That which is wrong with the leadership of the APS

… is a historical failure to hold powerful people accountable for their corruption and or incompetence. In this context, the persistent permission of incompetence is corrupt.

From its very beginning, the leadership of the APS has been a good ol’ boys club. An audit by the Council of the Great City Schools found; administrative evaluations are subjective and unrelated to promotion or step placement.

John Dalberg-Acton argued; “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.”

With all due respect Lord Acton, it is not power that corrupts. It is the opportunity to abuse power without consequence that corrupts, absolutely.

There a few consequences, if any, for APS school board members and senior administrators. They hide behind denial of due process for complaints filed against them. Internally, conflicts of interest dominate complaint processes.

Externally, they hide behind an eloquence of lawyers, litigation and legal weaselry. The District, read; taxpayers, are paying increased insurance premiums to its insurer as the direct result of the amount of money they are funneling from the operational fund to the coffers of local law firms.

They are underwriting cost-is-no-object legal defenses.
They are buying “admissions of no guilt” despite their actual guilt.

Their record cannot stand investigation.

Fortunately for them, the Journal will not investigate them.

The opportunity for powerful people to abuse power without consequence stems in no small part from their community. Powerful people at the Journal will protect powerful people in the leadership of the APS. That’s what powerful people do for each other.

This is not to say that the Journal approves per se of these specific abuses of power by the leadership of the APS;

1. the failure to establish high enough standards of conduct and competence,

2. the failure to hold themselves honestly accountable to those, or even to the law, and

3. their fundamental failure to protect from their abuse, the power and resources that the people have entrusted to their stewardship. The first responsible use of power being; to ensure that their power cannot be abused without consequence.

The Journal is not defending the abuses of power by the leadership of the APS. You don’t see editorials defending the lack of due process for complaints filed against board members and senior administrators.

Rather, the Journal is acting in defense of the arrangement; the good ol’ boy system; powerful people having each other’s back in the fight to avoid exposure of systems that allow powerful people to continue abuse power without consequence.

The leadership of the APS knows.

The leadership of the APS knows that they have been accused of inadequate accountability to inadequate standards of conduct and competence within their public service.

They know. Which begs a at least two questions;

1. If they could, why would they not simply publish their high enough standards of conduct and competence?

2. If they could, why would they not point to the due process(es) by which they can be held accountable to those standards?

Obviously, they cannot; they have neither high enough standards nor are they actually accountable to them.

The school board’s own Code of Ethics is by their own admission, utterly unenforceable. So much for their “higher standards” of conduct.

The fact that they spend millions of dollars on cost-is-no-object legal defenses in pursuit of admissions of no guilt, questions their accountability even to the law, the lowest standards of conduct acceptable to civilized human beings.

Why would voters trust people with inadequate standards of conduct and competence and, who are arguably unaccountable to even such standards as they have, with stewardship over the better part of a third of a billion dollars?

Except that thanks to the Journal, they remain ignorant of the truth.

APS’ Praetorian Guard – The Journal doesn’t want you to know

Journal editors censored my letter to the editor this morning.  The letter was about the amount of money the leadership of the APS is spending on their own office spaces instead of in classrooms and schools.

One of the things on which they choose to spend operational dollars (dollars otherwise destined for classrooms and schools), is a publicly funded private police force; a modern Praetorian Guard. link

It is important to note; individually, APS police officers are decent men and women. They’re just following orders; with few notable exceptions. link

They carry commissions (read badge and guns) from the Bernalillo County Sheriff.  The MOU between the Sheriff’s Office and the APS prohibits them (or used to) from self-investigation of felonies.  That was made necessary by their police force’s self-investigation of state and federal felonies committed by senior administrators in the APS Police force.link

No evidence was ever turned over to the DA for her consideration for prosecution or not.

The language the editors struck had to do with the fact that the board’s Praetorian Guard is a police “force” not “department”.  A major distinction between the two being their loyalty; one to the law, the other to board members and (senior) administrators.

Isn’t that the kind of allegation that a decent newspaper would look into as opposed to erasing out of hand?   

What are they trying to hide?  

 Is there even a such thing as a Praetorian newspaper?

The Journal's endorsement of APS Bond Issue

The Albuquerque Journal (10/23/19) endorses the passage of APS’ mill levy and bond issue.  

In their endorsement the editors wrote; “The proposal will not increase taxes. … is a reasonable package… improving needed infrastructure and putting local contractors to work”.

Their position prompts one objection and one observation.  The objection is; the phrase “The proposal will not increase taxes” lacks candor, forthrightness and honesty.  Voters will pay higher taxes if they vote FOR a tax than if they vote AGAINST that tax.

The observation; this editorial is the first time that APS and the Journal have admitted that school bond issues are about “putting local contractors to work”. 

What they mean by “local contractors” is a very small group of APS favorites who (reportedly – but not in the Journal of course) benefit from a bidding system rigged in their favor and, who share between them around two hundred million dollars a year, in a district that is hemorrhaging students because they’re not educating students any better in fancy new schools than in aging, but well maintained, older schools.

Nobody has ever asked taxpayers before; are they are happy with half of every dollar they spend on education going to enrich a handful of local contractors and architects by keeping them busy? 

More importantly, as far as the Journal is concerned, no one has ever told them that that’s what’s going on in the first place.

Hiding the truth speaks of a need to keep the truth hidden

Is the Albuquerque Journal censoring comments?

I posted a comment on the Journal editors APS school board member candidate endorsements.

In addition posting it on the Journal's website, to which I own a subscription of course, I posted it Facebook and on this blog.

Sometime yesterday it disappeared. A comment posted this morning on their endorsement of APS' bond/mill levy is missing already.

just sayin'

On one hand, it could be argued that decision makers at the Journal are under no obligation to report criticism of their work.

On the other hand, the nature of their work. Does their work include informing the democracy? I assume they claim to be a source of reliable information for voters.

If they won't acknowledge the existence of a standards and accountability crisis in critical comments, they must at least acknowledge the existence in some way. That, or they're just covering it up.

In the face of school board member elections and bond issues and mill levy worth nearly a third of a billion dollars, the Journal needs to attach to their endorsement of school board member candidates and bond/mill levies, their solemn assurance that APS school board members and senior administrators are actually, honestly accountable to meaningful standards of conduct and competence within their public service.

If they can't do that, what are they really endorsing; who are they really endorsing and why?

Hiding the truth speaks of a need to keep the truth hidden.

So what is a Journal endorsement worth exactly?

The editors get it; they wrote that school board members have the responsibility of “preparing our children for whatever comes next”.

Though “preparing our children for whatever comes next” clearly includes helping them develop their good character, the Journal is covering up the board’s abdication of the responsibilities of the senior most role models in the entire school district. 

Not one single school board member will respond candidly, forthrightly and honestly to a pivotal question; why won’t you restore the role modeling clause to your own standards of conduct?  Why will you not hold yourself honestly accountable to the same standards of conduct that you establish and enforce upon students?   

It used to read;

“In no case shall the standards of conduct for an adult be lower that the standards for students.”

The editors get that “board members have to oversee what this year was a $1.6 billion budget”.   

But they don’t think voters need to know that school board members are spending millions of dollars on cost-is-no-object legal defenses for school board members and senior administrators, in meetings in secret and of which they make no recording.

Editors get that “School board members need to have a clear-eyed view of the challenges facing the district”.   

They do not get apparently, that voters also need a clear-eyed view of the challenges facing the district, not the least of which is the ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS.

Whatever other qualifications they are endorsing, the editors are endorsing continuing the cover up of an ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS.

APS Bond Issue/Mill Levy – What changed?

The Albuquerque Journal is reporting this morning that the leadership of the APS commissioned a poll in July whose results indicate that voters are ready to pass the bond issue and mill levy.

The Journal report failed to delve deep enough to determine why voters supposedly changed their minds.

• Has the board finally made their own Code of Ethics enforceable?
• Have they stopped meeting in secret and without recording, to spend the operational fund on cost-is-no-object legal defenses for school board members and senior administrators?
• Have they adopted even one higher standard of conduct or competence?
• Have they provided new due processes by which they can be held honestly accountable to any standards of conduct at all?
• Have either the supt or the board even acknowledged that there is a standards and accountability crisis?
• Have they stopped using their publicly funded private police force to investigate criminal misconduct of school board members and senior administrators, the very people, the only people to whom they report?

What has changed?   

What has the leadership of the APS done to indicate that they really do understand why voters are reticent to trust them with another dime?   

What have they done to indicate that they finally understand that their squandering of the public trust and treasure must end?

Role Modeling – school board politics third rail.

How can there be a school board member election during which role modeling never comes up?  Not once, ever.

There are a number of issues that come up in public forums and elsewhere, when prospective school board members are asked what they will do and how they will perform as school board members.

One issue that never comes up is role modeling.

It is the third rail of school board politics.

Why?  In an election where each candidate’s willingness and ability to shoulder the burdens of the senior most role models in the entire school district is arguably one of the most important issues to consider, why does it never come up?

Powerful people do not want role modeling to come up in public discussion.

Powerful people do want to engage in open and honest public discussion of role modeling and of actual accountability to any standards of conduct at all; even the law.

The Journal questionnaire does not include a question on role modeling, standards or accountability.  Never has; never will (barring a change in management).

The leadership of the APS questionnaire (12 questions) does not include a question on role modeling, standards or accountability.  Never has; never will (barring a change in school board membership).

If there is a good and ethical reason to avoid open and honest public discussions of ethics, standards and accountability in the leadership of the APS, that reason is yet to be articulated by either the Journal or the leadership of the APS.

Stonewalling is the only defense of their indefensible position.

That's wrong, right?