APS Police Force Not on Legislative Agenda

Governor Bill Richardson has decided that APS can wait at least another year to legitimize its Praetorian Guard.

Maybe by then, the leadership of the APS,
Darren White, and Kari Brandenburg will have told the truth about the public corruption and criminal conspiracy in the leadership of the Guard;

and the legislature can legislate accordingly.



Journal, link sub req

Of all of the things that can end political aspirations,

why is a manifest lack of honesty, not one of them?

Darren White will learn the lesson the hard way.

Richard Nixon was not the first, nor was he the last
politician to come to the conclusion that it is far better
to come clean with the truth, than to get caught in the
cover up.

Not only does Darren White have to explain how his
computers were criminally abused by the leadership
of the APS;

but now he has to explain why he has refused to be
honest about it for the last year,

and despite several requests that he surrender
ethically redacted public records, to public knowledge.



Similarly, if and when the media finally start covering
the APS Ethics and Accountability Scandal;
in order to be found credible in their reporting,
they will first have to report credibly on their failure
to report credibly, here to fore,
for many years and through several board member,
school bond issue, and mill levy elections.

What good and ethical reason;

prohibits the Character Counts Leadership Council
from showing some leadership?

Why is the APS Character Counts Leadership Council
a secret society?

Is the Character Counts Leadership Council a sham?
Is it just a handful of senior administrators and
Paula Maes?

What is Carole Smith doing, beside being a highly paid
APS Administrator whose contract might actually mention
the Pillars of Character Counts! and her responsibility
to promote, model (and defend) them?

Is there anyone on the Council who actually believes in
the Pillars of Character Counts! ?



Do its members even know what council president,
Paula Maes is doing above their names and reputations?


And by what good and ethical reason is the collapse of
Character Counts! in the APS not worthy of investigation
and reporting by Phill Casaus, Kent Walz, Thomas J Lang
Michelle Donaldson, Sue Stephens and Thomas Pearl?

Why are we spending one dime of one tax dollar promoting a standard that has been soundly and roundly rejected by the senior leadership of the APS?

Ask a child please, Why is it important to strive to be "good"?

I submit, subject to your criticism, that there are only two possible answers;

• because it is in my "self interest", and
  
• because it is "the right thing to do".

... because the reward or consequence for the choice, compels me to do the "right" thing, or

... because I believe that I have to do the right thing, regardless of the reward or sacrifice.


I submit further, that the younger a child is, the more likely
it is that they will cite their own self interest. And, that
as they mature into adults, they are more likely to resist
temptation, even at some considerable self sacrifice.
(in general, and with far too many exceptions)

Our (only) hope is that as children mature,
they will acquire and embrace virtue.

For the first time in a very long time, I find myself right now
at a loss for words. I find myself unable to articulate a feeling.
I can't explain virtue, whether it is taught, or learned,
quantifiable, qualifiable, ...

But if you are with me so far, and if you understand what I mean, and if you agree that it is important that we do everything that we can to insure that the next generation is one with at least some virtue, we can continue together to the end of the post.

"Teddy" Roosevelt observed and remarked that if you give the next generation the tools to be successfully corrupt, and at the same time do nothing to insure that those skills will not be used against the community interest, you have created a menace to society. (derived)

He observed and wrote that, character counts,
he wasn't writing in terms of a merchandising gimick,
but more in terms of a declarative sentence.

It is time to decide publicly, whether we would have
the 89,000 of our sons and daughters in the APS,
respond to cheating with virtue,
or with better cheating skills.

A person without virtue is corruptible. Absolutely.

The greater the virtue, the greater the resistance to
omnipresent temptation.

The lesser the virtue, the lesser the resistance to temptation.

Do we or do we not want the issue of creating character
and virtue to be an integral part of public education?



Should we agree that public schools have at least some responsibility, and if we can agree that role modeling plays at least some role in character building, then role modeling by the leadership of the APS is an issue worthy of illumination.



Because corruption is always rewarded,
it is always in the self interest of the corrupt
to be corrupt. It is why people become corrupt.

But corruption exists only because it is allowed to exist.

Corruption exists only because we lack the will to end it;
we lack the will to provide real accountability.
We are in fact, afraid to hold powerful people like superintendents and school board presidents accountable for their conduct and competence as public servants.

Accountability is fatal to corruption. Absolutely.


If we do not provide for children,
a world that provides honest accountability to
meaningful standards of conduct;
we are simply lying to them when we tell them
cheaters never win.

If we allow cheating, cheaters will always win.

If we expect our children to obey rules, the very least we can do is everything we can do, to make sure that following the rules remains in their self interest. At least until they acquire virtue, and our external influence is no longer necessary.



So where are children to acquire virtue?

At home, in church, from their family, from their friends ...

OK, but what are we to do with the children who do not have lives which provide for them, any reason to resist temptation?


It really does take a community to raise a child.
And because this community at large has abdicated its
responsibility, the APS ,the only remaining option,
for that reason, becomes the best possible option.

Character will not count for students in the APS
for exactly as long as it does not count for people like
Beth Everitt/Linda Sink and Paula Maes.


The only thing that makes it impossible for children
in the APS to acquire at least some virtue at school;

Is the unwillingness of board members and senior administrators to be held honestly accountable as role models, even for eight measly hours a day.


That, and the cloak of invisibility provided for them
by Phill Casaus, Kent Walz, and Thomas J Lang
Michelle Donaldson news director KRQE TV,
Thomas Pearl, acting news director KOB TV
and Sue Stephens, news director at KOAT TV.

A Gathering of Albuquerque's Finest

Darren White, Kari Brandenburg, Paula Maes/Modrall,
Linda Sink, Phill Casaus, Kent Walz, and Thomas J. Lang;
have gathered together to provide a blanket of immunity
for senior APS administrators including Tom Savage;
and public servants in the Bernalillo County Sheriff's Office
from the consequences of felony criminal misconduct.

And to provide a cloak of invisibility for an institution that
requires no accountability to any meaningful standard of
conduct or competence for its senior most administrators
and board members.

Who simply refuse to discuss an immediate full scale forensic
administrative accountability audit of the public interests
in the administration of the public schools.


"no comment"


is neither an explanation, nor a defense,
nor is it even an acknowledgment of allegations of
public corruption and criminal conspiracy
in the leadership of the APS.


What kind of role model says, no comment?


Speaking of which; no comment yet from
Character Counts! National Vice President Jessica Ellis,
or from its founding father Michael Josephson.

Both of whom I assume, will continue to advocate for
telling children to stand up for what they believe in,
even if they are standing alone,
(without a single administrative or school boardmember role model)

and then telling those same children


... be seein ya.

What Corrupts Men Like Thomas J Lang, Kent Walz, and Phill Casaus

if not the opportunity to slant the news in their interests
and without consequence?

The lack of accountability for the abuse of power corrupts, absolutely.
(Socrates, derived)

What corrupts people like Darren White, Kari Brandenburg, Paula Maes, and Linda Sink?



The very same thing.

Can Darren White be Elected to Congress

without having to explain, defend, or even acknowledge that on his watch, one of the most sophisticated and secure computer data bases in law enforcement, was used to do commit a criminal battery on the privacy of an APS Administrator's girlfriend?

And without having to surrender an ethically redacted version of the public record, to public knowledge?


Can Kari Brandenburg be reelected to the District Attorney's Office without surrendering an ethically redacted version of the public record, to public knowledge? The record of her personal participation in a cover up of the ethics and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS.

Can Linda Sink be hired as the next superintendent of the APS without explaining, defending, or even acknowledging her failure to surrender to public knowledge, evidence of public corruption and criminal conspiracy in the leadership of the APS (police dept).



The magic 8-ball has been consulted;
and the answer is;

"As I see it, yes"




Mental note;
"Never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel." unk


People like Kent Walz and Thomas J Lang.

If, While Darren White is Sheriff,

the leadership of the APS got to play with one of the most secure computer data bases in the country, illegally;

what kinds of toys will they get to play with
if he's elected to Congress?



... just wondering.

"Closed ... (public) Records Keep Public in the Dark"

According to the Journal this morning. link - sub req.

Editor Kent Walz, Thomas J Lang, or whomever it is that penned the piece, wrote;

What part of "public" don't these public officials understand?

The anonymous writer is upset that public agencies, the state Environmental Department, Rio Rancho Public Schools, and the City of Gallup, are suing those who request public records.

"It is a tactic designed to discourage people form asking for records, and it is an abuse of the taxpayers who pay for these pre-emptive secrecy campaigns."

Clearly they understand the problem and its import.

Still missing from his list of public entities wasting tax dollars in hiding their public record, still immune from editorial outrage. the leadership of the Albuquerque Public Schools.

APS BOE Pres. Paula Maes/Modrall, APS Supt Linda Sink, et al, are hiding the public records of

• District spending at Paula Maes husband's law firm Modrall, millions of dollars a year.
• Pertinent details of lawsuits filed against the district, the specific complaints, the settlements entered into on behalf of taxpayers, and the money siphoned off each case by the lawyers at Modrall.
• District spending at the Uptown Administrative Complex.
• Results of an impartial investigation into public corruption and criminal conspiracy in the leadership of the APS (Police Department).

Why is Bernalillo County Sheriff Darren White hiding the evidence of felony criminal misuse of his NCIC background check system?

Why is District Attorney Kari Brandenburg stalling on her investigation of the evidence of felony criminal misconduct by members of the leadership of the APS and the Bernalillo County Sheriff's Office?

Why is Supt Linda Sink hiding public records of public corruption and criminal conspiracy.

Why are Thomas J. Lang, Kent Walz, and the Journal so bent on covering up for the leadership of the APS, Darren White, and Kari Brandenburg?

Darren White is running for congress, for Pete's sake.

Why are Thomas J Lang, Kent Walz and Journal hiding the truth from voters?

New Mexico Ranks 50th in Efficiency of Spending Educational Resources

According to these folks; First Class Education.org
(link) then click on NM on the map

New Mexico only manages get 56 cents of each operational dollar to the classroom; the lowest percentage in the nation.

If New Mexico raised the percent of money that gets to the classroom to 65%, the goal of First Class Education.Org, classrooms in NM would get an additional $217M a year without raising taxes.

tip of the hat to Errors of Enchantment (link)

School Board President Paula Maes Will Not Explain to Character Counts! Natl VP Jessica Ellis

... how it is that she, Paula Maes, as the
President of the Character Counts! Leadership Council
excepted herself from accountability to
the Pillars of Character Counts!,
for even the few hours each day that she serves the public as the District's most senior role model
of the student standard of conduct;

... the Pillars of Character Counts.


If she won't explain it to stakeholders
why would she explain it to Jessica Ellis?


All that is left to see is,
what will Jessica Ellis and Michael Josephson
do with the truth that they uncover today.

All School Employees Need Raises

Journal (link sub req)

No they don't.



But the good ones sure do.

Standing Up for What You Believe In

only "counts", if upon standing up,
there is a reasonable chance that
you will be knocked back down again
for your temerity.

The harder you are willing to be knocked down,
in standing up for what you believe in,
the more standing up for what you believe in
really "counts".

Standing up for what you believe in, counts.

Sacrifice is the currency of commitment.

A principle unworthy of sacrifice is meaningless.
It serves no point. It is just talk.

If your principles are unworthy of your sacrifice,
how worthy are your principles?


just a thought

Epiphany

a. A sudden manifestation of the essence or meaning of something.
b. A comprehension or perception of reality by means of a sudden intuitive realization

If you have followed me for a while, you have see more than a few mentions of a tee shirt that I had occasion to pass out to children upon their "graduation" from a character counts training. A shirt that on its front and back reads;

Stand up for what you believe in
... even if you are standing alone.

Obviously the idea of instilling that notion in a child
moves me. But why so much?


Yesterday, the epiphany.
I identify with a child who is convinced to stand up
for what they believe in, even if they are standing alone,
and then is abandoned to bear alone, the punishment
that comes with standing up for what you believe in.

It is exactly what Michael Josephson did to me.

He blew into town in 1993 and over the period of a three day seminar, convinced me to stand up for what I believed in, even if I was standing alone.

So I took on the leadership of the APS over their hypocrisy surrounding Character Counts!

It was nasty, really nasty, and I got my ass kicked.
Never on any point of principle; but always simply under
the onerous weight of the power of the leadership of the APS, their lawyers from Modrall, and the cloak of invisibility draped over them by Thomas J. Lang and his Journal.

I asked Michael Josephson to help me defend the Pillars of Character Counts against the corrupt and incompetent administrators who intended their demise.

He passed; for reasons which I could,
and to this day, still can not understand.


Hence my intense reaction to the idea of telling a child to
stand up for what they believe in,
even if they are standing alone;

and then letting them.


... fyi

“APS has had great success with Character Counts!”

Interim APS Superintendent Linda Sink said;
according to an APS press release. (link)

Her statement is either substantially true,
or substantially untrue.

She is either modeling honesty and trustworthiness,
or she is modeling deliberately deceiving stakeholders
with equivocal and ambiguous language.



The record is;

• In 1994, the APS Board of Education unanimously adopted Character Counts! as the model for character education in the APS.
• Students were required to model and promote the Pillars of Character Counts!
• The leadership of the APS was bound by a code of conduct which read; in no case shall the standard of conduct for an adult be lower than the standard of conduct for a student.
• The leadership of the APS was required to model and promote the Pillars of Character Counts!

Since then, the leadership of the APS has;

• stricken In no case shall the standard for an adult be lower than the standard for students from their own code of conduct.
• stricken the word ethical from all standards of conduct to which their hold themselves accountable.
• written their own "code of ethics" which does not use the word again, and is, by their own admission, completely unenforceable.
  
• denied whistle blower protection to employees who expose ethical misconduct.
• lowered the student standard of conduct. Students are no longer required to model and promote the Pillars of Character Counts.
• steadfastly refused to explain, defend, or even acknowledge their abdication as role models, and their renunciation of the principles of Character Counts.
• continued to employ the school board presidents law firm to litigate exception for the leadership of the APS, even to the law.
• continued to hide their record from stakeholders.

Does this record represent "great success" with Character Counts? Is Linda Sink, the senior administrative role model for 99,000 of our sons and daughters, modeling honesty and trustworthiness?

By the end of the day, Jessica Ellis and Michael Josephson will know the truth.


Which they will then share with stakeholders;
candidly, forthrightly, and honestly; as required;


... or they will not.

Bill Richardson Resurfaces on APS Split

"There's a widespread belief that maybe APS has just gotten unmanageable, too big, to have the type of management and oversight they need to be accountable," said Dan Serrano, President of the West Side Coalition.

According to the Journal (link, sub req), Bill Richardson and NM PED Secretary Veronica Garcia, have asked for $95K to study splitting the APS along the Rio Grande, and into two districts.

One district would have 81% of the tax base and all the school buildings and administrative complexes that it can use. The other would have 19% of the tax base, and 94% of the need for money to build schools and administrative complexes. On its face, the split seems unworkable. And unnecessary. Do we really need to build or buy another Administrative Complex for the West Side?

The issue is still accountability.

One could split the APS into twenty districts, and be
no closer to addressing the problem of accountability.

There is no causal correlation between the size of a district, and accountability. The relationship is coincidental,
and the argument is specious.

Accountability is the result of personal and institutional decisions to be held accountable.

Just as evading accountability is a personal (and only then,
an institutional) decision.

Institutions have no feelings about accountability;
individuals do.


The leadership of the APS cannot be held accountable
because they choose not to be held accountable.




If taxpayers really want accountability in the APS,
they should spent the $95K on the first five
APS Annual Administrative Accountability Audits.

Open letter to Character Counts Founder, Michael Josephson

Sir,

If you remember me at all, it will be as one of the first teachers in the APS that you taught to be a Character Counts! trainer.

I am writing to you to relate a problem.

Apparently Character Counts! National Vice President Jessica Ellis will visit the APS, Friday, Jan. 11.

The problem is that Ms. Ellis’ visit will contribute to a deliberate deception of stakeholders in the APS. Stakeholders in the APS are unaware

• that School Board President Paula Maes and the leadership of the APS have renounced the Pillars of Character Counts as the standard of conduct for their own public service in the APS.
• that the leadership of the APS has abdicated as role models of the student standard of conduct.
• that the leadership changed the student standard of conduct, in order that students (and the leadership of the APS) are no longer required to model and promote the Pillars of Character Counts.

The leadership of the APS is no longer honestly accountable to any standard of conduct that uses the word ethical. By their own admission, the board’s recently adopted code of ethics, which does not use the word again, is completely unenforceable.

And yet, according to the APS press release (link);

“APS has had great success with Character Counts!,” Interim APS Superintendent Linda Sink said.”

Ms. Ellis’ visit is being used to promote a deception.

The leadership of the APS is making a mockery of Character Counts!

• School Board President Paula Maes was the President of the Character Counts Leadership Council, when she renounced the Pillars of Character Counts as her own standard of conduct as the senior role model in the APS.
• The membership of the Character Counts Leadership Council is kept secret by APS' Carole Smith, whose job it is to promote Character Counts! She keeps the list secret in order that members of the Council can pretend no obligation to stand up for what they believe in.

In the many years I taught Character Counts to my students, I had the occasion to hand out tee shirts that on their front and back read;

Stand up for what you believe in
...even if you are standing alone.

I had always assumed that that would be the worst case scenario; that more often than not, that child would find an adult behind them offering support, an adult beside them sharing the sacrifice, and an adult in front of them leading by their example.

Never was it my intention to tell a child
to stand up for what they believe in,
even if they are standing alone,
and then let them.

The leadership of the APS has betrayed the principles of Character Counts.

I have asked for your help before.
I am asking again.

I believe that you and Ms. Ellis, have an obligation to report upon the truth about Character Counts in the APS.

As you well know, you pick a side,
when you don't pick a side.

Tax Dollars Continue to Flow to Modrall

Taxpayers, through their unwitting support of "education" are paying lawyers from the school board president's law firm, to supervise the surrender of public records to me.

George McFall, works for Modrall and is paid to read every request for public records that I submit. On its face, that's creepy. The requests are also reviewed by Linda Sink. You would suppose that she could find at least one other thing more important to do, than involve herself in my public records requests. Rigo Chavez is paid to be APS' Custodian of Public Records.

The custodian of public records, is the only of these three public servants who is reasonably involved. (McFall and Modrall are public servants insofar as their lips are one with the publics' teat.)

The hundreds of dollars per hour that the public pays McFall and Sink to review my requests for public records, is unjustifiable. It is a waste of tax dollars. It is proof of poor stewardship of the billion tax dollars that flow through the leadership of the APS every year.


So why are they doing it?


Clearly my requests for public records pose a threat.

The search for the truth represents a threat;

a threat so ominous as to require the involvement
of APS/Modrall's heaviest hitters. (on the public dime)


There is only one reason to hide the truth.


Why do you think that the leadership APS/Modrall
is threatened by the truth?

Don't you wonder just a little
what is really going on in secret?

Why do Thomas J Lang , and the Journal, refuse
to investigate and report upon the ethics and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS?


Why won't anyone just answer the question on the record?

Can the leadership of the APS demonstrate by their record,

that they accountable for their conduct and competence as public servants;

• to meaningful standards of conduct and competence
  
• by a system over which they have no control
• and even against their will?

If the answer is no,
they they are accountable for neither their conduct
nor their competence.

If the answer is yes;

they wouldn't be hiding their record.



Any answer except yes, is no.



Stonewalling means; no.



Their answer is no.


tap, tap, tap, can anyone hear me?
Is this mike turned on? Hello?
Hello test test

...test.

Choosing Principals over Principles

There is a reason why, when we begin the task of instilling virtue in children, we begin with the story of George Washington and the cherry tree.

Accountability is the foundation of character.


There is not a wit of difference between the highest set of principles and the lowest, if there is accountability to neither. Both are just talk.

Because character is taught only by modeling;
character cannot be taught without role models.

If we want our children to grow to embrace honor
and courage and character,
someone has to show them what it looks like.

Someone has to model courage and accountability;

someone has to walk the talk.


Or children will learn only to talk the talk.



There is an abject lack of personal accountability in the leadership of the APS.
There is an abject lack of personal accountability in a growing number of students in the APS.


The relationship is causal, not coincidental.


If Paula Maes, the school board, and the superintendent, could defend there abdication as the senior role models for 90,000 students in the APS, they would.

They can't. Their position is completely indefensible.
They are reduced to stonewalling the question.

Stonewalling is the only defense of an indefensible position. There is no ethical defense for stonewalling.

They are enabled their stonewalling by Thomas J Lang and the Journal.

If Thomas J. Lang and the Journal reported to the community that, the leadership of the APS has excepted themselves from accountability to the student standard of conduct; if they reported the APS leadership's abdication as role models, the stonewalling would end.

Role modeling would be restored to the list of the obligations of leadership in the APS.


Shame on Thomas J. Lang, Kent Walz, and whomever else at the Journal is engaged in the cover up of the ethics and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS.

Every student who graduates APS and has no idea what it means to be a good citizen, trustworthy, responsible, respectful, caring, and fair, can thank Paula Maes, Thomas J Lang, Kent Walz, and the Journal for their plight, and ours.

To educate in the mind, and not in morals,
is to create a menace to society. T Roosevelt

The stakes are not inconsequential.
And neither is the damage that is being done.

"New Mexico's eighth-graders ranked dead last in reading."

This according to an article in the Journal this morning.
(link) (sub req)

New Mexico eighth graders read less well than any other students in the entire United States.

"New Mexico Education Secretary Veronica Garcia could not be reached for comment. But in a department-issued news release, she attributed the state's "struggle to score better" to its poverty."

Children can be educated despite their poverty.
Poor children can read, they can do math,
they can be prepared for work or college;
but not by the same old, same old approach.

If political appointee Veronica Garcia can't get it done, maybe it's time to appoint someone whose qualifications extend beyond being hooked up politically.

Reporter Zsombor Peter writes;

While (the national report card) confirms the state's poor scores in math and reading, it gives above-average marks for New Mexico's education policies and its ability to prepare high school students for college or the workplace.

If the report is accurate, and we are preparing students for college, why is UNM considering raising entrance requirements to reverse a situation where 55% of entering freshmen do not graduate?

There seems to be a disconnect between the report card results and real life.

"Modrall sucks"

Someone googled "Modrall sucks" and ended up on my blog.
(I can't imagine why.)


Probably a "disgruntled former employee" of the APS.


(please allow me an inside joke
that will make sense to me and a few others only)

Domenici Endorses Scofflaw Darren White

Senator Pete Domenici feels that Darren White would make a good congressman despite White's egregious disregard for open government laws. White is currently hiding public records of the criminal misuse of the BCSO NCIC criminal background check system.

As a native New Mexican, I have witnessed first hand the service of Pete Domenici. I have been more than satisfied with his service, and I have voted for him repeatedly.

Until he betrayed Character Counts.

Domenici is a founding father of Character Counts!. He sat with the others in Aspen Colorado, in 1993, and created a model for character education that remains one of the most respected and widely recognized programs in the country.

He was asked personally to intervene when the leadership of the APS renounced the student standard of conduct, the Pillars of Character Counts, as the standard for their own conduct.

Domenici refused to defend Character Counts against the leadership of the APS, who wants to be held accountable to no standards at all.

In fairness, my communications with the Senator were likely interfered with by the Senator's assistant Lisa Breeden. As a member of APS Character Counts Leadership Council, she refused to intervene when APS abandoned Character Counts. She refused to carry my message to the leadership council, whose membership is a closely guarded secret. (link)

I would not be surprised to find she hid the problem from the Senator.

In which case, he could now stand on the record, and challenge the school board on their abdication as role models of the student standard of conduct, and their renunciation of the Pillars of Character Counts as their standard of conduct.

This would address the concern that what he and Darren White have in common, is a willingness to betray their principles, in order to protect other good ole boys from the consequences of their incompetence and corruption.

APS' Superintendent Linda Sink to be Tested by NMIPRA Request

Linda Sink is the Chief Administrative Officer of the APS. It is she who will decide what APS' Custodian of Public Records will do with a request for public records.

The request is for records of the litigation that the Modrall Law Firm has done on behalf of APS board members and senior administrators; a multi-million dollar arrangement between the APS and the law firm run by the school board president's husband. An arrangement that so far has been kept secret by ignoring the requirements of New Mexico's Inspection of Public Records Act.

Paula Maes can be expected to continue resist the request. She and Modrall do not what the public to be privy to any details of their little arrangement.

But it isn't her call; not really. The board is not supposed to interfere in the daily operation of the district.

So it falls upon Linda Sink to make the official decision for the district; will the district surrender the public records of complaints , counter complaints by the district, the determination of the court, the settlement, and the amount of money the Modrall law firm has made off taxpayers and the APS;

or not?

If Sink is a person of character, she will order the surrender of public records as required by the spirit of the law.

More likely, she and Modrall will find some way to use the law to keep their record secret.


In a community where the newspapers are on the side of the public, the truth would come out anyway.

Here in River City though, they aren't,
and it won't.

County Sheriff Darren White is Corrupt.

District Attorney Kari Brandenburg is corrupt.
APS Interim Superintendent Linda Sink is corrupt.
School Board President Paula Maes is corrupt.
Newspaper publisher T.H. Lang and the Albuquerque Journal are corrupt.

Corruption; the use of governmental powers for personal interests; against the public interest. Deliberately, wantonly, methodically.

Darren White had a choice; whether or not to tell the (ethically) redacted truth about the criminal misuse of the NCIC data base under his supervision.

He chose not to tell the truth; in his own interest, and
in the interests of members of the leadership of the APS,
against the public interest. Ergo,
Darren White is corrupt.

Kari Brandenburg was handed evidence of public corruption and criminal conspiracy, and chose not to investigate it. She too, had the opportunity to tell the (ethically) redacted truth, and did not. Ergo,
Kari Brandenburg is corrupt.

Linda Sink has the opportunity to tell the (ethically) redacted truth about the ethics and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS, and she will not; in her own interests, and in the interests of the members of the good ole boys club that runs the APS. And, against the public interest. Ergo,
Linda Sink is corrupt.

Paula Maes has the opportunity to tell the (ethically) redacted truth about the relationship between the APS and her husband's law firm, Modrall, and she will not. In the interests of the leadership of the APS, and of the Modrall law firm, and against the public interest. Ergo,
Paula Maes is corrupt.




While T. H. Lang and the Journal are not public servants, nor do they have governmental powers; they are simply servants of Democracy. And they have betrayed their master out of respect for personal interests, and against the public interest.

Ergo,
Thomas H. Lang and the Journal are corrupt.


Each has the opportunity do explain, defend, or even acknowledge the allegations that they have betrayed the public interest;

not one will.

Each has the opportunity to tell the (ethically) redacted truth now;

not one will.


Because they are corrupt.

Public Forum Canceled, Again.

I wonder sometimes why I think that it is a big deal when the public forum is disrespected by the leadership of the APS, and nobody else seems to care.

I googled the importance of public forums, and found out at least, that I am not the only person on the planet who cares about the principle of a public forum. (link)

"A public forum is a commons for communication—a space where speech on matters of importance to the community is expected and protected."

Public forums "... are provided by government: official meetings of local and state bodies where citizens address their elected or appointed public servants, on the record." (emphasis added)

We are guaranteed the right to petition our government by the constitution. The public forum is the only place where that petition can be delivered face to face.

Public Forums are threatened by;

• Excessive official secrecy: A public starved of the facts that are staples of speech.
• Intimidation or retaliation: Too high a price placed on inquiry, reporting or comment.
• Eroding opportunity: Dwindling space or time for expected and protected speech.

School Board President Paula Maes must have been encouraged by the lack of outrage when she canceled the public forum at the last regular meeting of the school board.

Her tone is unchanged;

PUBLIC INPUT WILL NOT BE TAKEN FOR THIS MEETING

Publisher Thomas H. Lang's Name Linked to Cover Up

The Journal is covering up an ethics and accountability scandal in the leadership of the Albuquerque Public Schools.

Thomas H. Lang would appear to be negligently allowing,
or knowingly permitting that cover up.

So far, neither he, nor Editor Kent Walz, nor anyone else at the Journal will explain, defend, or even acknowledge their part in the cover up.

Stonewalling is the only defense of an indefensible position.

The Journal, and T. H. Lang, are stonewalling.

Editor Phill Casaus is the only newspaper man to defend his paper. He said the Trib's lack of coverage of the scandal represented better coverage than any other outlet in town.

? ??

"Waste" According to Wiki

This pearl comes to us from a loyal friend and reader, Joseph, and a comment he left on a recent post, (link)


"A process consumes resources and
waste occurs when more resources are consumed
than are necessary to produce the goods or provide
the service that the customer actually wants." (emphasis added)


The leadership of the APS is wasting power and resources.


...because they can.

As Simply and as Succinctly as I am Able.

All waste in government,
all perversion of the public interest,
begins with incompetence and/or corruption.

End incompetence and corruption; end waste.

Incompetence and corruption are not invulnerable.

Accountability is fatal to corruption and incompetence.

The power that belongs to the people is adequate
to provide honest accountability to meaningful standards
of conduct and competence.

The people who wield the power of the people,
have betrayed the public interest.
They have refused to hold themselves accountable
for their conduct and competence as public servants.

There is no more compelling proof that the people have lost control over power that is fundamentally their own,
than that public servants can simply refuse to answer legitimate questions about the exercise of that power,
and about the public interest.



Control over power is not relinquished voluntarily.
If the people want control of their power back,
they are going to have to take it back.


If perhaps a million people showed up at congress,
and intended to stay there until congress began
an honest audit of the public power and resources;

and until, congress created for themselves,
a system of honest and transparent accountability
to meaningful standards of conduct and competence,

control over the people's power and resources
would be restored to the people.

Public servants in Washington would find themselves
honestly accountable to meaningful standards
of conduct and competence; even George Bush.

If a hundred thousand people showed up
at the legislature in Santa Fe with the same intention,
there would be the same result.

Even Bill Richardson.

If ten thousand people went to a city council meeting
with the same intention;

public servants in city government would find themselves honestly accountable to meaningful standards of conduct and competence in their public service.

Even Marty Chavez.

If "x" number of people show up at a school board meeting with the intention of not leaving until the leadership of the APS has begun an honest audit, and instituted a system under which they are honestly accountable to meaningful standards of conduct and competence

the result would be the same.

Even Paula Maes.


How many is "x"?

The only thing I know for sure is, one person at a time doesn't seem to be having much affect.

There Is No Waste In Any Level of Government

that cannot be traced back to incompetence and/or corruption.

All waste flows from one well;

the lack of accountability to meaningful standards
of conduct and competence, in public service.


You are challenged to suggest even one other source.

Public Corruption and Incompetence

exist because they can.

There is no systemic force in public service that counteracts even benign influences like the Peter Principle, (link) much less the malevolant influence that corruption brings.

Accountability is fatal to corruption and incompetence.

There is no accountability in public service;
particularly at the highest levels of public service.

Honest accountability to meaningful standards of conduct and competence in public service, is within the reach of legislators. It is by their deliberate choice, that there is not accountability in public service.

Legislators are unwilling to end corruption and incompetence in public service.

Because;

One cannot end corruption without exposing corruption.
One cannot expose corruption without exposing the corrupt.
The corrupt do not want to be exposed, and they have the power and resources to protect themselves from exposure.

The corrupt protect themselves from exposure, by abusing the power entrusted to them; by using the public power against the public interest.

The powerful and corrupt, whether in the leadership of the APS, or in local, state or federal government, will not allow their incompetence and corruption to be exposed.

The system cannot be relied upon to fix the system. This problem cannot and will not be solved by the people who created it, and who benefit from it.

They will not expose themselves.
They will not fire themselves.
They will not create an institution that ferrets out and exposes waste; all of which flows from their two wells;

incompetence, and corruption.

18 Column Inches In Support of "Support" Principals

You can believe me when I write how hard it is to get even one column inch of space in the Journal to write about legitimate issues in the APS.

This morning, the Journal gave almost twenty column inches to a one sided defense of the added layer of administrators called support principals/turn around coaches. (link)

I don't know Principal Judith K Martin-Tafoya,
from Adam's off ox. I have not been to Truman Middle School, and I don't know anyone on the teaching staff there.

Perhaps Martin-Tafoya is telling the truth; perhaps she is just working her way up the food chain in the good ole boys club that is the leadership of the APS. Perhaps she is just angling for her own office high up in the UAC.

We will never know, because the leadership of the Journal, perhaps Thomas J Lang himself, has decided that there will be no even handed reporting on the APS. There will be no impartial investigation and reporting. There will be only a disparate number of column inches spent making the leadership of the APS look competent and clean; and no column inches devoted to any charges of incompetence or corruption;

without regard for the truth.

Home Room Testing

I have an idea for positive solution to the biggest problem with standardized testing.

If that piques your interest, please join me on my other blog.

eyeonaps

Diagnostic Testing; 3 Million Dollars

The Journal reports that the NM PED is seeking $3M from the legislature to revamp high school testing state wide. (link)

"It needs it. Because students deserve tests that assess and prepare, rather than distress and scare them, their parents, teachers and taxpayers."

Two problems. the first; tests assess, they don't prepare.
A thousand tests won't prepare a student to do anything, except perhaps to take more tests.

Second and more importantly; the identification of a student's particular weaknesses has no direct correlation to their remediation. The system is not designed to meet a student's individual needs; no matter how accurately they are quantified.

The system is designed to meet the needs of thirty students sitting in six rows of five; or perhaps five rows of six.

Diagnostic testing in the absence of follow up with meaningful individual interventions, is like a doctor doing a blood test to identify the agent of an infection, knowing full well that s/he has has no antibiotics to treat the infection once it is identified.


Another $3M down the drain.

Journal Editors Support APS'"Support" Principals

In an editorial opinion in the Journal this morning (not in the online version, hence no link), the editor(s) suggest that all failing schools need to do is to be repaired is to, "listen to the coach"; $80,000 a year administrators who job it is to wander between schools offering advice.

The editorial support falls short in at least two aspects; premise and supporting evidence.

They begin by introducing the two administrators as "...principals who recently turned their troubled schools around ..."

It is difficult to imagine a dynamic more complex than the dynamic at a school. To suggest that one person has turned the dynamic around by their individual effort seems unlikely; the argument is more likely to turn up in an administrative resume, than in chat in the teachers lounge. It is entirely more likely that, if the dynamic truly changed, and further that the change in the dynamic is responsible for the increase in test scores, many people were involved,
only one of whom was an administrator.

Further, in all of the articles that the Journal and Trib have run in support of APS administrative efforts, not one has included the opinions of teachers in the affected schools. Neither the Tribune nor the Journal has found a teacher at any of these schools, who is willing to credit an administrator with the success. In the editorial, and in the article that prompted the editorial, they could not even find an administrator who would express any enthusiasm for this latest boondoggle. Nobody but the leadership of the APS and Journal, thinks it is a good idea to hire more administrators to administer administrators who are already administering other administrators, who are administering other administrators, who are administering other administrators, ...

For all of their blowing about what a good job Linda Sink did in the schools that she led, not one report has included a quote from a teacher at one of those schools who credits Linda Sink with the success. They have not found a teacher to quote, who even likes Linda Sink.

There is no support for the additional administrators, except from the APS UAC and from the leadership of the local newspapers; one Thomas J Lang.


The APS Uptown Administrative Complex is not completely full, yet.
But with a little more of the same old, same old,
it will be.

"Support Principals" and Failing Schools

If an APS school is "failing", another administrator is assigned to the school, according to the Journal. (link) sub req.

In order to raise test scores at those schools, an administrator will oversee the principal. That administrator is administered by another administrator, Eduardo Soto, who is himself administered by another administrator, Linda Sink.

I can't help but think if the same decision making power and resources (and a competent facilitator) were assigned directly to the school, that school staff and community would spend them far more efficiently (site based management).

New APS Supt Doomed to Fail

Even Robert Lucero, the board's most vocal opponent of accountability for administrators or board members, pointed out on the record, that any accountability audit should be done before the new superintendent takes over.

The new superintendent should have been handed the results of a full scale impartial accountability audit of the leadership of the APS. Only with the truth in hand, would s/he have been able to eliminate the waste of power and resources through incompetence and corruption.

As it is, the truth that will be handed to the new superintendent will be crafted by the good ole boys. They can be expected to protect their own interests. They will surrender neither their corrupt, nor their incompetent, nor the system that they have crafted which tolerates and enables public service sans standards and accountability.

There are only two real possibilities. The first, the possibility that the board will hire a superintendent that will expose all of the corruption and incompetence in the leadership of the APS, is not really a possibility at all.

The other possibility, (certainty?) is that the new superintendent will be folded into the club. The easiest thing to do is to hire someone who is already in the club; like well, Linda Sink for example.

Just for the sake of argument, let's assume the board hires a superintendent prepared to take on the good ole boys.

Corruption, incompetence, and the practices which enable them, are the biggest problem APS has; by far. There is no legitimate agenda for the APS which does not move forward on the day that honest accountability to meaningful standards of conduct, begins.

Accountability is fatal to corruption and incompetence.

S/he will establish meaningful standards of conduct and competence. S/he will enforce those standards by means of a system that is beyond the undue influence of even the most powerful public servant, and even against their will.

But, any superintendent whose agenda is to clean up the administration of the APS ,will stand alone. Alone against the most formidable opposition imaginable.

Board Member Marty Esquivel is the only man of the history of the leadership of the APS, who has ever stood on the record in favor of a full scale administrative accountability audit.



His silence on the subject now speaks volumes.



The good ole boys are not to be trifled with.
The administration, the board, and Modrall
have a way of getting their way.

APS' Linda Sink, Sinks Administrative Accountability Audit

APS School Board President Paula Maes has apparently made good on her vow that she would never allow an audit that would hold individual administrators "...like Tom Savage..." accountable for their conduct or competence.

According to Toby Herrera, Director, APS Student, School and Community Service Center, Linda Sink "... will allow the newly hired superintendent and the BOE to make any decisions on whether or not to have an audit."

In other words, APS has what it has always had,
a superintendent who will leave it up to the next superintendent to end the good ole boys system in the APS.

The biggest immediately resolvable problem in the APS,
is the lack of accountability in its leadership.
Mayor Chavez found the lack of accountability so egregious
as to require a mayoral takeover of the school board.
Governor Bill Richardson publicly admitted to, and apologized for, APS' earned statewide reputation for its lack of accountability.

An accountability audit is clearly in order, yet falls a distant second to the top administrative priority which is protecting good ole boys from the consequences of their incompetence and corruption.

The school board has hired an interim superintendent to continue the cover up of an ethics and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS.

The will hire a permanent replacement, probably Linda Sink, who will continue the cover up indefinitely.

Anyone who believes otherwise, would seem not to be paying attention.

It Is Perplexing; We Are Willing to Send Our Children To Iraq

and a million other places around the world;

to stand up for what we believe in.


They are expected to bleed and die,
in defense of what we believe in.

Their sacrifices underwrite our commitment to our beliefs.

At home, we have their backs.

And if their children are going to school in a system that disregards their interests, in favor of the interests of administrators and board members; they need someone to stand in their stead. They need someone to defend their interests, while they defend ours.

They need someone to go to a public forum and stand up for what they believe in for two minutes.

Two minutes. That is how long the leadership of the APS will allow anyone to petition their government by means of face to face intercourse.

It will follow a moment of silence for those APS graduates who have made the sacrifices that underwrite the existence of school boards at all.

It will be off the record.

Board members may or may not be paying attention, in their seats, or even in the room.

They will not answer questions;
period.

The broadcast version of the public record of the board meeting, will not include the public forum, anything you say, or any question you ask.

If you insist upon a response to a legitimate question, the broadcast record will not show you being removed from the meeting by members of a public funded, private police force that reports directly to; and only to; the axis of the superintendent, the board, and Modrall.

A Praetorian Guard in every sense.

Isn't this what those APS alumnae sacrificed to end?


I have personally, and on behalf of the leadership of the APS, done everything that I could to convince as many as 8,000 of my students, that they should;

"Stand up for what you believe in;
even if you are standing alone."

Never once believing that we would then let them


... stand alone.

If Incompetent and Corrupt Public Servants and the Media, Were Not In Cahoots;

there would be no incompetent and corrupt public servants.

... just a thought.

New Year; Nothing New

District Attorney Kari Brandenburg still will not examine the evidence sitting in her lap. For a year or more, she has not found time to determine if senior administrators in the APS, committed felonies when they did illegal background checks using Darren White's computers.

Bernalillo County Sheriff Darren White apparently believes that he can run for congress without ever acknowledging that the criminal background check system was abused on his watch. He thinks he can simply refuse to explain, defend, or even acknowledge his personal responsibility for what was apparently felony criminal misconduct.

(He would be correct in that assumption of course. Never under estimate the power of a man who knows a man with a barrel full of ink. unk and derived)

The Leadership of the APS has found an interim superintendent in Linda Sink, who is prepared to continue the cover up of the public corruption and criminal conspiracy in the leadership of the APS (Police Department) while they continue the search for a superintendent who will maintain the cover up for ever.

Thomas J. Lang's newspapers are still keeping the truth from stakeholders; deliberately and with forethought.



"It's like deja vu all over again."
yogi berra

Noun 1. fanatic - a person motivated by irrational enthusiam (as for a cause)

"A fanatic is one who can't change his mind
and won't change the subject"--Winston Churchill

Most people don't like fanatical behavior. They tune it out.

Which is a shame if the cause is really worthwhile.

Like the character of 99,000 of this community's sons and daughters who are students in the APS.

APS Sinks Character Counts

The new year will be a bad year for Character Counts in the APS.

Fourteen years after the APS school board unanimously adopted CC as the model for character education in the APS, the program is yet to grow beyond a few isolated toe holds.

The issue is not "Character Counts!", the model. (link). Although in my experience it is the best model,
Character Counts is only one of a number of models
for meaningfully connecting children to their character.

The issue is accountability to a "higher" standard of conduct.
The issue is accountability to any standard of conduct at all;

even the law.

The leadership of the APS cannot produce a record of accountability. All they can do is spend a million dollars a year keeping that record secret from stakeholders.

A million tax dollars surrendered by unwitting taxpayer support for "education".


How important to you,
is the character of the next generation?

How committed are you to the goal of ensuring that,
this generation of children grow up to embrace honor
and courage and character?

Sacrifice is the currency of commitment.

Someone else wrote; "You can give without caring, but you cannot care without giving." The same can be said about commitment and sacrifice. You can sacrifice without commitment, but you cannot be committed without (being willing to make) sacrifice.

If one is truly committed, their commitment is underwritten with their sacrifice. Committed people walk their talk.


A lot of people are talking about the character of the younger generation.

No one in the leadership of the APS is willing to the make the simple sacrifice of holding themselves honestly accountable to the standard of conduct, that they hold for students.

No one in the leadership of the APS is willing to be held honestly accountable as a role model.

No one.


Linda Sink has been hired to prevent stakeholders from appreciating that simple truth.


Giving her aide and abet,
newspapers controlled by Thomas J. Lang.

NM State Secretary of Education Passes on Gradegate

In so far as the public is concerned, Veronica Garcia Garcia, who is in Iowa campaigning for Bill Richardson, has removed herself from the final decision on gradegate; the grade changing scandal that involved many of the most senior administrators and board members in the APS.

Her recusal comes as too little and too late for those interested in truth.

Before recusing herself, she personally exonerated Beth Everitt early in the breaking scandal. Later, she oversaw an "investigation" of gradegate that saw Beth Everitt, County Commissioner Teresa Cordova, and former school board member, Miguel Acosta excepted from investigation. None was required to answer questions or make any statement on the record, regarding their personal participation in the grade change.

Both Acosta and Cordova are threatening to to sue the APS, if APS violates their son's privacy rights. APS, Acosta, Cordova, et al, will use the privacy issue, and the threats of litigation, to prevent any hearing, investigation or revelation of their own complicity in the scandal.

The "state" will drop their prosecution of scapegoat Elsy Fierro. They will claim that without the student's records, they cannot prosecute their case. They will aver that they have no choice but to "give up" on Fierro. The hearing which will expose the incompetence and corruption that leads to the office of the superintendent and the school board, will not take place.

"I think the point is to protect the integrity of the Federal Educational Rights Privacy Act for the good of all students in New Mexico," Córdova said Monday.

Right, and a pint of Haagen-Dazs serves four.

(link) to Journal article (sub req)

“To educate a man in mind, and not in morals, is to create a menace to society.”

According to Theodore Roosevelt.

Wherever else the responsibility for the development of character in young people lies; public schools have the greatest responsibility of all.

If the character of young people is important, if their character counts, then public schools have the responsibility to provide meaningful character education for students.

The Albuquerque Public Schools Board of Education acknowledged that responsibility when they unanimously adopted Character Counts as the model for character education in the APS.

The record of character education district wide, is a record of abject failure.

submitted as proof; APS Character Count Website. (link)
APS pays two or three teacher salaries to the administrator whose job it is promote and coordinate character education in the APS.

As we enter the new year, I remain resolved to shedding light on the ethics and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS.

They enter the new year refusing to explain, defend, or even acknowledge their abandonment of character education, and of their responsibilities and obligations as role models for 98,000 students in the APS.

APS' Ethics and Accountability Issues Are Real

No one in the leadership of the APS has denied it.

Not even Monica Armenta can look stakeholders in the eye and say; "ethics and accountability issues in the leadership of the APS are insignificant."

And the significant number of ethics and accountability issues; are just the tip of the iceberg. They are the manifest proof that

the system tolerates and enables incompetence and corruption.

It is easy to fix the system.

1. You audit.
2. You eliminate the corrupt, the incompetent, and the practices that enable them.

The problem is that many of those whose records cannot survive an audit, are reluctant to surrender their comfortable circumstances.

They are powerful, and they are able to protect themselves from accountability by means of
"win at any cost" litigation , underwritten by virtually unlimited and unwitting taxpayer support of "education".

They are further protected by the media.

The President of the APS School Board, Paula Maes,
is also the President and CEO of the NM Broadcasters Association, so you know she is hooked up with powerful people in the "news".

She is married to the president of the Modrall law firm, which makes millions of dollars litigating exception to the law for the leadership of the APS, so you know she is hooked up with powerful people in the "justice" system.

As a manifestation of her own character; and as the President of the Character Counts Leadership Council; she renounced the student standard of conduct; the Pillars of Character Counts, as the standard of her own conduct as the APS' most senior public role model.



This is the privileged class.
And this is crap.



Torches and pitchforks;

in all of history, only they have displaced the privileged from their seats of privilege.

In all of history; nothing else ever has.

The privileged cannot be expected to simply give up their privilege.

Those who expect that they will, want that which has never been, and that which will never be.

It takes a whole bunch of people carrying torches and pitchforks to wrest the privileged from their seats of privilege. It has always worked, it's the only thing that ever will. But only if you have enough guys.

We're gonna need more guys.


How worried are they, do you think, about this little blog and the fifty or so people a day who read it?


"You pick a side, when you don't pick a side."

Linda Sink's Lock on the Superintendency

Zsombor Peter writes in this morning's Journal (no available link) that Linka Sink's appointment as interim superintendent may limit the number of applicants who may want to apply for the job.

Although Peter's writing is leagues ahead of the competition, the Journal's other education writer Andrea Schoellkopf, and the Trib's Susie Gran,
he has still missed the point.

Sink's leverage in the process doesn't come from her interim appointment, but from the reason why she is the interim appointment; she is willing to protect the good ole boys in the leadership of the APS from an audit that will expose their incompetence and corruption. She is willing to be a willing participant in the cover up of the ethics and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS. She is willing to stonewall legitimate questions about the public interest in the public schools;

even at the cost of her own character.


The perfect candidate for the APS Superintendent.

"Ms. Sink", Johnny blurted out.

"Yes Johnny" acknowledged Ms. Sink, his teacher.

Little Johnny said, "I have a question. What should I say when someone asks me if I will hold myself honestly accountable to a meaningful standard of conduct."

"Well Johnny, the first thing you do is consult with your lawyers. They can best tell you how to avoid honest accountability for your lack of accountability", Ms. Sink advised the impressionable young man.

"Thank you Ma'am, Johnny said.



epilogue; Little Johnny is grown up now and
working for APS/Modrall, litigating against the public interest,
and making a ton of money.

APS Police or, APS Security

The APS will not have a "police" department any time soon. Although they will continue to sport all the education, training and armament of a police force; they will not be able to call themselves a police department without legislative approval. With the exception of eligibility for federal grants and the ability to do their own background checks, it appears to be a distinction without a difference.

Neither name in truth is appropriate.

For as long as the department is accredited by only the leadership of the APS, for as long as it is certificated only by the leadership of the APS, for as long as it is accountable only to the leadership of the APS; the department is the APS Praetorian Guard.

At the departmental level, the APS Police are the enforcement wing of APS' "culture of retribution and retaliation." They exist to insulate the administration and school board from accountability for their misconduct.

Consider former APS Superintendent Michael Vigil. When he, in the wee hours of the morning, was being arrested for an aggravated DUI, he wanted to call Gil Lovato, then Chief of the APS Police.

Why? do you think.

Why have Gil Lovato and his lawyer Sam Bregman averred that if they get the chance to tell the truth in court, "there won't be a senior administrator left standing in the APS"?

Is it because Lovato and the APS Police have been hiding the bodies for years?

The Journal, the Trib, Tempting a Journalistic Malpractice Lawsuit

I listened with interest to a talk radio host who was pondering the improvement in our lives that would follow a few successful journalistic malpractice suits.

Consider the damage that the Journal and Trib are doing with respect to their cover up of the ethics and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS. If only they could be sued for negligence and fraud.

Imagine the shot callers from the Journal and Trib sitting on a witness stand trying to get jurors to believe that they really knew nothing of the accountability crisis, and of the effort to prevent an independent and honest audit of the administration of the APS.

In the alternative, imagine them arguing that they knew about the problem even through three elections, but really believed that it was in the public best interest to keep the truth hidden from voters.

An absolute lack of accountability (for abusing power)
corrupts absolutely.

Socrates (derived)

The inside story on the APS" Police"

(link)

APS Supt. Sink Declines the Question, It Would Appear

It isn't that Linda Sink won't answer the question;
Linda Sink will not admit that she hears the question.

Her email address is unpublished; and the public forum depends on the whim of Paula Maes. There is no way to petition the senior administrative public servant in the APS; a right guaranteed by the first amendment.

I have asked only one question.

Ms. Sink,
Will you, or will you, not hold yourself honestly accountable as a role model of the student standard of conduct?

She has not declined to answer the question.

She has declined the question.


It's almost like she thinks that is OK.


Is it?



... I can't hear you.

District Attorney Kari Brandenburg

continues to refuse to explain, defend, or even acknowledge her refusal to move on the evidence of public corruption and criminal conspiracy in the leadership of the APS.

She continues to support the efforts of the leadership of the APS and Bernalillo County Sheriff and congressional candidate, Darren White, to suppress the evidence of felony criminal misconduct involving members of the leadership of the APS and Darren White's Sheriff's Office.

I would assume that she continues to find time to resolve boggles regarding cookie recipes. (link)

Truth is an absolute defense to defamation.

APS Leadership's Character Easily Tested

If you want to test the character of any APS administrator or board member; all you have to do is ask them if, within their public service, for eight measly hours a day, they are willing to be held honestly accountable to any higher standard of conduct than the law, (which represents only)
the lowest recognized standard of acceptable conduct.

Every single one of them is a senior role model of the behavior that they expect from students.
Daily, they tell students to hold themselves honestly accountable for their own conduct.
Daily, they tell them that their character depends upon their holding themselves honestly accountable to a higher standard of conduct than the law.
Daily, they tell students that their character counts.

When asked to walk their talk, they chose instead to renounce their duties and obligations as role models for 90,000 students and 10,000 employees.

They escape accountability through the egregious and the wanton abuse of the public trust and treasure.



Shame on those who control the local news
for their betrayal of the interests of the community
in favor of the interests of a relative handful of
incompetent and corrupt APS administrators and board members.

APS Supt. Linda Sink in Hiding

It would appear that Interim Superintendent Linda Sink will deal with the controversy of an administrative accountability audit by avoiding refusing to admit that she has been asked for a response.

Her email address is unpublished, and apparently she has ordered her secretary to ignore emails related to her refusal to stand on the record and offer a candid, forthright, and honest answer to the question of the audit.

At best she is a coward, at worst she too, is corrupt.


The evidence supports no other conclusion.

"Interim superintendent has lofty goals for school district"

(link)

According to Susie Gran and the Trib,
Linda Sink's goals are to;

•Hire a chief business officer and auditor.
•Negotiate with school police officers to increase wages.
•Develop a strategic plan with the teachers' union to support struggling schools.
•Create the 2008-09 district operating budget.
•Support the district during the Legislature.
•Focus on the instructional master plan for reading and math strategies.
•Prove success in student achievement.

Each is reasonable and worthy.

Not one represents any attempt to mitigate the effects of, or even acknowledge the existence of corruption and incompetence in the leadership of the APS.

Conspicuous in its absence, is any mention of the issue of the abject lack of accountability in the leadership of the APS.

Governor Bill Richardson, when he was trying to help pass a $316M bond issue; conceded that the leadership of the APS has an earned, statewide reputation for its lack of accountability.

Mayor Martin Chavez tried to take over school board seats in order to rectify what he described as a lack of accountability in the leadership of the APS.

The President of the Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce, Terri Coles is a long time critic of the lack of accountability.

The Council of the Great City Schools wrote that administrative evaluations in the APS are subjective and unrelated to promotions or step placements.

The Maintenance and Operations Department was wracked by a corruption scandal.

The APS Police Department was wracked by corruption and incompetence; the truth of which is yet to be released by the leadership of the APS.

The Financial Department is wracked with corruption and incompetence.

Their record of litigating for themselves, exception even to the law, is so full of corruption and betrayal of the public trust that they must keep it secret, even in further violation of the law.

Everywhere there is an audit; corruption and incompetence are exposed. Underlings may or may not be held accountable, and no one in the leadership of the APS is ever held accountable for anything.


There is every good reason to commence an immediate audit; not the least of which is restoring public faith in the public schools.

There is no ethical reason not to do an audit. none.

If there is, no one has suggested it, and I cannot imagine it.

There is a simple test of courage and character.
To date, no member of the leadership of the APS
has passed the test. Not one; not even the
President of the Character Counts Leadership Council,
and the President of the APS Board of Education,
Paula Maes.

Beth Everitt couldn't pass it.

Now it's Linda Sink's moment of truth.

Ms. Sink,

As the senior administrative role model for the 89,000 of this community's sons and daughters in the APS, are you willing to hold yourself honestly accountable to the same standard of conduct that you demand of students?

Are you willing to model and promote the Pillars of Character Counts, a widely recognized, accepted and respected code of ethical conduct?

Will you shoulder, or will you shirk your obligation to model and promote honest accountability to a meaningful standard of conduct; under a system over which you have no control, and which will hold you accountable even against your will?

Any answer except yes, ... means no.

According to the First Amendment to the Constitution

Citizens have a right to petition their government.

According to APS BOE President Paula Maes, et al;

"PUBLIC INPUT WILL NOT BE TAKEN FOR THIS MEETING"



their "all caps", not mine.

APS Reveals New Communication Strategy; Cancels Public Forum

The leadership of the APS, Paula Maes, Modrall, et al
have canceled the public forum at the next regular meeting of the school board. (link)

For the first time in the history of the APS,
as far as I know.

First they take it off the public record,

and now they have taken it away altogether.



Apparently, they don't want their little passing of the baton ceremony to be marred by any complaints about the conduct and competence of either the departing or the emerging superintendent of the APS.

Neither on the record, nor off.

Why Johnny can't read.

He doesn't want to.

according to a column in the Trib. (link)