APS is first and foremost, a business

Actual education happens in classrooms and schools, all the rest of APS is the "business" of supporting classrooms.

The leadership of the APS would like to be evaluated on apparent success in education; rising test scores and graduation rates.  None of that speaks to the quality of the management and administration of our power and resources in public schools.

Evaluation the business end by counting diplomas is a misdirection.  Sure, it makes a difference when more students graduate, but a rising graduation rate is not necessarily indicative of a good business model.

Winston Brooks is the APS' Chief Administrative Officer.  He is responsible for administering more than a billion tax dollars a year.  We pay him a quarter of a million dollars a year for his ability to protect the public interests in the public schools.

Is he any good at it?

How would you know?

Aside from the educational successes Brooks claims, the remaining data suggest he is struggling as CAO.

Audit findings, according to the Journal editors, link;

... add evidence to the argument that this administration is not a good steward of taxpayer money and there is a policy and accountability vacuum. (emphasis added)

which Winston Brooks owns, part and parcel.

I am not sure what the editors mean by "policy and accountability vacuum".

I suspect that policy and accountability means the same thing as standards and accountability.  I suspect that vacuum in this context, is synonymous with scandal.

In which case the Journal has finally admitted that what I have been writing for these many years is true; there is a standards and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS.

So, how will we ever know for sure?
We could ask the leadership of the APS.
They spend a million dollars a year telling us how well they are doing.

Or, we can begin an independent audit of APS' business practices and procedures; administrative and executive standards of conduct and competence.  Auditors will search for corruption, incompetence and the business practices that enable them.

Are all APS administrators incompetent or corrupt?
Of course not, and we do them a huge disservice in
not addressing inadequate standards and accountability
and the actual incompetence and corruption they enable.
Knowingly enabling public incompetence and corruption is corrupt.

On the other hand, if the auditors find instead; adequate standards, honest accountability, no incompetence and no corruption, wouldn't that be great news?  Shouldn't interest holders be told?

The need for this audit has been suggested by at least one other person; APS School Board President Marty Esquivel.

He wasn't the president when he suggested the audit; he was a brand new school board member.

He suggested an administrative accountability audit.  He articulated the need for one.

Then, then School Board President and, NM Broadcasters Assoc President and CEO Paula Maes let him know in no uncertain terms, that she would never agree to any audit that "individually identified" corrupt or incompetent administrators.

That was pretty much the end of Esquivel's interest in an independent fact finding on standards and accountability in the APS.

The Journal is yet to investigate and report upon the "policy and accountability vacuum" they have just now discovered.

It seems unlikely they will.

During his sworn testimony, Esquivel identified Journal Managing Editor Kent Walz as his good friend.

Is being Esquivel's good friend interfering with Walz' several obligations to investigate and report candidly, forthrightly and honestly about the "policy and accountability vacuum" in the leadership of the APS.

Or is their some other reason; some good and ethical reason I cannot imagine, and no one else has articulated?





photos Mark Bralley
Walz by ched macquigg