Journal editors throw gauntlet down before APS board and supt

The Journal editors stepped up this morning with an uncharacteristically hard hitting editorial on the lack of high standards and honest accountability in the leadership of the APS, link.

They began with a solid upper cut;

It would be nice to know where the buck stops in Albuquerque Public Schools. Unfortunately, lately nobody at APS can find the buck in the first place.

followed by a jab to the nose;

On the heels of more than $1 million in missing computer equipment, in which the best explanation was “we are not doing a good enough job of tracking all of our technology,” come troubling internal audits at a third of the district’s schools.

and another to the solar plexus;

So there’s not really any comfort in the notion that the former AHS activities director “may have broken the law,” but since she’s gone, the case is closed.

a hook to the face, and another and another;

• Having a $4 refund check for a lost library book cashed for $1,500 at a Bank of America branch should dictate more than a “need to hone up on processes.”

• It is incumbent on the state’s largest district for someone to take responsibility for where the bucks stop before the next round again reveals nobody knows where the bucks even are.

• The internal audit results add evidence to the argument that this administration is not a good steward of taxpayer money and there is a policy and accountability vacuum.

and then, the coup de grâce;

... it’s time for the Board of Education to ask Superintendent Winston Brooks some tough questions about how these issues will be addressed – and share those answers with the taxpayers who foot the bill for APS.

"Share the answers" with stakeholders?

"Share" the answers with those whose trust and treasure are being squandered?

How about asking the questions in an open public meeting?

How about answering the questions candidly, forthrightly and honestly in an open public meeting?

What questions are they so afraid of being asked on the record, that they will not answer any questions on the record at all?

What are they hiding that justifies employing a Praetorian Guard, a publicly funded private police force, to prevent someone from asking inconvenient questions?

What's wrong with asking them to deny, defend, or even acknowledge their abdication as the senior-most role models of student standards of conduct?

What is wrong with asking them to explain why are they are hiding the public records of corruption and incompetence in the leadership of their Praetorian Guard?  Not how, why?

Why will they not produce an ethically redacted record of investigations into felony criminal misconduct involving senior APS administrators?

Why won't the Journal Managing Editor Kent Walz ask for them?

The records are public records. 

And, as they are the subject of ongoing litigation in federal court, they are immediately available. 

That they are immediately available and have not been produced in accordance with the Inspection of Public Records Act is costing taxpayers more than $100 a day, every day.

Why won't he then report his outrage at their response; that they will not produce even an ethically redacted version of the findings.

If in four days or so, the Journal has not reported that the leadership of the APS is secreting public records of investigations into public corruption and incompetence in the leadership of the APS, for no good reason except to protect APS senior administrators and school board members from the consequences of their felony criminal misconduct, it will become apparent, just how far the leadership of the Journal is willing to go in holding the leadership of the APS honestly accountable to meaningful standards of conduct and competence within their public service.

Let's give the Journal editors a full week;

Thursday morning, February 27, 2014. 

photo and frame grab  Mark Bralley