We are compelled on occasion, to pay close attention to our children in public schools. The attention is paid to external influences; availability or not, of weapons, the culture, the parents, the media, the movies, ...
There are internal influences in play, and we are not paying enough attention to them. If we pay no attention, they will remain in play.
For example, if there are bullies at a school, and they are being enabled to continue to bully other students, it is more likely that at that school, someone is going to act out. If there are no programs at schools that identify and pay close attention to students in distress, it is more likely that at that school, someone is going to act out.
If no effort is being made to develop character in students, it is more likely that in those schools, someone is going to act out.
We can debate whether Character Counts! is the best model for teaching character in schools. If that debate takes place, I will argue that CC! is about as good as it gets.
In the end, it doesn't make as much difference which model of character education is used, as it does that a commitment has been made to honest accountability to standards of conduct higher than the law.
Character is measured in honest accountability to higher standards of conduct. The more certain the accountability and the higher the standards; the greater the character.
The leadership of the APS has made a deliberate decision to abandon character education. With good reason; character development is not measured in yearly standardized testing.
It does not count.
It counts for the nearly ninety thousand of this community's sons and daughters in the APS.
Accountability to the law is accountability to the lowest standards of conduct acceptable to civilized human beings. The law is the standards that every higher standard, is higher than.
If we really want students to grow into adults who embrace character and courage and honor, someone has to show them what it looks like. Their parents have to show them, their community has to show them, and their public schools have to show them.
It takes both character and courage to be held honestly accountable to higher standards of conduct than the law. It requires character and courage to establish high standards. It requires character and courage to provide honest accountability to those standards, powerful enough to hold even the most powerful accountable, even against their will.
I aver, it is a lack of administrative and executive character and courage that denies APS students role models of honest accountability to meaningful standards of conduct and competence.
There isn't one whit of difference between the highest standards of conduct and the lowest, if neither is enforceable. The leadership of the APS claims accountability to the "highest" standards of conduct, and cannot point to a record of being held honestly accountable for anything anywhere.
Every generation expects the following generation to be the first generation to hold itself honestly accountable to higher standards of conduct. Every generation expects the following generation to be the first generation to hold itself honest accountable to the truth.
We tell our children about a boy, a brand new shiny hatchet and a cherry tree in an effort to inspire them to tell the truth. Yet,
Example has more followers than reason. — Christian Nevell Bovee
The leadership of the APS, the superintendent and the school board, do not want to be held honestly accountable to any standards of conduct that require truth telling; candid, forthright, ... honest truth telling about the public interests and their public service.
They expect students to hold themselves honestly accountable to meaningful standards of conduct; a nationally recognized, accepted and respected code of ethical conduct, and they are unwilling to show them what it looks like.
Because they lack the character to hold themselves honestly accountable to the Pillars of Character Counts! or,
because they lack the courage to hold themselves honestly accountable to the Pillars of Character Counts!.
There is no other explanation. If there is an ethics and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS, it is newsworthy. If there is not an ethics and accountability scandal; if there really are high standards and honest accountability, it is newsworthy.
APS is about to go to the legislature for more money and more power. They are manifestly unaccountable for abusing power and squandering resources.
They spend millions of dollars every year in litigation against the public interests; litigating exception for themselves, from the law.
The millions they spend are operational dollars; dollars that could be and should be spent in classrooms educating children.
The get away with it because nobody knows about it.
Nobody knows about it because the leadership of the APS, the Journal and the NM Broadcasters Assoc affiliates in town, are in cahoots. There really is a conspiracy to hide the truth from stakeholders.photo Mark Bralley
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