“The two most important days in your life ...

... are the day you are born
and the day you find out why.”

 Mark Twain

Happy new year.

I am grateful for your time and attention.

ched

Where were FUE, OLÉ, SWOP, ATF and the PTA? Where was the Journal?

In  the Journal this morning, link,  we first find out that the leadership of the APS has embarked on a leadership plan whose effect will far out last the election of three new board members and the hiring of our next golden parachutist.

This plan will outline what academic programs APS will put in place in the coming years and how they will be budgeted for, Winter said.

“It’s going to be a five-year plan of where we’re going and what we’re going to do,”

It isn't so much that the board shouldn't be planning ahead,
of course  they should be planning ahead.  It is that,
they haven't been planning ahead for years, and that,
they're just getting around to creating a plan now;
a month before an election and six months before a new superintendent takes over.

The meetings in which the plan was hatched were conducted without the meaningful participation of stake and interest holders. I will of course bow to controverting truth; tell me who, what and where there was meaningful participation.

School Board President Analee Maestas offered;

“It’s actually our educational plan for student success.” 
“And I do think it’s time for us to update it.”

Shouldn't any multiyear plan be reexamined annually,
or better still; continuously?

Their plan illuminates ongoing administrative shortfalls.
They hope is to get things fixed before that new board and superintendent expose the shortfalls in the process of addressing them.

For example,

The ongoing problem of their lack of oversight over their spending of our resources and wielding of our power, will be addressed by providing some accountability;

It will also attach “an evaluation piece” to each program so the school board and administration will know whether a program is successful or not, (Winter) said.

Journal reporter Jon Swedien noticed, or loosely quoted  APS chief academic officer Shelly Green, that;

A key difference between the former academic plan and the one administration is working on now will be how academic programs and initiatives are evaluated.

What a great idea!

The ongoing administrative shortfalls should not exist in a more than one hundred year old organization.  That they do exist is a manifestation of administrative and executive incompetence and corruption.

Where were stake and interest holders when the plans were being drawn

The new academic plan will be focused on reducing truancy, use of technology in the classroom, ways teachers can use data to improve their instruction, professional development strategies ..." said Shelly Green, APS chief academic officer.

How can this plan not involve,
how can it not be fundamentally based upon,
the meaningful participation of teachers and the others work work everyday in classroom and at schools.

Green said "APS must still help teachers adjust to the new standards ..." 

Educated, experienced and dedicated adults who have between them, hundreds of thousands of year of ongoing experience will come on board just as soon as they "adjust" to standards they had no part in creating.

Despite the manifest lack of involvement of stake and interest holders; APS Interim Supt Brad Winter has the unmitigated gall to say;

it is important for APS to communicate key aspects of the master plan to the community at large.  

Notice please;

• communicate to stake and interest holders, 

as opposed to, and every bit in place of,  

• communicate with stake and interest holders.

Marty Esquivel favors the aggressive move to preempt voters and the new school board.

“It’s very aggressive planning and it’s good,”.

Esquivel claims;

"... teachers, parents and community members should have a say in creating the plan, and it’s important the plan isn’t created from the “top down.”

He did not point to the time, the day, or the place where stake and interest holders will have their say, in especially since it is apparently, already to late for them to participate meaningfully in decision making that affected their interests.

Hitting Esquivel's lob back over the net, Winter claimed;

... he wants the district to establish a community academic advisory commission.

Please note that when, if, any advisory "commission"(?) is established;

(the)Details regarding who will be on the board and how they will function still must be decided, Green said.

The "details" will be decided by the administration without the participation of any of, the FUE, OLÉ, SWOP, ATF or the PTA.

The Journal will not be there; not as a participant, not even as a watcher and reporter.

The scary part; 

Winter is expected to leave the district shortly after APS hires a new permanent superintendent, although he does plan to stay on board for a “transitional period.”

Your seat on the school board

Call me a cynic, but the "transitional period" is the period where the new board and superintendent begin to understand what is going on and how it is being covered up.

They may rebel; they may
refuse join in the cover up.

I think they need Winter to hang around for damage control; to keep the lid on when it starts to blow off.




photo Mark Bralley

Non-partisan APS School Board Election usurped by "the Democrats" and "the Republicans"

I don't use terms like "the Democrats" or "the Republicans" normally.  I think their use obfuscates open and honest discourse on important issues.  Sometimes, I have no choice.

It's hard deny that "the Republicans" would like to pick the winner in District 7, link.

It appears that it would be equally hard to deny that with no opportunity to re-elect "Democrat" Marty Esquivel, they would elect his successor; John Jake Lopez, link.
 

I don't know John Jake Lopez.  I don't know if he's a "Democrat"; I suspect he might just be.

For all I know, John Jake Lopez might fully intend to put the best interests of students before his own, and before the "Democrats"'.

For all I know, he might intend to stand up for all stake and interest holders and fight for their seats at the table.

As far as I can find, he is yet to express that intention.

I look forward to someone asking him to his face;

Will you support marginalized stake and interest holders by creating for them; a venue where they can participate in open and honest two-way communication with the leadership of the APS, and further, to  participate meaningfully in decision making that affects their interests?

Any answer except yes, means no.
No answer, means no.

There is no seat at the table for anybody
 (except the most powerful)
unless and until there is a seat at the table for everybody.

If marginalized stake and interest holders want a seat at the table where decisions are made, they need to take seats away from the "Democrats" and away from the "Republicans", and then sit in them themselves.




photo Mark Bralley

The hardest part of getting a seat at the table

is that the only way you can get one,
is to make sure that everybody else gets one too.

Might does not make right

APS School Board candidates are finding themselves in the middle of a struggle over power.  Marginalized stake and interest holders want school board candidates to promise them more power.

On the face of it, it seems reasonable for marginalized stake and interest holders to seek more power in decision making affecting their interests.  There are two problems with that approach.

In the first place; power is a zero-sum game.  There is no more power to distribute; whatever is gained by one side is lost by the other.  And secondly, in this case, any power they might gain is not going to come from the powerful; it will be stripped from the even less powerful.

The only way marginalized stakeholders can accumulate power is by stripping it from, and further marginalizing, already marginalized stakeholders.

(The) powerful are not going to give up their power.
If they were inclined to share the power that has been entrusted to them, there would not be marginalized  stakeholders in the first place.

The solution is round table decision making;

a venue where the input from marginalized stake and interest holders sees the same consideration as the input from powerful people sitting around the same table.

If the goal of decision making is to do the "right" thing,
the premise of the process cannot be doing the "might" thing.

There is a distinction between decision making and voting.

Not everybody gets to vote.  Everybody does get to participate in decision making in which they have a stake or interest.  It is there human right.

If elected, I will promote the
creation of venues where
interest and stakeholders can
count on an opportunity to
participate in open and honest
two-way  communication
between the leadership of the
APS  and the community members they serve.



photo Mark Bralley

OLÉ and SWOP APS School Board Candidate Questionnaire

I have submitted for their consideration, my responses to their questionnaire;

OLÉ & SWOP APS School Board Candidate Questionnaire

How will you select a new Superintendent that values, solicits, and responds to input from community members such as parents, students, immigrants, and the community organizations they belong to?

There is no more valuable, nor more underutilized resource than the input of stake and interest holders.
There is an abundance of experience and expertise at our immediate disposal that is not being exploited. APS teachers for example, have between them nearly 100,000 years of teaching experience, and no seat at the table where decisions are made.
My top priority for the next superintendent will be the creation of a venue wherein there will be the opportunity for stake and interest holders to engage in open and honest two-way communication between the leadership of the APS and the community members they serve.

Would you support contracting with high-quality, private child development centers to increase APS's capacity for providing access to Pre-K?

The APS School Board is required by the first ethic in their Code of Ethics, to; make decisions in the best interests of students.
If, after meaningful participation by interest and stakeholders, the contracting out this or any other services appears to be in the best interest of students, I will support it wholeheartedly.

Do you believe that the School Board and the Superintendent it selects should resist many of the reforms that Governor Susan Martinez has been advocating or support them? Please specifically address her efforts to:
• Grade schools on an A-F system
• Rate teachers
• Increase the amount of the public school budget controlled by the Governor instead of local school boards
• End social promotion
• Increase the amount of testing in our classrooms.

In the first place, I would resist hiring a superintendent who has already made up their mind on these or any other issues. However well understood the terminology, the opportunity to respond to input from community members such as parents, students, immigrants, and the community organizations they belong to, must precede their final commitment to any reform.

Every reform, reduced to its essential elements, stands or falls on its merits. It either is, or it is not in the best interests of students. It either does or it does not enjoy the support of stake and interest holders after their meaningfully participation in its articulation.

Rather than respond to each of the reforms on your list; I would rather propose a reform which I think will obviate the need for them and any others.

I propose that the mission of the APS be reexamined. The current mission, however else it might be worded, is to standardize the individual performance of students who have little more in common than their age and the neighborhood in which they live.

Teachers are expected to take 30 children with almost nothing in common but their age and the neighborhoods they live in, and turn them into learning choirs, reading in unison, each on the same page in the same book on the same day for twelve years or more. Even if it were possible, and it is not, what purpose would it serve?

The ultimate reform would be changing the mission to;
Creating independent lifelong learners at the earliest opportunity.

I would add what I think is an equally, if not more important goal;
Creating students who will grow into adults who embrace character and courage and honor.

How will you work to close the APS District’s achievement gap and improve racial equity?

I am compelled to begin by wondering if “districtwide”, “ethnicity wide”, “SES wide”, or any other “group wide” achievement gap is an educationally useful calculation. However students are marginalized as a group, the effect shows up individually.

All achievement gaps are individual.

The calculation of group wide gaps might be statistically defensible but is otherwise educationally useless. Group wide averages are useful on in justifying the creation, at considerable expense, of “group” fixes for individual achievement gaps.

There is no such thing as a strategy to close group wide gaps. If there were, public schools would be using that strategy to close the gap of the group called “all students” and there would be no gaps, individual or otherwise.

The only educationally useful gap to consider is each individual student’s gap. If we can manage to close the individual gaps, group wide gaps close consequently.

Imagine a competent teacher separated from a student by a “screen”. The teacher is allowed to ask questions and determine what are that individual student’s obstacles to reaching their potential. Imagine that teacher has the time and resources they need to address those obstacles individually.

The end result; if the obstacles are surmountable, would be that the obstacles will be surmounted. Done deal.

However a student is marginalized, however many other students are similarly marginalized, the most effective and efficient solution lies in individual attention to the effects of their marginalization.

It isn’t that teachers can’t help individual students close their gaps. The problem is that the mission of public schools does not allow them to. Because of the group solutions they are compelled to offer; they have no opportunity to.

Many are concerned about “zero tolerance” policies’ impact on student retention and remediation; how do you believe APS can take a more evidence-based approach to school discipline?

APS’ decision making model must change. Stake and interest holders must have real input into decision making surrounding school discipline and zero tolerance.

School meals are a significant portion of APS’ annual budget, yet the district spends a negligible amount on food grown and produced locally. How would you help adjust APS’ procurement policies to improve health and economic outcomes in the district?

APS’ procurement policies should reflect the input of community. To the extent that they do not, there needs to be two-way communication between the policy makers and the community members they serve.

Cultural proficiency and student access to ethnic studies classes that reflect their own histories in a positive light have been proven to improve student engagement and retention. How would you ensure that APS’ core requirements help amplify the voices, struggles, and victories of historically marginalized groups?

I suspect, and it has been my personal experience, that there is little to no opportunity to fine tune the core curriculum; those decisions are not made locally.

For as long as our mission continues to be, standardizing individual performance on standardized tests, then the curriculum is necessarily driven by the tests (which don’t typically address the voices, struggles and victories of marginalized groups).

If we change our mission to creating independent learners at the earliest opportunity, all students would earn full credit for any effort they make to explore and internalize issues such those you have identified and, would have them consider.

What is your opinion of charter schools and how they should be managed? Are they an asset to APS or have they created new problems? What new charter school policies would you and the Superintendent that you hire create?

To the extent that charter schools address community interests and the individual needs of students; I think every school should be a charter school and or community school.

They should be “managed” as close to the community as the law and prudence allow.

I would eliminate the need for charters by straining to provide neighborhood schools with the power and resources they need to meet individual student needs.

Do you believe that parents organized with community organizations is a positive force for change at APS? What about teachers organized with the Albuquerque Teachers Federation? What about students who organize? How would you make sure that you hire a Superintendent who shares these values?

I think it is not only a shame, but a manifest and abject failure in leadership that creates a need for people to organize into large groups in order to be heard. It reduces what should be meaningful participation in decision making to power struggles; the larger group winning.

I believe that every stake and interest holder is entitled to a seat at the table where decisions are being made that affect their interests. I don’t know how you can give more important seats to groups of people without minimizing the impact of individuals who have something worthwhile to add to the discussion but who don’t have the support of a large group of like-minded individuals (for any number of reasons having nothing to do with the validity of the input they bring).

Would you support APS recommending that PED allocate some of the next round of SIG grant funds to transform an eligible school in Albuquerque into a community school?

Without a working definition of “community school” I hesitate to make a commitment.

If we are talking about schools that become community centers offering a wide range of services to community members, I am in complete support.

APS unions begin School Board candidate interviews today

The Albuquerque Teachers Federation, Educational Assistants Association, and the Secretarial Clerical Association will conduct interviews today, of candidates for three seats on the Albuquerque Public Schools Board of Education.

Filing for the School board; District 4

They created a questionnaire and asked candidates to complete theirs before their interviews.  Below, the essential elements of my own.

In essence, I will offer my unswerving dedication to creating for them and other stakeholders
a seat at the table where decisions are made.

____________________________________________

1. Why are you running for the APS Board?

In order to create circumstances in which stake and interest holders can participate meaningfully in decision making that affects their interests.

Beyond that, I am running in order to establish clear, unequivocal and meaningful standards of conduct and competence for school board members, senior administrators, and all others in public service in the APS, and

I am running in the hope of restoring APS’ commitment to a dedicated effort to grow good character in young people.

2. List your three main qualifications.

1. My close attention to the workings of the APS for nearly sixty years; as a student, as a teacher, and as community member and activist.

2. My absolute intention to change the decision making dynamic in the Albuquerque Public Schools in favor of moving decision making authority and resources to the lowest level that is practical and prudent.

3. My long record of willingness to fight for the rights of stake and interest holders to participate in decision making that affects their interests.

...
5. What is your philosophy of public education? And how will it influence your work on the APS Board?

I believe every child should be able to step out of their front door and “walk” to a neighborhood school in which their individual needs will be met.

I intend to advocate for change in APS’ mission.

In stark contrast to cemetery seating and the relentless effort to standardize the individual performance of students on standardized tests, I will propose changing APS’ mission to;

creating of independent lifelong learners at the earliest opportunity,

and during their creation,

Providing to them, some deliberate attention to development of their good character.

6. What would be your top three priorities as a member of the Board of Education?

1. Create a venue where interest and stakeholders participate meaningfully in decision making that affects their interests.

In brief; a professionally facilitated open and honest public discussion of important issues; from which participants will gather a shared understanding at least of agreed upon facts and concerns, and agreement upon that which we do not agree upon.

And, to then base decision making on that consensus or determination.

Decision making will be made as transparent as the law will allow.

2. I intend to have established;

• clear, unequivocal and meaningful standards of conduct and competence for public servants within their public service in the APS, and further establish;
• actual and honest accountability, under systems which offer due process for all complaints and are powerful enough to hold even the most powerful accountable.

7. What do you consider to be significant issues and challenges facing our school district?

1. The lack of ethics and standards and accountability high enough and inescapable enough to protect the public interests in the public schools.

2. The lack of a venue for stake and interest holders to participate meaningfully in decision making that affects their interests.

I find it incredible that teachers who between them have nearly 100,000 years of teaching experience, have no seat at the table where decisions are made.

3. Cemetery seating; the relentless effort to standardize the individual performance of students by imposing upon them strategies designed to move groups of students in unison.

Somehow, we need to free students from the constraints thought choirs thinking and learning in unison, and from standardized everything.

Even if you could standardize individual performance, why would we want to?

The sum of human knowledge is a few key strokes away. We have children who are by their nature, anxious to explore and learn. And still, we insist they learn in unison. It’s like having a race and every time the start finish line is crossed, everybody has to get in formation again.

8. As a member of the Board of Education you will be responsible for selecting the next superintendent of APS. What kind of leader do you personally think would be best for the district?

I don’t think we need someone who we believe knows more than all of the rest of us together, about anything.

I think we need someone who can draw upon the abundance of knowledge and experience that already exists in the community. We don’t need an expert anything – we need someone who can and will gather experts, and then listen to what they have to say.

There is no magic; there is no magician we can hire. If there really were people who know more than everybody else together, who have better solutions than everybody else together, we would have heard of them. They would be famous.

APS’ greatest resource is the accumulation of education, training and experience in the people who work every day with students at the educational interface; where the system and students meet.

APS’ greatest failure, is the failure to recognize and fully exploit the resources we have right in front of us.

9. APS employees are interested in having a voice in the selection of the next superintendent. Do you agree? If yes, how might you ensure that their voice is heard?

Depends on what you mean by a “voice”. The board casts the only “votes”, by law. Beyond that, I cannot imagine any other necessary restraint on input.

Stake and interest holders have a right to participate meaningfully in the selection of their superintendent. What that participation looks like is up to stake and interest holders to articulate.

At the very least I would hope for public forums where legitimate questions will see candid, forthright and honest responses.

Someone else first said;

The most important decision any group can make is when they decide how they will decide. It should also be their first.

I think it is possible, technically and practically, to involve as many people as want, and to enable them to leave the process feeling that they had participated meaningfully.

I think with competent facilitation, such meetings can be productive and efficient.


10. In the event legislation is passed that is detrimental to public education, will you work with us in mitigating any negative effects on the students and employees of APS? Please explain and give examples

Of course I will.

As an example, I think our mitigation of the harmful effects needs to go beyond simple protest. I would vote (in the absence of an overriding argument) in favor of diverting some of the millions of dollars APS spends on litigation every year, to litigating against governmental regulations and expectations that we, as a community, reject as unworkable.

If individual instruction and attention is our goal, and we find ourselves in diametric opposition to those who seek to standardize the individual performance of students, we need to compel them to defend their insistence.

11. Describe your views on collective bargaining for APS employees. What experience, if any, have you had with collective bargaining?

I think the alternative; negotiating thousands upon thousands of individual contracts is self-evidently unworkable.

As one of the former union vice president for middle schools, I participated personally in collective bargaining with the district.

12. The right for APS employees to collectively bargain is in APS Board Policy. Will you work to ensure that your collective bargaining relationship is maintained even if the state passes Right To Work Legislation?

I will respectfully withhold my commitment beyond my previous observation, until I feel that I have heard and understood the issues in their entirety.

The foremost obligation of school board members, regardless of whatever else they might say, is to make decisions in the best interests of students. It is the first ethic in the school boards own code of ethics and is overriding over any other interests.

13. Will you support a process in which the employees through their unions, are included in the deliberations on budget development and, if necessary, potential cuts to the budget? Please explain your answer.

If you are asking if the process should include only the input of “employees through their unions”, then no.

The deliberations on budget development should take place in public meetings. There should be at those meetings, opportunities for meaningful participation by all stakeholders, not just union members through their unions.

14. Do you understand the role that the Educational Assistants have in a classroom? Will you support a 3-Tiered Pay System for Educational Assistants that values and respects the work that they do?

I absolutely understand the role and the value of Educational Assistants in classrooms and on campuses.

I will support any system that compensates them fairly. I cannot endorse one over any others of which I am so far, unaware.

15. The Albuquerque Secretarial and Clerical Association (ASCA) is interested in creating a Career Ladder Program for Secretaries, Clerks and Bookkeepers on the “B” Salary Schedule. This concept would provide options for career growth and development with commensurate pay for increased training and education. Do you support this concept? How would you work to implement it?

I support career ladders, and in particular those relying on growth and development. Any decision I would make about the implementation of any plan would have to follow my participation in some discussion between stake and interest holders about how they might want to see any plan implemented.

16. Do you think teachers, through their unions, should be equal partners with administration in the design and implementation of education reforms? Explain your answer.

If you are asking if teachers should be partners in decision making that affects their interests only “through their unions”, then no. All interest and stakeholders are equal partners in the design and implementation of educational reforms.

Denying teachers, union members or no, real input in the decision making process is as inexcusable as it is inexplicable.

17. Do you support the development and continuation of charter schools? Explain.

To the extent that charter schools meet the individual needs of students, I think every school should be a charter school. It is only the ongoing failure of conventional schools to address students as individuals, that makes charter schools necessary.

18. Please list community or business organizations to which you belong to or that are supporting your candidacy?

None yet


19. The Preamble to the APS/ATF Negotiated Agreement is printed on the following two pages. Do you agree and, if so, how will you work toward that end?

I think my goals;

1. open and honest two-way communication between the leadership of the APS and the community members they serve, including and especially including teachers and support staffs, and

2. Honest accountability to meaningful standards of conduct and competence for all employees within their public service by means of due process,

are entirely consistent with the preamble to the Negotiated Agreement.




photo Mark Bralley

APS Police Chief finally tells "some" truth. The Journal, not so much.

In 2007, the Journal first reported on the scandal in the leadership of APS' publicly funded private police force, link.  Their investigation revealed abuse of a federal criminal database and the misappropriation of cash in evidence.  They are both felonies; the first a felony under federal law, the second a felony under state law.  No one has ever denied the allegations or argued felonies had not been committed.

APS conducted all of the investigations that were ever done; internally, and never turned over evidence and testimony to the District Attorney for her consideration of the filing of criminal charges.  The findings, what is left of them, are being hidden still, from public knowledge by the leadership of the APS by means of very expensive legal weaselry.

For years, APS has steadfastly denied any self investigation by APS' police force.  As recently as December 12 of this year, APS Custodian of Public Records Rigo Chavez wrote;

With regard to your request for “some clarity” on the number of investigations of APS Police conducted in 2007, I have written in previous letters there was only one investigation conducted on allegations of misconduct and that was the one done by Access Investigations under a contract with Robert Caswell Investigations, which had an agreement with APS Human Resources. Letters stating this have been provided to both you and your attorney. I refer to a letter mailed to you dated June 22, 2010, where I wrote: “There was only one investigation done and that was the one done by Robert Caswell Investigations.” I also refer to a letter I wrote to you dated July 21, 2010: “As I wrote in my June 22, 2010, letter, there was only one investigation into the conduct of Gilbert Lovato.”
There is no APS Police report of an investigation into alleged misconduct in 2007 emphasis added

Yesterday after years if denial, Chavez finally admits;

With regard to your questions: “Did Steve Gallegos conduct any kind of investigation at all, of anything related related (sic) to the allegations of misconduct in late 2006 or early 2007? Including, but not limited to the misuse of the BCSD NCIC data base and or the misappropriation of money in evidence that was spent as petty cash?” I asked Mr. Gallegos your questions and he responded that he had conducted an investigation into the possible misuse of the NCIC system. He said he turned that internal investigation report over to then-acting chief Steve Tellez. Mr. Gallegos did not keep a copy and has been unable to locate a copy.  emphasis added

I also spoke with Karen Rudys of APS Human Resources because the report involved alleged employee misconduct and she responded that she also has not been able to locate a copy.

APS' current Chief of Police Steve Gallegos was in charge of an investigation of felony criminal misconduct involving the senior most leadership of the APS, all of whom were complicit in, complacent about, or willfully ignorant of, the felony public corruption and incompetence, in which they were awash.  Including his boss, soon to be Chief Steve Tellez.

Tellez was later fired over allegations of his own incompetence and corruption.

Gallegos says he "did not keep a copy" of the findings of what was likely the most consequential investigation he ever undertook in his career with the APS Police.  He offers no explanation as to why he investigated the felony abuse of the NCIC but not the felony misappropriation of cash in evidence.

He turned over the findings of an investigation that should have named Steve Tellez as complicit, complacent or willingly ignorant of felony criminal misconduct, to Steve Tellez. And the only other copy? lost.

Robert Caswell is disinclined, in my experience, to explain whether their investigation uncovered felony criminal conduct (how could it not), and whether they had any responsibility to turn their findings over to law enforcement instead of giving them to APS to hide.

The beginning of the cover up of felony criminal misconduct involving senior APS administrators began in 2007 and is old news, despite the fact that at least a few of the original players are still working in APS.  That the cover up continues to this day, is of course, not old news.

It is not news at all.

The Journal is fully aware of all of these details and stubbornly refuses to investigate and report upon even ongoing corruption in the leadership of the APS; even in the face of a school board election and the hiring of a new superintendent.




photo ched macquigg

An open letter in response to the Journal's most reprehensible editorial ever

The editorial in the Journal this morning, link;

Rape of unconscious girl troubling on many levels

"The reported rape of a Valley High School student", you wrote,

... is troubling on several levels.

Then you have the unmitigated gall to wonder aloud;

Could the school have done more in a way that might help to protect future victims? emphasis added

You sons of bitches!  You cowardly and corrupt pukes!

I told you eight years ago, that the leadership of the APS was completely abandoning character education.  More than abandoning it; they were and are erasing their ties as fast an furiously as they can.

I told you that year and several times every year since:
they removed role modeling clause from their own standards of conduct;

In no case shall the standards of conduct for adults
be lower than the standard of conduct for students

I told you they had utterly abandoned any concerted effort to help students develop their good character, and you relentless refused and still do, to investigate and report on their abdication.

You relentlessly refuse to investigate and report upon credible evidence and testimony of an ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS, and then wonder aloud if the schools could have done something!  How dare you?

Even your solution today, in the face of such unconscionable behavior?; is to underwrite the validity of APS'  current efforts to help students develop their character;

"maybe we could have them read a book".

Maybe “Lord of the Flies” isn’t required reading anymore, but perhaps it should be if peer pressure is such that young people appear to willingly accept animalistic group behavior they know is wrong – and then ridicule the victim.

Have you forgotten, for the purposes of this editorial,
that most students can read? And, further, it wouldn't do any real good even if they could.

Do you really suppose there was a single student there that night who hadn't at some point in their last decade in school, "read" the fable about George Washington and personal accountability to higher standards of conduct? 

Character is taught by personal example, only.

You continue;

Rape isn’t a new problem, so it’s hard to fathom that some people need to be told that they have a role in stopping it.

No harder to fathom than the sun rising in the east.

Obviously they do.  Students do need to be told why you don't stand around and do nothing in the face of a rape.  How else can we expect them to make the right decision, rely human nature?  Not only do they need to be told, they need to be shown.

Edmund Burke could not have said it better;

All that is necessary for evil to prevail in the world
is for good people to do nothing. derived

It is fair I think, when something goes really wrong; to blame the people who could have done the most to stop it, but did little or nothing at all.

If there is a decline in the manifest character of students, there is no one who could have done more to reverse the decline than you, the editors of the Journal.

The problem is; this isn't about the best interests of students.

It's about the best interests of school board members and senior administrators who have no interest at all, not even in its smallest measure, of being held honestly accountable as role models of higher standards of conduct than the law, and about your complacency about and or complicity in their efforts to cover it up.

If I'm wrong, somebody ought to be able to stand up in an open meeting and point out why.

Somebody ought to be able to explain in words that any student can understand; why it is that;

students are expected to model and promote honest accountability to a nationally recognized, accepted and respected code of ethical conduct, and
school board members, senior administrators and newspaper editors, are not.

Every generation expects the next generation
to be the first generation to hold itself honestly
accountable to higher standards of conduct.

It hasn't worked before, it isn't working now and, there is no reason to believe it ever will.

If we truly want students to grow into adults who embrace character and courage and honor, someone is going to have to show them what it looks like; by their own personal example.

In this context that would be; school board members, senior administrators and news paper editors.

If Trevor worked for me, he would draw the editors hiding behind their masthead watching students  watching students rape students and wondering in a collective thought bubble;
shouldn't somebody be doing something?

cc the editors upon posting by means of a comment posted on their editorial.

Running for the APS School Board problematic

I want to run on principles, and apparently, the only way to win (any election) is to condense the important issues into negative bumper stickers.

Somebody, please tell me how
to fit that on a bumper sticker.

If after the election, you want policy making decisions to reflect the input of stake and interest holders, if you want public meetings in which there will be candid, forthright and honest two-way communication between the leadership of the APS and the community members they serve
you need to elect board members who support that goal.

There isn't another candidate offering stake and interest holders meaningful participation in decision making that affects their interests.

Not one.




photo Mark Bralley

APS and APD police officers are working at cross purposes

In many circumstances, you will find both APS police officers and APD police officers on APS campuses.

Their purpose there generally runs in parallel but at the most fundamental level, contradict.

Albuquerque Police Department officers are there to enforce the law as they understand it and according to the discretion they are allowed as police officers.

Albuquerque Public Schools officers are there to enforce the law according to the discretion of principals, superintendents and school board members.

However outlandish that sounds, however unbelievable,
all you have to do is ask an APS officer whether they are
following their own conscience and discretion, or
following administrative directives, link.

The APS Police force is a publicly funded private police force.  They answer directly to, and only to the leadership of the APS.  Ask, if you don't believe me.

There is a problem; a conflict of interests.

The leadership of the APS does not want students to be charged with crimes on campus.  It looks bad.

I had a high school principal once tell me;

"If I told the truth about what is going on at my (high)school, the realtors in my neighborhood would have my neck."

I had an APS Supt once tell me, when I was relaying the teachers union interest in teachers knowing the truth about what is going on at their own schools;

"You can't just tell the truth, you never know how someone might want to use it."

A recent enough audit by the Council of the Great City Schools found; administrators routinely "falsified crime statistics" to protect the public image of their schools.

School principals, superintendents and school board members do not have legal authority to decide which laws will and will not be enforced.  They do not have the authority to decide which students will and will not be arrested.  They do it because they can.

They do it because they cannot be held actually, honestly accountable for doing it.

They will tell you, if they answer your question at all;

• They are protecting the interests of children.

• They don't want young children to be branded as "criminals".

• They want (some) children who commit (some) crimes to be indistinguishable from all children who commit no crimes;

... standing in favor of open
honest and public two-way
communication between the
leadership of the APS and the
community members they
serve.

If nothing else, it's more than
just a little unfair to children
who commit no crimes at all.

Ayn Rand wrote;
It is not justice or equal treatment that you grant to men when you abstain equally from praising men's virtues and from condemning men's vices. 

When your impartial attitude declares, in effect, that neither the good nor the evil may expect anything from you - whom do you betray and whom do you encourage?

Whether young children should or should not be arrested and charged with criminal misconduct is an important question, worth discussing; openly, honestly, and publicly.  We need to know exactly how much discretion is allowed the leadership of the APS.  We need to know whether they are abusing their discretion in their own interests.  What impartial oversight is there?

Ask them.

Better yet, ask Kent Walz and
the Journal to ask them, link.

They'll get right on it.




photo Mark Bralley

Why do you want to be a board member for Albuquerque Public Schools?

So begins the Albuquerque Public Schools 2015 Questionnaire for Board of Education Candidates, link.

Candidates are cautioned;

Answers should be brief and concise

Unclear whose instruction that is; why they think responses need limiting by anyone except the respondent, or from where comes the authority to expect that they do.

It is eerily similar to APS public forums where speakers are now expected to collect and present their thoughts, on even the most complex of issues, in 60 seconds or less.

I expect the Journal will do the same; give us your thoughts in 25 words or less, 50, if its a slow news day and there's room among the ads.

...........................................................

Why do you want to be a board member for Albuquerque Public Schools?

I want to be a board member in order to change from the inside, the communication dynamic between the leadership of the APS and the community. I will propose;

• open and honest two-way communication between the leadership of the APS and the community members they serve around important issues and decisions.

• that these discussions be facilitated by expert and independent meeting facilitators whose goal is to enable meaningful participation by stake and interest holders, in decision making that affects their interests.  It is preposterous in my opinion, that despite their shared nearly 100,000 years of teaching experience, teachers have no seat at the table where decisions are made. And that it is equally preposterous that the people whose children attend the APS and whose taxes underwrite APS efforts, have no seat at the table where decisions are made.

• that transparency in public records and public meetings will be limited only by ethical interpretation of the law.

Each of these points represent a current problems created by an ongoing and intransigent reluctance on the part of the board and their superintendent to respond candidly, forthrightly and honestly in response to legitimate questions about the public interests and about their public service.

I want to be a school board member in order to draw attentions to and rectify the problem that allows board members and superintendents to refuse to answer inconvenient questions;

• School board members and administrators are not actually, honestly accountable to any set of standards that require them to tell the truth to be candid, forthright and honest with stakeholders. 

• Student standards, annually re-established and enforced by the board via their superintendent, are higher standards and require truth telling.  

• The standards to which the board and supt are actually accountable, the law, are the lowest standards of conduct acceptable to civilized human beings, and does not require candor, forthrightness and honesty, even in relationships of trust.
  
  The board and supt hold themselves accountable only to the standards that all higher standards are higher than.  And that only after spending unlimited amounts of money with no real oversight in efforts to litigate for themselves, exception even to the law, and admissions of no guilt even in settlements they lose.

I want to be a school board member in order to restore the role modeling clause they struck from executive and administrative codes of conduct.

• In no case shall the standards of conduct for an adult (in particular school board members and administrators) be lower than the standards of conduct for students

I want to be a school board member to create honest accountability to meaningful standards of conduct for school board members as role models for staff and students, because

• if we really want students to grow into adults who embrace character and courage and honor, who willing accept honest accountability to higher standards of conduct, someone is going to have to show them what it looks like;
  
  1. the board will be expected to show the Supt what it looks like, and then
  2. the Supt and administrators will be expected to show teachers what it looks like, and then
  3. teachers will show students what it looks like.

"The proper time to influence the character of a child is about a hundred years before he’s born", according to William R. Inge, American playwright (1913-1973)

Having missed that deadline by about a hundred years, we must attend to the next;

The right time, to do the right thing, is always right now. unk

Character development should be part of the core curriculum.

To educate a person in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.
Theodore Roosevelt, American adventurer and president (1858-1919)

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

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.
again - William J. Bennett

Achievement gaps

third in a series of position papers on the APS School Board race.

Achievement gaps are individual.

All you get when you add together all the individual achievement gaps of students of a particular ethnicity and divide by their number is statistically defensible but otherwise educationally useless number.

It doesn't make any difference what the student looks like or where they live.  If the student is standing behind a screen, any good teacher can figure out after awhile, what that individual students problems are.

Any good teacher would address those problems individually (if they could) and that student's individual educational gap will close.

When all student's individual gaps close, groups of them divided by their number will take care of themselves.  Why do we even do that; if group fixes of individual ignorance worked, public education as we know it, would be working.


There is no group fix for individual problems.  If there were, the educational model we're still using; cemetery seating and thought choirs exploring, thinking and learning in unison for twelve years, would be producing better results.

People talk of "herding kittens"; which is exactly what we expect teachers to do; take 30 children with nothing in common but their age and the neighborhood they live in, and expect them to learn together, in unison, each on the same page in the same book on the same day.  All while maintaining and supporting and nurturing their kitten-like curiosity and motivation.

When our mission changes to;

create independent learners at the earliest opportunity

there will be no talk of gaps based on ethnicity or anything else except on each student's ability and motivation.

There is no such thing as a disengaged learner.

You cannot make a student "engage" any more than you can make a horse drink water.  We have abandoned the exploitation of an an intrinsic, absolutely natural curiosity and motivation to explore and learn, in favor of standardizing performance on standardized tests.

Enough already.

They say there is no stopping an idea whose time has come.
As a matter of fact, it was Victor Hugo who said it first, link,

“On resiste a l’invasion des armees; 
on ne resiste pas a l’invasion des idees.”*

*if you don't read in french;

“Nothing is more powerful than an idea
whose time has come.”

Ched MacQuigg; individual
lifelong learners at the earliest
opportunity.

It is time to let students learn
as fast and as furiously
as they are able.

Let them follow their nose,
keep them out of trouble,
point them only if you really,
absolutely, have no other choice.




photo Mark Bralley

Korte; about to get steam rolled out of office?

School Board elections are supposed to be non-partisan.  Reasonably so.

Blogger Monahan suggests
this morning, link, that
Governor Susana Martinez
maybe starting to throw
her political weight around
in the election of the next
School Board; in particular
the race for Kathy Korte's
school board seat.

Korte has been a thorn in
the governors' side.

Los Aragon at filing.

Running against Korte,
teacher Peggy Muller-Aragon.

Monahan is concerned, her ties
to the Martinez administration, in
which her husband, Robert Aragon
is a favorite, portend interference
from the Governor's political machine,
in a supposedly non-partisan race.

Muller-Aragon proudly proclaims  on
her own website, link; to have been
"Active in Governor Martinez's successful 2010 campaign ..."


Adding to speculation that Martinez might be going after Korte personally, is the likely participation of the UNM Health Sciences Senior Strategic Advisor, Ryan Cangiolosi in the decision to fire Korte from her job at UNMH, link.

Awhile back, Cangiolosi was Gov Susana Martinez' Deputy Chief of Staff.

Is the Martinez/McClesky steam roller about to roll over Kathy Korte?

NM shadow governor (because
it's always and only about "winning"
elections) Jay McClesky

Martinez/McClesky still has lots of money left over from the gubernatorial race.

In a race where Monahan says the average candidate spends $15K, a candidate with McClesky's support could end up spending $150K and never bat an eye.

Is that what we really need, back to back attack ads on Korte on every TV station and billboard from now until the election?

If there ever were an election that belongs to the people more than another, it would be a school board election.

Just because the people have no expressed interest in voting in it, doesn't mean it should be turned over to political parties to decide.

The people can take back control over the election simply by participating in it.  Go to forums; ask tough questions.  Vote.  Encourage others to vote.





photos Mark Bralley

Ethics, standards and accountability in the APS

Second in a collection of position papers related to my election campaign.

2.  Ethics, standards and accountability in the APS

I chose those words to describe the issue deliberately, I could simply have said standards and accountability but I think it is vitally important to start using the word ethics for something beside decoration on codes of conduct.

Nobody seems to want to talk about ethics.  Nobody seems to want to talk about student, adult, administrative and, executive standards of conduct.

Students are expected to behave ethically.

Every year, the School Board reminds them in their Student Behavior Handbook, that they are expected to model and promote (accountability to) the Pillars of Character Counts! link; a nationally recognized, accepted and respected code of ethical conduct.

Every year, the School Board reminds us that they are not accountable even to the law; the standards of conduct that higher standards are higher than.  They spend millions of dollars litigating exception for themselves, from the law.  Operational dollars are traded for admissions of "no guilt" in expensive settlements; does $300K ring a bell?

How can we possibly expect to teach students about ethics if we can't bring ourselves to use the word except in the abstract?

Do we even want to teach students about ethics?

Is character education going to be part of the curriculum or are we going to abandon students to their own devices?

It is time we had that open and honest public discussion.

Even an elephant in the room at two
school board meetings and an unlawful
ejection upon the second instance, 
could attract the attention of the Journal
They refuse to this day to investigate and
report upon the ethics, standards and 
accountability scandal in the so-called
"leadership" of the APS.

It is time to stop ignoring the elephant in the room; the leadership of the APS expects students to model and promote honest accountability to higher standards of conduct than those that school board members and senior administrators are willing to be held accountable.  It is an outrage.

It is a scandal.

There isn't any difference between the highest standards and the lowest, if higher standards of conduct than the law are unenforceable.

The APS School Board freely admits that their own code of ethics is absolutely unenforceable.

If it were, the board could explain in words any student could understand, how it is, that their code can be enforced upon them.  Hell, they can't even explain it in legalese.

What is your platform?

The question was asked of me, by a friend who takes elections seriously.  I don't. I think elections are routinely manipulated by powerful people in their own interests and I really have no expectation that they can be beat at their own game on their home field.

I am therefore, running on my own terms.

I am not going to play the politics game.  I'm not going to beg for money and favors from strangers or friends.  My objective is to get ethics, standards and accountability on the table for open and honest public discussion.

If anyone really wants to help, they need to spread the word on the school board election and the candidate forums.  Ask questions about ethics, standards and accountability in the APS.

Ask and listen to their response to the question;

Are you willing to hold yourself accountable
as a role model of student standards of conduct?
a nationally recognized, accepted and respected code of ethical conduct

Are you willing to walk the talk?  Are you willing to show students by your personal example, what it looks like to;

 "model and promote the Pillars of Character Counts!"

Will you hold yourself accountable to to those standards or to any standards by due process; free of appearances of conflicts of interest and impropriety, free of undue influence and, powerful enough to hold you accountable, even against your will?

It is an important question because the senior administration and school board are not now, actually, honestly accountable even to the law.  They spend millions and millions of dollars (that could be spent in classrooms instead) in courtrooms litigating settlements containing admissions of no guilt of incompetence or corruption.

And, that needs to change.

It will not end until the school board and superintendent provide for themselves, honest accountability to meaningful standards of conduct and competence within their public service.

That will not happen if ethics, standards and accountability are kept out of the election discourse yet again.  The cover up of corruption in the leadership of APS' publicly funded private police force, has stayed out of Journal coverage since the election in 2007.

However ends the election, so ends your influence in the hiring of the next superintendent.  A man or woman who will or, will not bring honest accountability to meaningful standards of conduct, to the board, to the senior administration, to educators and to students.

There are those in this election who do not want to talk about ethics standards and accountability in the APS.  There are those who don't want to talk about the inescapable responsibilities of the very senior-most role models of student standards of conduct.

They enjoy the aid and abet of those who you'd expect to be looking into the ethics, standards and accountability scandal in the APS; the establishments media; the Journal for one.  They relentlessly refuse to investigate and report on the scandal, even to report there is no scandal.

No scandal would be newsworthy too, right?

Ethics, standards and accountability need to be on the table for discussion.

I intend that they will be;
in time for the election and
long before they hire the next
superintendent; in a series of
meetings they'll be holding
in secret from stakeholders.




photo Mark Bralley

APS insists; no criminal investigation of APS Police scandal

Up to and including late 2006, there was felony criminal misconduct going on in the leadership of the APS Police force.  The Journal investigated and reported, link, felonious abuse of a federal criminal database and felonious misappropriation of cash in evidence.

APS' Custodian of Public Records and Directer of Communications Rigo Chavez relentlessly insists;

"... there was only one investigation conducted on allegations of misconduct and that was the one done by Access Investigations under a contract with Robert Caswell Investigations, which had an agreement with APS Human Resources."

No agency of law enforcement ever investigated allegations of felony criminal misconduct involving senior APS administrators. 

Evidence of felony criminal misconduct was never turned over to the District Attorney for prosecution.

Which begs a question about the Robert Caswell investigation.  If he uncovered evidence of felony criminal misconduct, he did unless he willfully ignored what he found, wasn't Caswell under any obligation to turn the evidence over to law enforcement?

Is it really "legal" to have a private eye do the evidence gathering just so you can hide it away in a "personnel file"?

Either the leadership of the APS police force investigated it's own felony public corruption, or they didn't; meaning nobody did, ever.

I believe the APS police did self-investigate its own leadership.  And that the findings they are trying so hard to hide, show that Steve Tellez, who would later become Chief, knew, or should have known about the corruption in which he was awash as Deputy Chief.

photo by ched macquigg

I believe the investigation was
conducted by the current APS
Police Chief Steve Gallegos. 

I believe he is making $108K
a year to keep his mouth shut
about what he uncovered.

 

I believe they enjoy aide and
abet in the cover from Journal
Editor in Chief Kent Walz. 

Even in the face of school board election and search for a superintendent.

These beliefs are used on occasion, to characterize me as some kind of nut.  Who knows? but it's beside the point.

All APS has to do prove I'm only a nut, is to produce an exculpating, contradictory truth. 

That they relentless refuse to tell the truth, and refuse to explain why they won't produce the ethically redacted findings of investigations of allegations of felony criminal misconduct involving senior APS administrators, says something. 

That they are willing to spend hundreds of thousands of operational dollars to keep them hidden, even through a school board election and superintendent search says something loudly; it screams it.




photos Mark Bralley

Korte axed by the "committee of leadership"

APS School Board Member and candidate Kathy Korte is nothing if not outspoken.

The Journal reports this morning, link, her outspokenness cost her her job at UNMH.

The scary part from my perspective, the circumstances of the firing.

"... Korte was called into (Supervisor Missy) LaBate’s office. ... Ryan Randall, director of employee and labor relations at UNMH, ...  informed her that the “committee of leadership” had met “and had made a decision to separate her employment from UNMH.”  (Korte was given) ...“an ultimatum, either to resign from her job at UNMH and leave the building of her own free will, or to be terminated and escorted off the premises by security.”

Ouch

Who do you suppose sits on the the "committee of leadership"?   Whose fist pounds on the table last?  Why is it a mystery?  Why do the men and women who sit on it think it should be?  It sounds creepily Orwellian.

Gee, I wonder if it will come out in discovery.

It's going to cost taxpayers a bundle. 

"Facing “the humiliation of being escorted out of the building in front of her coworkers and the stigma of being terminated, she was left with no choice other than to resign,” the suit states.

According to the Journal; according to the suit;

UNM’s decision to fire her “in retaliation for her exercise of protected free speech … were intentional, malicious, wanton and willful, and undertaken in reckless disregard of and with deliberate indifference to Ms. Korte’s rights.”

The same could be said for Ms Korte's participation in Marty Esquivel, her and the board's violation of my free speech rights.

APS' decision to ban me “in retaliation for my exercise of protected free speech … were intentional, malicious, wanton and willful, and undertaken in reckless disregard of and with deliberate indifference to my rights.”

Wait til she finds out what it's like to be on the other end of suing the government and their unlimited will and resources to conduct cost is no object litigation in pursuit of their admissions of no guilt.




 photo Mark Bralley

APS' Mission Statement

Every once in a while, mission statements should be revisited. One could argue; the overall goal, the primary objective, should be continuously examined and reviewed.

APS' mission statement has been revised at least six times; the last time more than seven years ago.

The Albuquerque Public Schools Board of Education in collaboration with the superintendent and staff will work together and in partnership with families and the community in a systematic way to ensure that all students succeed.

Revised: January 17, 1990
Revised: May 3, 1995
Revised: February 20, 1996
Revised: April, 2001
Revised: September 20, 2006
Revised: August 15, 2007

Seven years is a long time to go between glances at a mission statement.

Teaching isn't difficult because the mission is difficult.  Teaching is difficult because of mission creep. It used to be about students learning; now it's about students learning in unison.

The mission results educators are expected to deliver reflect their success in standardizing the individual performance of dozens of students with little more in common than their age and the neighborhood in which the happen to live.

It's called cemetery seating; five rows of six desks;
students learning in unison, each on the same page,
in same book, on the same day, for twelve years.

Except for the days when they put down their books
and take tests in unison.

Even if we could do it; even if we could herd cats,
why would we want to?

It isn't because anyone actually believes cemetery seating is the best way for any child to learn. It's because its a good way to sell textbooks and standardized tests; a multibillion dollar a year industry. 

I propose another glance at the mission of the Albuquerque Public Schools.  More than a glance, I propose a full blown open and honest public discussion and review.

That discussion needs to take place before we hire the next superintendent.

That discussion needs to take place before we elect the school board members who will hire the next superintendent.

Submitted for stake and interest holder approval, a new mission;

To create independent lifelong learners at the earliest opportunity. 

And, while we're about their creation,

doing whatever we can to encourage the nearly 90,000 of this community's sons and daughters in the APS, to grow into adults who embrace character and courage and honor.

Adults who will serve as role models of honest accountability to higher standards of conduct than the law.

Adults who see doing more than the law requires and less than the law allows as a sacrifice they are willing to make, in defense of their good character.

Always and forever, every generation

expects the next generation

to be the first generation

to hold itself honestly accountable

higher standards of conduct.

Always and forever, do as I say, not as I do
didn't work.  It never has; it never will.

Ched MacQuigg; real accountability
to meaningful standards of conduct
and competence in public service
in the leadership of the APS

For two hundred years we've been reduced to propagating a tall tale, link, about a child, a hatchet and a cherry tree in an effort to show children what character looks like.

We wouldn't have to make up stuff to illustrate character and courage and honor, if when we needed an example of someone holding them self honestly accountable to meaningful standards of conduct,

if when we needed a role model for children to emulate,

all we had to do is point and say;

• like your teacher does, 

• like your principal does, 

• like the superintendent does, and

• like school board members do.

photo Mark Bralley

Since when is the will of the people a "wish list" for consideration by legislators?

Around this time of year, people start talking about
their wish list for the legislative session beginning in mid January.

If the will of the people is a list at all,
it is a to do list.
A list of the things we expect them to do.

The reason the "to do" list* never gets done, is because it isn't a "to do" list at all. It's a "wish" list.

*the people's to do list;

• transparent accountability to meaningful standards of conduct and competence in politics and public service.
• transparency in open meetings and public records, limited only by the law
• meaningful participation by stake and interest holders, in decision making that affects their interests.

Masters don't wish their servants would do the things they are expected to do.

The terms of public service are the prerogative of the public, not of public servants.

Fundamental among those terms; public servants are accountable to the public, and to meaningful standards of conduct and competence, at least for the eight measly hours a day that we have to "trust" them with the control over our power and our resources.

It is up to the people to decide which records will or will not be ethically redacted before they are produced.

It is up to the people to decide when their servants need to meet in secret, and what it is we will allow them to decide in secret from our oversight.

When it comes to protecting the public interests, trust in human nature in a temptation rich environment runs a far, far distant second to transparent accountability to high standards of conduct and competence.  At the risk of putting too fine a point on it; it is bone crushingly, mind numbingly naive to believe you can let people wield power and spend resources in secret, and that your interests are actually protected by your "trust" that they will not yield to the nearly irresistible temptations in which they are awash.

Accountability by due process of complaints; free of undue influence and powerful enough to hold superintendents and school board members accountable, even against their will. 

That is what is going to protect you from paying $800 for chairs for board members to sit in twice a month, ever again.




photo Mark Bralley