead in the
rehabilitation effort. She has reported to the
board that she has successfully "schmoozed"
the local media into slanting their coverage of
the APS in a more positive direction. link






If you ask Winston Brooks if he will point to a time, a day,
and a place, where he or Monica Armenta, will sit still and
respond to legitimate questions about the APS, he will not respond.

Which means he has no intention of responding to legitimate
questions, candidly, forthrightly, and honestly.

Which begs at least one question;

Why in the world would taxpayers trust the APS to spend
the next $650M above the board, when they are still
steadfastly refusing to answer legitimate questions about
how they have spent, and are spending, the last $300M?




photos Mark Bralley

Hector Balderas "busted"?

Blogger Monahan's subtitle,
"Hector Busted", link,
suggests that the State Auditor,
Hector Balderas has been caught
doing something wrong.







The headline is not justified by the story.

The campaign of State Auditor Hector Balderas late last month returned a $10,000 contribution to Sandia Asset Management, a Santa Fe firm associated with Marc and Anthony Correra. Marc Correra is a local investor who has made recent headlines for sharing in $15 million in finders fees as a third-party placement agent, paid by companies awarded contracts to invest state money. His father, Anthony Correra, is a friend, adviser and financial supporter of Gov. Bill Richardson.

Anyone who walks around in the yard of politics and campaign
contributions, particularly in New Mexico, is going to step in
a pile of dog shit sooner or later.

You scrape it off, you move on.

I don't see this as "busted" at all, Joe.
Get back to us if ever you have some real dirt.

The Legislative Finance Committee needs to step up.

They have the power to fund the State Auditors Office
so adequately that it would be virtually impossible to hide
corruption and incompetence from prosecution.

I would suppose that they could do the same for the
Office of the Attorney General.

Return on investment for tax payers; 2-4 to 1,
according to State Auditor Hector Balderas. link

Imagine; two agencies of government accountable directly
to voters, with the power and resources to end the waste
of our tax dollars through corruption and incompetence
in our government.

Imagine; two agencies of government, ... for the people.

How 'bout let's end the culture of corruption?

Richardson's red herring

This from the Journal. link


Watch as Governor Bill Richardson draws attention
from the money that, at the very least, he allowed to be
ripped off, into a completely unrelated, but more pleasant
smelling statistic.

"... Richardson's deputy chief of staff, Gilbert Gallegos,
said in a statement later,

"The governor's top concern is
to protect taxpayer money, and he's confident that
the SIC, in particular, has invested wisely and
outperformed the vast majority of public
investment agencies."

gotcha!




photo Mark Bralley

State Senator John Arthur Smith says he's “embarrassed” to be a public official in such a scandal-plagued state.

according to Heath Haussamen link

“As an elected official here,
I am embarrassed to serve in New Mexico,” he said.

He should be.

He, and the others, were entrusted with control over our power
and resources and they screwed the pooch. wikilink

"The LFC vice chairman, Sen. John Arthur Smith, D-Deming,
said he thought it was time Gov. Richardson "cleaned house."

Smith said he was getting tired of the continual scandals
that have rocked state government."

He, and the others, sat around and did nothing while; link

• "... state investment officials ... hadn't paid close enough attention or were misled. "
• "a single individual helped so many investment firms get money ... " and "... who shared in more than $15 million in something akin to finder's fees ..."
• "... state investment officials ... hadn't paid close enough attention or were misled about the role of third-party placement agents. "
• the amounts that were paid in "placement fees" may have been "understated".

"We're not a law enforcement agency,"
Smith said.


"We can only raise red flags."













I expect more.

It is hard to imagine being part of everything that goes on
in Santa Fe, and not knowing that this crap was/is going on.
Nowhere, have I read that anyone is "surprised" by any of
these "revelations".

It is not called a culture of corruption, for no reason.

I expect them to aggressively protect the public interests.
I expect them to step up to stop the ongoing screwing that
we get from our government.


Flag waving falls far short of what the public deserves from
these folks.




photo Mark Bralley

Incremental transparency, like incremental accountability, is nonsense.

Governmental should be as transparent as the law will allow.

Standards should be as unequivocal as they can be written.

Accountability should as inescapable as it can be made.

Incremental change serves only to delay the inevitable.

It serves only the interests of those
who would have no change at all.

Bill Richardson changes his mind on "pay to play".

There is an article in the Journal today, link, in which we read
that Governor Bill Richardson has seen the light on pay to play.

"Gov. Bill Richardson agreed Monday to work with
legislative leaders on launching an independent review of
state investment practices, throwing his support behind
a proposal that had been building without him."

"... and had been building without him." As in;

The king looked out of his castle window and saw a huge
crowd of pissed off peasants ready to storm the castle.
The crowd, had been building without him.

Opposed for years and years, to any oversight at all,
Bill Richardson now suddenly supports legislative
oversight over state investments, despite his recent veto
of precisely the same idea.

For years and years, if you wanted to be a middle man in
the stream of money flowing out of Santa Fe,
all you had to do was donate a bunch of money to a politician, or
be related to someone who had.





Bill Richardson
now understands
that, that is a
bad thing, and has
changed his mind
about the oversight
which will end it.







"O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"
wikilink




photo Mark Bralley

Why is character" not an election issue?

It is hard to imagine anything more important than the personal
character of a political candidate or public servant. I would
suppose that most every problem in government can be traced
back to someone's lack of character.

Yet it never seems to come up in the discourse before an
election.

Is it by a gentleman's agreement between candidates?

Is it because people who live in glass houses shouldn't
throw stones?

From national polls that rank professions according to
trustworthiness, we find politicians ranked down near
used car salesmen. Perhaps character is just something
that we don't expect from politicians.

Perhaps voters really don't care about the "character" of their
candidates or public servants.

In which case, it would seen that,
you really do get the government you deserve.

APS' $600M bond issue.

In an article about Charter Schools, link,
the Journal lets slip that the leadership of the APS will be
asking for a $600M bond issue;

"APS is expecting to seek approval for $550 million to $660 million worth of bonds in the February property tax election, chief operations officer Brad Winter said."

At the same time, they will be trying to keep secret, the fact
that they will not even discuss* an independent standards
and accountability audit. link.

They steadfastly refuse to allow impartial auditors to look at
their operation. They even kept state auditors out.

Taxpayers will never know whether their tax dollars will be
protected from waste, fraud and abuse, by adequate standards
and accountability in the administration of the Public Schools.

Governor Bill Richardson said, the leadership of the APS
has a statewide earned reputation for their lack of financial
accountability.

Mayor Marty Chavez said, there is so little accountability
in the leadership of the APS, that the only remedy would be
for him to appoint school board members of his own.

Former APS Chief of Police, Gil Lovato said that if the truth
ever comes out, there won't be a single APS senior administrator
left standing.

There has never been an audit of the leadership of the APS
which did not reveal significant issues of standards and
accountability. A recent audit said, the leadership of the
APS has a record of failing to follow up on audit results.

The Meyners Audit revealed that the leadership of the APS
was spending well over a billion tax dollars a year, without;

• adequate policies and procedures, and without;
• adequate accountability to such policies as there were, and without
• keeping records accurate enough to send anyone to prison.

They refuse to answer legitimate questions about the audit;

• Did Meyners auditors find criminal misconduct?
• Will statutes of limitation be allowed to expire as the were in the felony criminal misconduct involving the APS Police Department?
• Will the investigation still be going on more than two years from now?

You can't help but wonder what voters might do, if only
their newspaper of record, the Albuquerque Journal,
found any of this newsworthy enough to tell them about,
before they vote.



*
In fairness, a standards and
accountability was discussed.

The discussion ended when
Paula Maes told the board that
she would never agree to any audit
that identified any corrupt or
incompetent good ol' boy,
by name. link


And then made good on her boast.



photo Mark Bralley

Sometimes, you have to draw the line.

By way of illustration, there was a semester during my tenure
as a middle school teacher, when I was assigned "lunch duty".
It was my task to keep students from cutting into the line for
the snack bar, including keeping them from passing their order
and their money through a chain link fence.

I couldn't begin to tell you how many times I said, please
get away from the fence.

Then one day, I painted a thin yellow line on the asphalt about
ten feet from the fence. And that was the end of the problem.

Note that; even the width of the line plays. Had I made the line
wider, I would have had to argue with students over whether
a foot on the line, is a foot over the line. A gray line is a wide
line.

In the context of encouraging children to grow into adults,
the difference being self discipline, lines are an absolute necessity.

The controverting opinion is that there are no lines, everything
is relative, and the difference between right and wrong, good
and evil, black and white, is a gray area.

There really aren't many areas that are really gray. The gray
most people perceive is actually an effect created by moving
a clear line around so quickly that the line appears gray.

The existence of gray, is always suggested by the person who
has just stepped over the line, and who does not want to
experience the consequences of having stepped over the line.
Gray areas are always created by the perpetrator, never by the
victim.

As problems become more complex, sophisticated minds are
able to perceive and explore "gray" areas. The younger the
mind, the less able they are to understand the subtle nuances
that gray decision making.

Young minds need clear, narrow lines.

"Gray" behavior cannot be role modeled because it cannot
be quantified or qualified. If it could, it wouldn't be gray.

Role models cannot move in the gray areas. Young minds
don't perceive the sophisticated thinking of graying,
they only see a line being crossed, or a line being ignored.

The logical extension of graying any line, is to gray all lines.

The Pillars of Character Counts! describe a clear line
between men and women of character, and everyone else.

Character Counts! is a dismal failure in the APS, because
the leadership of the APS has no respect for lines. There is
no administrator or board member who will ever be held
accountable for crossing a line, because when they do cross
a line, APS Modrall will litigate a different line, where ever
they want.

If we want children to understand the differences between
character and the lack of character, role models must be
willing to forgo whatever slight advantage they may gain
by pushing the line, in order to preserve the line.

"Enforcers", those whose responsibilities includes providing
consequences for stepping over the line, are as likely as the
"perpetrator", to want to gray the line, but for a different reason.
Perpetrators want to gray lines to escape consequences;
enforcers gray the line to avoid having to provide consequences.

There is a considerable downside to providing consequences;
especially to providing consequences to children.

The worst possible thing you can do, is to draw lines and then
fail to provide consequences for having crossed them. All you
do is train kids to ignore lines.

Take for example the issue of "sagging". link

It was for a time, against school board policy to sag.
The saggers pushed back, and the school board caved in.
It is no longer against school board policy to sag.

The lesson the saggers learned was; the line can be ignored
without consequence. According to a psychological tenet
called "generalization", saggers learned that all lines can
be ignored without consequence.

One is far better off, to simply ignore certain behaviors, than
to create rules against the behavior which will then, not be
enforced.

APS schools are out of control.

In any school where prohibited behavior is permitted,
students are in charge. Adults may argue that they are in
charge, but the simple fact is; the person who's will is being
done, is in charge.

No factor contributes to the failure of schools, to a larger
extent than, schools out of adult control.

They will not be under adult control, until adults draw some
appropriate lines, and then enforce them absolutely and
even upon themselves.

If we want children to embrace honest accountability to
meaningful standards of conduct;

someone has to show them what it looks like.

APS School Board adopts Character Counts! unanimously.

Resolution

To endorse and Implement Character Counts! Program in the
Albuquerque Public Schools

Whereas, Albuquerque Public Schools reaffirms the need to join with other community groups to actively engage in the development and demonstration of ethical behavior among youth, adults, and

Whereas, the mission of Albuquerque Public Schools is to provide learners of all ages the skills and knowledge needed to become successful and productive members of a dynamic society, and

Whereas, the Albuquerque Public Schools recognizes that students in our schools are more likely now than in the past to experience family disintegration, homicide, drug use, teen age pregnancy, dishonesty, suicide, and strong messages from media and society that undermine home teaching of ethical values, and

Whereas, the Albuquerque Public Schools recognizes that no single community institution can instill ethical behavior in youth and adults if it is acting without the support of other institutions and groups, and

Whereas, the Albuquerque Public Schools recognizes the important role played by teachers and other adults in school settings in modeling good character for young people

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED;

1. That the Albuquerque Public Schools endorses the Aspen Declaration on Character Education (link) as well as the Character Counts! Program as ways to develop character based on six core ethical values; trustworthiness, respect, responsibility , fairness, caring and citizenship;

2. That the Albuquerque Public Schools will enter into community-wide discussions with other institutions and groups to reach agreements about the role of each in promoting ethical behavior among young people, and adults in various aspects of life;

3. That the Albuquerque Public Schools is committed to creating models of ethical behavior among all adults who serve students and schools;

4. That the core curriculum should continue to give explicit attention to character development as an ongoing art of school instruction;

5. That materials, teaching methods, partnerships, and services to support school programs shall be selected, in part, for their capacity to support the development of character among your that adults;

6. That all schools examine school curriculum and practices to identify and extend opportunities for developing character, especially through the utilization of violence-prevention programs, mediation training, community service programs. fair rules which are fairy enforced, democratic practices in classrooms and organizations, and extracurricular activities which help students learn and model caring and ethical behavior.

DATED this 2nd day of March, 1994

(emphasis added)


Fifteen years later, and the leadership of the APS is no closer to implementing character education, than they were the evening they adopted this resolution.

In fact, they are further away. At least on that night, they were willing to talk about Character Counts! and its potential for addressing every single issue that affects the education of students in the APS.

Today there is not a single member of the leadership of the
APS with the character and the courage, to talk publicly,
about character and courage.