If you google "student misbehavior", you'll get 127,000 hits

"Student misconduct" will get 301,000.
"Student discipline" will net 845,000.

If the subject is not important, it is at least interesting
to a number of people.

What do you know about APS student discipline?

I would bet nothing, unless you have worked in an APS school.

The reason nobody knows about student discipline in APS schools, is because it is bad. It is very, very bad. It is so bad that the leadership of the APS will not answer legitimate questions about how bad it is.


As an indication of how bad it really is, I submit the following fact;

Nowhere in the leadership of the APS, is there a written district wide discipline philosophy. Nowhere has anyone written down the most basic and fundamental commonly shared assumptions about student behavior in classrooms.

Philosophy is the foundation for policy. Policies that are not built upon a shared philosophy are ineffective and often contradictory. They are unenforceable.

Nowhere is anything written about the depth and breadth of
the problem, or its causes and its effects, or of
any plan for making things any better.

If you ask a teacher or educational assistant;

How big of a problem are students who misbehave?

you would find that they believe it is a huge problem.

If you ask the same question of the leadership of the APS
they just won't answer.

Because the responsibility for the problem is theirs, and
they are hiding from accountability.

When a student is disrupting class,
it is the teacher's responsibility to tell them to stop.

When the student says; no,
the problem becomes the responsibility of an administrator.

It is preposterous to leave the responsibility for chronically disruptive students on the shoulders of those who have the least amount of power and resources to deal with the problem.

Not to mention that it is a blatant violation of the negotiated agreement between teachers and the district, which clearly states that it is the responsibility of the administration, to enforce school and district discipline policies.

A problem cannot be solved in secret.
A problem cannot be solved by those who refuse to admit
that a problem exists.

The leadership of the APS is failing the community on the issue of student discipline, and they are hiding the problem from everyone.

With the aide and abet of the media, chiefly the Journal.

Will the Albuquerque Journal cover the APS School Board election?

That's the $64K Question. wikilink

So far, the Journal has admitted their names and occupations.
link sub req

It can be reasonably argued that, the Albuquerque Journal
has a very real obligation to provide voters with all of the information they need to participate meaningfully in the February School Board elections.

There is a very real probability, I would argue, a certainty,
that the Journal will ignore its obligation.

Ignore is actually the wrong word, and explanation of why it is the wrong word bears writing; Whomever it is at the Journal who decides whether or not the question is "newsworthy" will not ignore the question, she, he, they, will make a very deliberate decision not to investigate and report upon the question of public servants being accountable to the truth.

You can decide for yourself, why they are coming to that conclusion.

It is worth noting that they really aren't pushing the issue of
Bill Richardson's refusal to answer legitimate questions
about current scandals in his administration.


There is a central and very fundamental question.
Voters have a right to the answer.

The question is;

Are you willing to tell stakeholders the (ethically redacted) truth?

If elected to the school board,
will a candidate make a solemn promise to stakeholders, that
they will create a district wide policy that requires public servants in the public schools to answer legitimate questions, candidly, forthrightly, and honestly?

Voters, I think, will not cast their vote for any candidate
who would answer the question; no.

Nor would they cast their vote for any candidate
who cannot summon the courage to answer the question at all.

The only real question at all is;

Will the Journal ask them each the question,
and then will it tell voters, what each of them said?

cc. Journal Education Reporter, Andrea Schoellkopf
upon posting.

Parade gets rained on.

Setting the piece;

My wife and I went to San Diego.
We have been wanting to go for a long time;
the reservations were almost as old.

It was raining the day we got there,and the next day it rained four inches. Apparently a record since the dinosaurs.

The next day was pretty great;
San Diego has a lot of very cool things to see.

And then it started raining again,
and still is, as far as I know.


Note: if you go to San Diego;

• A San Diego "Go" Card costs more than its worth,
  if for some reason, you can't do a lot of outdoor stuff.
  
  

• If you are not careful about the location of your lodgings,
  you can end up under the flight path of the busiest runways on the planet.
  When they're on a roll, a really big plane flies over your room every ninety seconds.
  
  They always missed the top of the building,
  but not by much.
  
  

• Which is only slightly more frequently than a train goes by your room and blows a huge fog horn, which is apparently blown all night long for any reason at all, just for the hell of it, or maybe even out of spite.
  
  

• There is no place in the entire town of San Diego, where you can park a car, and not be parked next to a parking meter. Carry lots of quarters.
  
  

• At our Holiday Inn, their parking garage is a parking meter. You get metered for twenty bucks a day, and you don't even get a kiss.
  
  

• Airlines charge you almost as much to move up a ticket out, as they charged you for the one that got you there in there in the first place.

If it all gets too much for you,
plan a trip by the Japanese Tranquility Garden
in Balboa Park. and you will feel much better.

School board filing day

Today is the day for candidates for the school board to file
their candidacy.

With any luck at all, Paula Maes, Berna Facio and
Mary Lee Martin will be too ashamed of their failure
to stand up as role models to even run again.

In any event, Mary Lee Martin will have substantial
opposition from David Robbins, who has already
committed to accountability as a role model.

Jon Barela still has not answered the question about
role modeling. If that is his continued intention,
then he must be deposed as well.

This is a golden opportunity to replace a majority of the
board, 4 of 7 seats, with people with the character and
courage to be role models of the student standard of conduct.

Keep your fingers crossed.

APS students are out of control

One of the biggest reasons behind the lack of educational
success in the APS, is one that no one will talk about,
certainly not administrators, upon who's shoulders the
responsibility lies. APS students are out of control.

I submit the following as metaphor for the out of control
rather than an example of it, because there are elements of
it that could have happened anywhere, effective administration
or not.

A skydiver landed at a local middle and students were injured
in the resulting stampede. link

The stampede can be chalked up to youthful enthusiasm.

The refusal of the students obey adults who told them to stop,
cannot.

I have been there. I have walked up on fist fights, told the
crowd to disperse, and then been ignored.

I have told students to settle down in class, and then been ignored.

Adults have lost their authority over students; in and out of
the classroom. This loss of authority is a key factor in the
ongoing negative influence of chronically disruptive students.

Administrators are charged, in the negotiated agreement
between teachers and the district,
with enforcing the school's discipline policies.
I would suggest that most teachers do not believe that
the administration backs them up.

There is no hard data to corroborate my assertion.
But only because the administration refuses to compile data.

APS and UNM used to collaborate on a yearly survey of teachers.
Several of the questions had to do with the amount of time that
teachers lost every day as the direct result of student misbehavior.

A significant number of teachers reported a significant amount
of time regularly lost managing the behavior of recalcitrant kids.

Suddenly, the questions disappeared from the survey.
When I asked why the questions were no longer asked,
I was told "because the numbers never changed."

I would suggest that the questions were removed because the
data they produced reflects badly on an administration
who's job it is, to back up teachers who have kids with discipline
problems.

Nowhere in the evaluation process for school principals,
is data gathered from staff regarding their feelings about
whether on not the administrator is a good or effective
disciplinarian. The question is not asked for a reason.

Unless teachers have meaningful and enforceable authority over
students, learning will suffer. Not only for the kids who
misbehave regularly, but for the other students in their classes.

I used to believe that any student who wanted an education
could get one. I did not believe that anymore at the end of my
career. I had seen the curriculum watered down too far, and too
many classes out of control, to continue to make that argument.

Anyone who cares to experience this issue first hand,
needs only to substitute teach for one day.

Tell a few students to stop doing what they want to do, and to
start doing what they should be doing, and see what happens.

The leadership of the APS cannot show you a written discipline
philosophy; not even a badly written one.

The leadership of the APS has never taken the time to compile
the shared beliefs of stakeholders, to form a foundation for
discipline policies.

The result is a bunch of policies with no common grounds, and
often in conflict with each other. It makes it nearly impossible
to enforce those policies, which undermines the authority of
teachers over students,

and ultimately results in students trampling each other
in an effort to indulge their childish wants.

The trouble with lawyers is;

they think that it is alright to hide the truth from stakeholders
to the extent that the law allows; the law with all of its
loopholes, technicalities and legal weaselry.

Their children, if they are students in the APS,
are taught that, they would engage in that kind of behavior
at the sacrifice of their good character.

We teach their children that a person of character
often does more than the law requires, and
less than the law allows.

At least that's what we tell them.

By the example set for them by their role models,
they learn something quite different.

Character Counts! in the APS.



Right, and I'm a Chinese sea cook.

A perfectly legitimate request for information

When Gil Lovato "retired" from his position as the Chief of the APS Police Department, he complained that the leadership of the APS was using private investigators to investigate allegations of their misconduct or incompetence, instead of letting him and his Praetorian Guard conduct the investigations.

So what we have here is that, when someone gets wind of an administrator or board member doing something wrong. So the leadership of the APS hires a private investigator to gather evidence and testimony, and then to turn both over to the leadership who will decide what will be done with both.

A case in point. A private investigator was hired to investigate Peanut Butter Gate. The scandal was huge and included significant criminal misconduct, including felony criminal misconduct by at least one very senior APS administrator.

The testimony and evidence that were gathered by the private investigator are now in the possession of the leadership of APS and Modrall. And no one else.

APS Custodian of Public Records Rigo Chavez relates that the testimony and evidence has not been turned over to the DA's Office, because the investigation is still "underway."

The "investigation is still under way" two years after the scandal made headlines. link

The investigation will not be completed until after statutes of limitation expire, and good ol' boys except themselves from accountability to the law. The expiration of statutes of limitation are weeks, maybe days, away.



It is fair to assume that many of the private investigations of executive and administrative misconduct have revealed criminal misconduct. How many of those were referred to law enforcement? How many were not?

Beth Everitt alluded to this possibility when she suggested that Lovato would retaliate against her by revealing something about her and drunk driving. She did not elaborate.

At the very least, the appearance of a conflict of interest is created when the leadership of the APS investigates itself and then keeps the results secret from public knowledge.

The leadership of the APS "claims" accountability to standards of conduct which prohibit creating the appearance of a conflict of interest.



So my perfectly legitimate request for information is this;

Will the leadership of the APS surrender an ethically redacted version of every one of those investigations to public knowledge?

Yes or no?

cc Winston Brooks, Monica Armenta, Jon Barela, Marty Esquivel, Delores Griego, Berna Facio, Robert Lucero, and Paula Maes upon posting.

I will also shoot a copy to KOB, KOAT, KRQE and the Journal
for whatever good that will do.

photo courtesy of Mark Bralley link

Whistle blowing still dangerous

"A whistleblower is a person who alleges misconduct.
More complex definitions may be used, but the issue is
that the whistleblower usually faces reprisal." wikilink

A recent audit by the Council of the Great City Schools
revealed that the APS has "... a culture of fear of retribution and
retaliation ..." against whistleblowers, (among others.)

One might suppose that whistle blowing is less risky in the
modern age. They would be supposing that, wrongly.

I intend to write at least a few posts on whistle blowing,
in particular whistle blowing in the APS.

In order to set the piece, I would refer readers to the
Government Accountability Project, Washington DC link

From that site, their mission;

Mission: The Government Accountability Project (GAP)
is a 30-year-old nonprofit public interest group that
promotes government and corporate accountability by
advancing occupational free speech, defending
whistleblowers, and empowering citizen activists.

A recent example of the treatment of whistleblowers by
the leadership of the APS is the story of
APS Accounting Department Director, Lou Anne Boothe
who blew the whistle on a number of problems in the now
thoroughly discredited APS Finance Division,
and who has not been heard from since.

"On Sept. 19, Boothe was placed on administrative leave with pay
90 minutes after sending an e-mail to members of the
Albuquerque Board of Education alerting them of her concerns
about district expenditures of state money." link

And there is of course, my own story of the retribution and
retaliation to which I was subjected, for blowing the whistle
on incompetent and corrupt administrators and board members,
and on the abdication of the leadership of the APS,
as role models of the student standard of conduct.

Allen Weh saw the writing on the wall,

and then pretended it reads something else entirely, link
and canceled the meeting of the NMRP Central Committee.

Allen Weh, rushing headlong into a humiliating ass handing
at the scheduled meeting of the Central Committee, saw the
writing on the wall about his efforts to prevent an amendment
to the NM Republican party rules which would have added
Roberts Rules of Order and Parliamentary procedure to
Republican Party meetings on the state level,
as is the case in Republican Party meetings on the national level.

Parliamentary procedure is a real threat to the kind of
ham fisted leadership that characterized Allen Weh's tenure
as the Chairman of the NM Republican Party.

The fight is postponed, it is not over.

Once upon a time

Do you know the difference between a fairytale and a sea story?

One begins with "Once upon a time",
and the other begins with "This is no shit."

The following is no shit.

I had been told that the administrator that I had locked horns with, was falsifying public records with respect to fire drills at Hoover Middle School. The story, about principals not doing the required number of fire drills became a Larry Barker investigation. Hoover Middle School was given a "D" for failing to follow district policy, state fire code, and state law regarding the number of fire drills which must be conducted on an annual basis.

I went to the Office of Risk Management to inspect and copy the (falsified) public records. The Director of Risk Management was pretty adamant about not surrendering the records, even though the NM Inspection of Public Records Act requires the immediate surrender of immediately available records.

The APS Police were called by the Director and by me.

The APS Police Department is a Praetorian Guard. It is a publicly funded, private police force that reports to the leadership of the APS, and to no one else. The police force is not certificated or accredited by anyone but the leadership of the APS.

Two of them rolled up.

The first thing I did was to insist that they begin recording our discussion. They claimed to have no way of creating an incontrovertible log, either on their person, or in their vehicle(s). And then they made me leave.

Before I left, I asked them to seize the public records in question in order to protect them. In essence they said.
Sorry, but that's just not the way we roll.

Except that they left out the "sorry" part.

The APS senior administrator prepared a statement and filed it with the APS police. It was a sworn statement.

Later, during an arbitration and under oath, he offered testimony which contradicted the written sworn statement.

In fact, neither statement was true.
In reality, only one of two conflicting accounts can be true.
The other is a lie.

If it is not perjury; a fourth degree felony; what is?

The settlement agreement that I signed with APS Modrall
included prohibiting me from taking that incontrovertible
evidence of the commission of a fourth degree felony by a
senior APS administrator, to any agent of law enforcement.

Tax dollars, unwitting taxpayer support of "education", were
used to buy exception to the law, for one of the good ol' boys.

And that's where the story ends. Because
the leadership of the APS is not even accountable to the law.

Right now, they are holding evidence of criminal misconduct
by a whole different set of administrators.

They are currently suppressing evidence of criminal misconduct
involving senior APS administrators in the Peanut Butter Gate
scandal in the APS Police Department.

They are waiting for statutes of limitation to expire,
in order to except another senior APS administrator from
accountability for felony criminal misuse of the BCSO
NCIC data base.

They are not even accountable to the law;
the lowest commonly accepted standard of conduct.

A far lower standard of conduct than
the student standard of conduct;

a nationally recognized, accepted and respected code of ethical conduct.


They cannot even be held accountable as role models.
They've abdicated, and they refuse to talk about it.

They will not explain, defend, deny, or even acknowledge that
they have excepted themselves from accountability as
role models of the student standard of conduct.

Did APS Modrall spend tax dollars against the public interest?

As part of a settlement agreement between the APS and myself,
I was paid not to take incontrovertible evidence of felony perjury
by a senior APS administrator, to any agency of the law.

In essence, unwitting taxpayer support of "education"
was used to buy exception to the law,
for one of the good ol' boys.

It is one of the situations I am writing about when I write that
the leadership of the APS is not accountable, even to the law.

I think this is spending against the public interest.

I think that it should not happen again.

It is conduct that is prohibited by the standard of conduct
that the leadership of the APS, will enforce upon 89,000
of our sons and daughters, but not upon themselves.

Obviously.

My motives in question

Not that the motive of the questioner
has anything to do with it.

The legitimacy of a question is self evident.

One can't refuse to answer a legitimate question
because they don't approve of the either the questioner
or his motive for asking the question.

In any event, I have two motives.

The first has to do with my training in Character Counts!
It worked.

What ever else, I believe that the leadership of the APS must
subject themselves to honest accountability as role models
of the Pillars of Character Counts! for at least the few hours
that they hold students accountable to that standard.

The second has to do with the concept expressed first by another;

"No debt is too old for an honest man to pay."

First they must be made accountable to a higher standard of
conduct than the law,

and then;

they can be compelled to provide a principled resolution of
my complaints.



I am ashamed of neither motive, and both
have been on the table since the very first day.

Why have there been no consequences in the APS Finance Division?

Why has no one been punished for going along with a system

• that lacked adequate financially sound procedures, and
• that lacked accountability for spending large sums of money, and
• that lacked record keeping complete and adequate enough to send anyone to jail

and not having blown the whistle on the incompetence
and corruption?

Why were they instead,

promoted to more senior positions and given raises in salary
despite their abject failure to protect the public interests
from incompetence and corruption?


To knowingly permit, or negligently allow administrative
incompetence on this scale, and for this long (forever)
is corruption

plain and simple.

Their steadfast refusal to respond

Whether it is apparent or not, I struggle with my side of the
argument.

My side is that;
there is no good and ethical reason for public servants
to stonewall legitimate questions about the public interests.

It is only after a great deal of reflection that I come to the
conclusion that there are only one possible explanation
for refusing to answer; a lack of character and a lack of courage.

I have invited the leadership of the APS, repeatedly,
to lay a another reason on the table, and they will not.

What possible excuse can there be
for not laying that reason on the table,
except that it is indefensible?

If there were any good and ethical reason at all,
why wouldn't they share that good and ethical reason with
stakeholders?

I can accept that there are good and ethical reasons to
refuse to answer some questions,
or some parts of some questions.

I can not think of any good and ethical reason
not to answer one question in particular;

Why won't you answer legitimate questions
candidly, forthrightly, and honestly?

There is no excuse for refusing to answer that particular
question. It is an absolutely fair and reasonable question.

And there is really only one explanation for that refusal;
a lack of character and courage.

If they are so embarrassed by, and so ashamed of,
their answer, that they will not explain, defend, or even
associate themselves with it,

how can that reason, not be an indictment of their character
and their courage?

Their refusal to sit still and answer legitimate questions about
the public interest, candidly, forthrightly and honestly
can only be explained by their lack of character and courage.


Correct me if I'm wrong.

Seriously, correct me if I am wrong.


cc Winston Brooks and
every single member of the Board of Education upon posting.



Robert "the weasel" Lucero was the only one to respond;

Mr. MacQuigg,
Take me off your e-mail list!

Like he's on my email list! ha!

Accountability audit not cost effective?

I am told that an honest and impartial administrative
accountability audit has been rejected by the leadership
of the APS, not because they need to hide their institutional
lack of standards and accountability, but because
it would cost too much.

Let's take a look at the math.

APS' total annual budget is $1.3B.

Salaries constitute $.8B. Spending on salaries is fairly
straightforward with little room for graft.

Leaving $500M vulnerable to graft in a Finance Division
that impartial auditors, Meyners + Co., reported; was/is

• lacking adequate financially sound policies,
• lacking actual accountability to any standards at all, and
• lacking record keeping; complete and accurate enough to send anyone to jail.

An decent audit would cost $150K.

Therefore, if the audit which would effectively end all of the
waste due to incompetence and corruption,
saved more than $150K, it would be cost effective.

$150K is roughly .03 of 1% of $500M.

If corruption and incompetence waste more than .03% of
the annual budget, the audit would save money the first year.

If the waste due to incompetence and corruption amounts to
less than .03% of the budget, the audit would not pay for itself
the first year.

However, the audit is a relatively one time cost,
which would return dividends year, after year, after year.

If 1% is wasted on an annual basis (a conservative estimate)
the district begins to see $5M in savings year after year,
after year.

Not to mention the non-financial rewards; increased efficiency,
increased effectiveness, and increased public confidence.

It would appear to be a no brainer.

The rub;
the consequences for the corrupt, and for the incompetent,
and for those who tolerate and enable their corruption and
incompetence.

And since they are the ones calling the shots in the APS,
guess what, no audit.

No matter how much sense it makes financially,
no matter how badly it is needed for every other reason.


As a point of reference;
the new board room, which is yet to be justified,
cost taxpayers about $1M; more than six times the cost of an
audit.

$1M which would not have been wasted, if there were
administrative accountability verified by at least one honest audit.

Anyone who would care to challenge the math,
is free to do so, anonymously or otherwise,
by means of a comment on this post.

cc Winston Brooks upon posting.

"Winston Brooks is not incompetent,

not crooked and doesn’t countenance that crap."

according to a member of the APS Board of Education.

On the other hand,

Winston Brooks will not present himself to answer legitimate
questions about the public interests in the public schools, ever.

Those two positions are irreconcilable.

The second is the truth.

NMSU's process for finding a new president

Drew the attention of Journal editors this morning. link

Part of the controversy centers on whether or not the names
of finalists will be made public.

The secrecy is necessary to keep the current employers of the
candidates, in the dark about the intentions of their employee.

In other words, we are going to hire an employee who
believes it is alright to deliberately deceive their employer.

How could this possibly go wrong?

Saint Pete not really a saint afterall?

Senator Pete Domenici is basking in adulation of fans at one
get together after another around the state.

Blogger Monahan is the first apparently, not including me,
to point out that not everyone shares in that adulation. link

In my book, if Pete Domenici did anything at all to qualify
for sainthood, it was when he went to Aspen Colorado, and
along with 93 other dignitaries, founded Character Counts!

And then slipped to sinner status when he couldn't summon
the courage to stand up to the APS Board of Education
when they abdicated as role models of the student standard
of conduct; the Pillars of Character Counts!, and when they
renounced their personal accountability to that nationally
recognized, accepted and respected code of ethics.

The slide continued when he failed to step up and respond
to allegations that the APS Character Counts! Leadership
Council was nothing more than a sham, formed to take
advantage of a federal grant under Domenici's name.

I hope the history books don't miss that little jewel,
although I will not be surprised when they do.

Saint Domenici?

Not in my book.

Which side is Steve Pearce on?

You pick a side when you don't pick a side. unk

There is a battle between good and evil going on in the
leadership of the Republican Party of New Mexico
and Steve Pearce has not yet picked a side.

When you see a bully beating up a little kid,
you are immediately obligated to pick a side.

If you don't, you have taken the side of the bully.

The bully in the NMRP is Allen Weh et al.

The little kid, would be everyone else in the NMRP
who believes in their right to meaningful participation
in decisions that affect their interests.

The fight is over whether or not there will be parliamentary
rules that level the playing field between the powerful and the powerless.

Allen Weh and the other bullies,
suppose that they make decisions by "the rule of the gavel";
a manifestation of their power over the great unwashed.

Parliamentary procedure, already afforded to Republicans
at the national level, ends the arbitrary and indefensible
rule of the gavel.

There is no more fundamental question.

The most important decision that a group will ever make,
is when they decide on how decisions will be made.
It should also be their first. again,unk

Potentially the next Chairman of the NMRP,
Steve Pearce needs to pick a side.

He needs to stand up in defense of the amendment which
creates Parliamentary Rule to govern party meetings.

If he does not take a stand at all,
then he has take the side of the bullies.

The same can be said for Allen McCullough
and anyone else who aspires to lead the NMRP.

Things are so bad in APS' Finance Division

that our State Auditor must commit sorely needed SAO
auditors to engage and assist in rebuilding
their internal audit division.

Rebuilding, not tweeking, not fixing, not helping, but
rebuilding. There is nothing there now, that can be repaired.
There never has been.

They have never had adequate policies, and
they have never provided adequate accountability, and
they have never kept adequate records; records complete and
accurate enough to send anybody to jail.

They say if you are going to steal money,
keep lousy books.

No one ever went to jail for keeping lousy books,
even on more than a billion tax dollars a year.


Things are so bad in the APS Financial Division, that their
internal audits will be sent directly to the SAO and to the PED.

Things are so bad in the APS Financial Division, that the
SAO has implemented the most aggressive referral system
including local, state, and federal enforcement authorities
for investigation of criminal misconduct.

Things are so bad in the APS Financial Division, that
they had to promote two departmental employees,
who never blew the whistle on the irregularities in the division, to positions from which a cover up could be mounted;
Chief Financial Officer and Director of Internal Audits.

Things are so bad in the APS Financial Division, that
Winston Brooks had to fire the Director of Internal Audits
barely a month after vetting him for, and promoting him to that position.

Things are so bad in the APS Financial Division, that
Winston Brooks will not answer legitimate questions
about the division, candidly, forthrightly, and honestly.

Not even about the criminal misconduct.

Not even about how many tax dollars have gone missing.


How bad must things really be ?

That Winston Brooks cannot look into stakeholders' eyes
and tell them the simple truth?

"Re-Election of PRC Chairman Jason Marks a Public Financing Success Story"

So reads the headline on a post at Democracy for New Mexico
link

The author writes;

"Public campaign financing is one of the most powerful tools in the movement towards better government transparency, improved ethics and increased accountability of elected officials to the citizenry."

I take issue with "movement toward".

Ethics and accountability are not steps in a journey.
They are a singular point; you either are or you're not,
there are no half way points, you cannot be "on your way" there.

There is either inescapable accountability to unequivocal standards, or there is not.
There is inescapable accountability to unequivocal standards,
and there is the "also ran".

If anyone suggests that they are at some halfway point,
that they are on a journey,
it is only to draw attention off of the reality which is;
they are not willing to take the plunge entirely.

• They are not willing to establish higher standards of conduct and competence, and
• they are not willing to be held honestly accountable to those standards
  

Get back to me please, when they actually step off the curb.

My Weh, or the highweh, to get his comeuppance?

New Mexico Republican Party Chairman, Allen Weh
appears headed for his comeuppance;

"deserved reward or just deserts,
usually unpleasant"

He wants to run roughshod over the party one last time
at the scheduled NMRP Central Committee Meeting
scheduled for this coming Saturday.

If he has his weh, he will ignore legitimate business to
push his own agenda.

Worse than "ignore", his decision not to allow discussion and
action on legitimate, and necessary amendments to the
NMRP Rules, is unconscionable, ham fisted, and
completely unjustifiable.

It is a power play in the worst sense.

He would be well advised to rethink his plan before adding
disgrace upon disgrace.

Voters betwixt a rock and a hard place

New Mexico voters have a long history of supporting
education by raising their taxes.

Yet, voters are so put out by the lack of accountability in the
spending, that they are likely to reject any tax increase no
matter how worthy.

What else can voters do? What other choice do they have
except to end the flow of money down APS' rat hole.

Winston Brooks says; Give the APS more money link
while at the same time saying;

• But don't expect us to be at all transparent or honest in how we spend it.
• Don't expect us to put our budget and spending up on the internet for voter scrutiny.
• Don't expect us to hold our own good ol' boys accountable even for breaking the law.
• Don't expect us to conduct an audit that will expose the corruption and incompetence that will waste a significant part of every dollar that taxpayers provide.
• Don't expect us to answer even legitimate questions about the public interest, candidly, forthrightly and honestly,

• but by all means raise your taxes to give us more trust and treasure to squander.

I don't think so Winston.

"the truth? you can't handle the truth"

Why else is Albuquerque Public Schools Superintendent
Winston Brooks hiding the truth about what has been going on in the APS Finance Division?

Why else is Winston Brooks hiding the truth about spending at 6400 Uptown Blvd; or about the real cost of the new board room?

Why else is Winston Brooks hiding the truth about the public corruption and criminal conspiracy in the leadership of the APS Police Department?

Why else would Winston Brooks refuse an impartial administrative standards and accountability audit, the results of which would expose every corrupt and incompetent administrator in the APS?

Why else is Winston Brooks hiding the truth about the lack of administrative role modeling of the student standard of conduct?

Why else is Winston Brooks so worried about the truth
"getting out" to stakeholders?



except that you can't handle the truth, and

it is your well being he protects.

Winston Brooks will answer legitimate questions sooner or later.

He will answer them candidly, forthrightly, and honestly.

The first questions should be;

How can you defend your steadfast refusal
to tell the truth to stakeholders, heretofore?

and

Why isn't that refusal heretofore,
grounds to demand your immediate resignation?

Where there's smoke, there's fire

If every standards and accountability audit that has ever been done on any division in the Albuquerque Public Schools, has revealed a significant lack of standards and accountability,

you have to wonder what an audit of the next higher layer of administration would reveal.

Tom Savage was the next higher layer of administration above the Finance Division; a disaster of monumental proportion. He failed to address the problems revealed in the Meyners Audit.

Tom Savage was also the next higher layer of administration over the APS Police Department. He failed to prevent the public corruption and criminal conspiracy that developed there.

He was retired with honors.

Beth Everitt was responsible for making sure that Tom Savage was up to the job.

He wasn't, and she was retired with honors.

The lack of standards and accountability at the departmental level, flows from a well that begins with the school board, and flows through the superintendent's office, through deputy superintendents, and who knows how many other levels of management,

before it ends up at the departmental and divisional level.

Paula Maes says she will never allow any audit that individually
names any corrupt or incompetent administrator above the
departmental level, "... like for example; Tom Savage."

And including members of the APS Board of Education.

Who are ultimately responsible for the fact that
according to Governor Bill Richardson,

The leadership of the APS has a statewide,
earned reputation for its lack of financial accountability."

As proven incontrovertibly, by the Meyers Audit, and by
every other impartial audit that has ever been done on any
division or department in the entire APS.



I will bow, of course, to any controverting fact.

The New Mexico State Auditors Office

Anyone who has read this blog for more than a few seconds
knows that I am a big fan of impartial audits of government
agencies, primarily and immediately, the leadership of the APS.

The State Auditors Office has that responsibility in NM.

Scandals like the Courthouse Scandal take place because
they are not audited closely enough.

If all of the players in the courthouse scandal knew upfront,
that the books would be forensically audited at the end of the
project, would Manny Aragon and his cronies have even
attempted to steal millions of dollars from tax payers?

My guess is no.

So why aren't these crooks afraid of the Auditor's Office?

State Auditor Hector Balderas shines some light on the issue;

The SAO has only 3 Special Investigations Division senior
audit managers for nearly 700 governmental agencies.

... we are severely underfunded at all levels.
We only have 33 employees total to cover all of state,
county, municipal, and quasi governmental entities.

Over eighty percent of those employees are committed to
financial audits, contracts, review, training, and public filings.

We are one of the smallest agencies at all levels of government.
We should be one of the largest.

It would appear that policy writers and budget makers,
would rather that the State Auditor's Office
be underfunded and understaffed. Why?

I would submit that there is no good and ethical reason.

Mr. Balderas adds;

I really have tried to bring more accountability in government.

I have encountered resistance and retaliation at all levels.

I am not going to give up and will always counter with pro-active solutions.

We have to create systematic reform by redirecting our funding priorities.

We also have to continue to recruit the next generation of honest individuals
who want to serve our citizens. One does not work without the other.

I have submitted an aggressive budget request to increase our staffing by thirty percent.

I would have to agree that there is at least one agency in government, where increased funding is justified. Beyond that, I would argue that the word "justified" is not nearly a powerful enough word.

Honest and impartial auditing of government spending is as
critical as any aspect of governance, more even.

The thirty percent increase in spending at the Auditor's Office
will return far more to stakeholders.

Try to imagine how many tax dollars would be saved,
if State Auditor Balderas had the resources he needs
to make it impossibly difficult to hide public corruption.

Mr. Balderas concluded his email to me with;

I hope you will help us advocate for greater and
just investment in the SAO.

I will.

And so should you.

State Auditor Hector Balderas on; the APS Finance Department Scandal

The situation in the APS Finance Department is so bad
that no one in the leadership of the APS will tell stakeholders
the truth about how bad things really are. Nor will anyone
in the leadership of the APS answer any questions about
how many tax dollars have been wasted or stolen.

What is clear is that, the APS Finance Division has been
operating for years, forever actually,

• without adequate policies and procedures,
• without adequate accountability to polices and procedures, and
• without keeping records; complete and accurate enough to send anyone to prison.

There are so many tax dollars missing due to corruption
and incompetence, that APS Superintendent Winston Brooks
won't even talk about the numbers.

I sent an email to State Auditor Hector Balderas, link
in search of the truth about what is going on with the public
trust and treasure in the hands of the leadership of the APS.

His responses raise to two, the number of politicians who I
think offer any promise at all, of ending the culture of corruption
in state government.

The other is Rep. Janice Arnold Jones. link

Conditions in the APS Finance Division are so bad,
conditions are so far out of control,
that it will be years before the direct involvement and
intervention by the State Auditor's Office ends.

State Auditor Balderas wrote;

I have met with the new administration officials,
including Supt., and several oversight agencies including
PED, and LFC, and some legislators specifically to require
corrective action plan regarding Meyners Report.
This corrective planning and oversight began almost
immediately after release of Meyners Report.
We have been working consistently on addressing all findings.

Secondly, we have committed our SAO auditors to engage
and assist in rebuilding their internal audit division.

We have been conducting meetings for several months
now with APS officials in this regard as well.

(emphasis added)

I have been particularly concerned that the leadership of the APS might try to hide criminal misconduct a la their Police Department scandal, now just days away from the expiration of statutes of limitation, and the consequent get out of jail free cards that that represents for the APS senior administrators involved in the public corruption and criminal conspiracy first exposed publicly in January 2007.

I asked the State Auditor;

If criminal misconduct were unveiled by any of these audits,
how might I be assured that evidence would be turned
over to the appropriate agency of law enforcement?
and by whom?

Auditor Balderas wrote;

We are required by law to refer any possible criminal acts
to proper authorities.

I have implemented the most aggressive referral system
including local, state, and federal enforcement authorities.

And there you have it, the criminal misconduct revealed by the
illumination of the problems in the APS Finance Division
will not be hidden from stakeholders by the leadership of the APS.


However, the greatest scandal in the leadership of the APS
continues unmitigated.

The greatest scandal in the APS is their ongoing cover up
of this, and of every other scandal in the leadership of the APS.

Winston Brooks will not come clean on anything.

He continues to wander around the district with his gaggle
of senior administrators schmoozing stakeholders into a
false confidence in the integrity of the leadership of the APS.

When asked point blank if he intends ever, to come clean
with stakeholders, to finally just tell stakeholders the simple
truth, he refuses.

He refuses, in so far as he refuses to answer. They all do.

If you ask any one of the them if they will sit down and
answer legitimate questions about the public interest,
all you get is a blank stare, if they can summon the courage
to even look you in the eyes.

Which means, no.
No matter how they spin it.

Open Meetings resolution

The APS Board of Education is poised link to adopt
a resolution link outlining its intentions regarding compliance
with the New Mexico Open Meetings Act.

The purpose of Open Meetings Act requirements
is to ensure that anyone who might want to attend a meeting
is made reasonably aware of an upcoming meeting.

The first place one would reasonably look, would be the district's
piss poor website, one of the most useless and user unfriendly
websites in existence.

But they will not necessarily find the meeting posted there.
The notice may not be posted on the website,
because of qualifying language in the lengthy proposal;

"IT IS FURTHER DETERMINED that
substantial compliance with any one or more of
the foregoing alternatives which may be applicable
is reasonable notice,... " (emphasis added)

Which means that if the board would like to have a meeting
that no one knew about but them, they could advertise the
meeting by means of;

"Posting a notice of the date, time, and place in the
main lobby of the school district administration building ..."

where every interested stakeholder is likely to stumble across it
during the normal course of their day. Right.

Give me a break.

There is no reason in the world, that the board of education
cannot guarantee that notice of meetings, at the very least,
be posted on their website, and a full 24 hours in advance,
a requirement that they now, routinely ignore

regardless of how else, or where else, they post notice.

The APS School Board's part in the cover up

Almost two years ago, a scandal in the APS Police Department
was made public.

Almost two years later, evidence of felony criminal misconduct,
is still being kept from law enforcement.

We are within days of the expiration of statutes of limitation,
and senior APS administrators are about to escape
the consequences of their criminal misconduct.

Board members will argue that they have three,
and only three responsibilities;

1. approve the annual budget,
2. write district policies, and
3. hire a superintendent.

They will probably argue that the cover up of the
APSPD Peanut Butter Gate scandal is beyond their control.

The truth is that, anytime they want to,
they can write a district policy that requires district
administrators to step up to the consequences of their misconduct.

The truth is that, anytime they want to,
they can write a district policy that requires district
administrators to answer legitimate questions
candidly, forthrightly and honestly.


The truth is that, anytime they want to,
the board can write a policy that requires administrators
to held accountable as role models of the student standard
of conduct; a policy which requires administrators to
tell the truth.

They will not.


Several years ago,
I placed a legitimate motion before the APS school board.
It would have created a district policy that would have
required district administrators to tell the truth.

The motion was tabled by Robert Lucero
with the support of the entire board of education.

The Albuquerque Public Schools Board of Education;

• Jon Barela
• Marty Esquivel
• Delores Griego
• Mary Lee Martin
• Berna Facio
• Paula Maes, and
• Robert Lucero

is tangentially complicit in an ongoing conspiracy
to cover up public corruption and criminal conspiracy
in the leadership of the APS (PD).

Superintendent Winston Brooks is directly complicit.

Somebody should do something.

Somebody should do something before statutes of limitation
expire, and the good ol' boys who broke the law,
go scot free. wikilink

Blood, sweat, or tears

Edmund Burke first wrote;

All that is necessary for evil to prevail in the world,
is for good men to do nothing.

I would offer;

All that is necessary for every problem with government
to get much worse than they already are,
is for good men to do nothing.

If at the end of the day,
you cannot point to a single drop of your blood, your sweat,
or your tears on the ground,
you have done nothing to fix any of the problems.

It is time to draw a line in the sand and dig in our heels.

It is time to push back on a government no longer under our control.

NMRP Chair Weh disgraces himself one last time

After disgracing himself so thoroughly in Las Cruces
with his abuse the "rule of the gavel", Allen Weh has
apparently decided to continue the slide into personal disgrace
by preventing discussion by the NMRP Central Committee,
of some bonafide and legitimate amendments to
the NM Republican Party Rules, including one which
would put an end to "rule of the gavel" forever.

He has announced that his, will be the only amendment that
will be discussed at an upcoming meeting of
the NMRP Central Committee.

It suspected that he will again try to conduct the meeting
in secret from stakeholders and the press.

Doubly disgraceful in my book.

It occurs to me that the complaint against
NMRP Vice Chairman, Jon Barela still has not seen
a principled resolution.

Make that triply disgraceful.

City of Albuquerque to lay off 500

apparently, the Japanese have invented
a shovel that stands up by itself.

Did you smile? Did you laugh out loud?

The humor you found in that old joke, correlates directly
with your acceptance of the stereotype; that there really are
city workers whose job it is to defend shovels against the will
of gravity.

If you accept that the workers at the bottom of the hierarchy
are unaccountable, then you must also accept that the person
whose job it is to hold them accountable, has not been held
accountable for not holding his subordinates accountable.

You will find that his supervisor has not been held accountable
for not holding him accountable for not holding them accountable, and so on, and so on.

If you follow the chain of command, you will arrive at the office
of the president of the United States, and you will find that
he cannot be held honestly and immediately accountable for
failing to hold subordinates accountable.

It is the nature of public service in these united states*,
and it is the proximate cause for the waste of perhaps 20%
of tax dollars spent by government.

The straightest path to honest and efficient government
is to establish real and meaningful standards of conduct and
competence for public servants, and then to actually enforce
those standards on everyone,
from the guy holding up a shovel four hours a day,
to the office of the president.



*

The possible exception to this scenario would could be the
military, where there is apparently some real accountability.

Because the military have actual standards of conduct and
competence, and for the most part, they actually enforce them.

On; (Alb Journal) newspaper editorial writers

"All newspaper editorial writers ever do is to
come down from the hills after the battle is over
and shoot the wounded."

unk, from
The Third and Possibly the Best 637 Things Anybody Ever Said
selected and compiled by Robert Byrne

The generation now in school will be the first

in the history of the United States to leave the system
less well educated than their parents.

The system is failing.

It is failing in part because it has not changed with the times.
It is virtually unchanged in a world that is greatly changed.

The systemic intransigence is due in part to the resistance
of the incompetent and the corrupt, who fight the necessary
systemic changes because those changes would,
among other things,

expose their corruption and their incompetence.


For example;

• complete and absolute transparency,
• meaningful standards of conduct and competence, and
• honest accountability at every level in the system.

the same changes that politicians eschew with as great a vigor.

Testing the character of APS administrators and Board Members

Curious about whether or not any particular administrator or
board member is a person of character and courage?

Ask him or her, whether or not they would be willing to
hold themselves honestly accountable as a role model
of the Student Standard of Conduct,
for the few hours each day the they enforce that standard
of conduct upon students.

If they say yes,
then they are a person of character and courage.

If they say no, then obviously, they are not.

Any answer except yes, means no.

No, is not an acceptable answer to that question

• from the senior most public servants in the APS, and
• from the senior most stewards of the public trust and treasure in the APS, and
  
• certainly not from the senior most role models in the APS.

There is no reason to eschew accountability as a role model,
except a lack of character and courage.

If there were, someone could point to it.
If there were, someone would point to it.

An additional and equally effective test question;

Would you support an immediate, impartial, full scale,
forensic audit of the entire leadership of the APS?

Any answer except yes, means no.


There is no reason to oppose an audit except to protect the corrupt and the incompetent from the consequences of their corruption and their incompetence.

No one in the leadership of the APS has anything to fear from an audit, except the corrupt and the incompetent.

If there were any good and ethical reason at all
not to commence an administrative accountability audit
someone could point to it;

someone would point to it.

There are people in the leadership of the APS who read this blog

Some, because I email a courtesy copy of a post.
Some, because I have given them notice by email
of their opportunity to explain, defend, or deny an allegation.

For example;

I allege that, there is no one in the leadership of the APS
who has the character and the courage to be a role model
of the APS Student Standard of Conduct.

And that there is no reason for them to eschew accountability
to the student standard of conduct, except that

• they are corrupt and/or incompetent,
• an enabler of corruption and incompetence,
  out of indifference,
  
• or, they lack the courage to stand up and be counted.

Now if I were an APS administrator or board member
who has been alleged to be lacking in character or courage
I would defend my honor. I would not let the allegation go
without rebuttal.

If I were accused of lacking character and courage because
I have not stood up in support of an accountability audit

and I had a good and ethical reason for not having stood up,

why wouldn't I post it, anonymously or otherwise,
as a comment on this post?

Someone give me a good and ethical reason that an accused
administrator or board member would not respond by means
of a comment on this post?


There is no good and ethical reason not to audit.

There is no good and ethical excuse for not standing up to demand one.

Is there is any other reason why anyone in the leadership of
the APS will not stand up in favor of an audit,

except that they lack the character and the courage.


If there is any other reason at all, post it here, now.


cc Winston Brooks; @ superintendent.aps.edu
School Board Members; @ board.aps.edu

APS Board sez "no" to role modeling

Below find my presentation during the public forum.
The leadership of the APS declined to be held honestly
accountable as role models of the student standard of conduct.

Before you is a pamphlet entitled
CHARACTER IS THE HEART OF NEW MEXICO

You sanction it, you are accountable for its contents.

Turn please to inside panel three.

You will find eight requirements for engaging students on
their character.

You will notice number two which reads, in significant part;

“… students need to see adults “walk their talk.”

It is time to walk your talk.

Immediately following the public forum, during
"Matters of Information", you have the opportunity
to speak about what ever you want,
for as long as you want.

As a matter of information,
I would like to know whether you intend to
hold yourself honestly accountable as a role model
of the student standard of conduct.

A simple yes, or no will do.

Yes you are willing to be held honestly accountable
as a role model of the Pillars of Character Counts!

or

No, you are not.

You are not willing to accept accountability as a role model
of the student standard of conduct.

I would suggest, that any answer except yes, means no.

I would suggest, that stonewalling means no;

and is prohibited by the student standard of conduct
because it is dishonest, and therefore, unethical.

There are a number of students in the boardroom this
evening (two dozen?)

You require students to respond to legitimate questions,
by answering candidly, forthrightly, and honestly.

Will you or will you not now
show them what that looks like?

During the "Matters of Information", they chose one and all,
to not answer the simple, and absolutely legitimate question.

Which means; no.

My thinking has been challenged.

There is agreement that the issues are character and courage.

The disagreement centers on my expectations regarding courage.

I have written many times about the culture of fear of retribution
and retaliation in the leadership of the APS.

I know first hand what happens to those who stand up
in favor of honest accountability for administrative role models.

Any administrator who stands up for a standards and accountability audit will pay for their insubordination.

Life's a bitch.

Michael Josephson wrote;

If it were easy, everyone would do it.

Truth is,
as soon as a few people stand up,
everyone will stand up in a rush not be be the last,
and no one will be retaliated against.

The corrupt and the incompetent will be in no position
to exact revenge on anyone.


I stand by my demand for men and women of character
in the leadership of the APS, to stand up and be counted.

After all, it is they who decided to have us give kids a tee shirt,
that on its front and back read;

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

A student struggling to do the right thing in the APS
should have an adult behind them, offering their support,
an adult beside them, to share their burden,
and an adult in front of them, showing them what it looks like,

leading, by their own personal example.

"Students need to see adults "walk the talk"."

That truth is repeated verbatim, in a pamphlet that the leadership of the APS distributes to stakeholders.

The pamphlet is entitled;

CHARACTER IS THE HEART OF NEW MEXICO

The leadership of the APS represents that the pamphlet
reflects the truth about what is going on in the APS.

Instead, the pamphlet deliberately misrepresents the truth.
It is dishonest by the very standards it purports.

The leadership of the APS has no intention of "walking the talk".
Never has, never will.

They removed the role modeling clause from their own standard of conduct. They are no longer required to hold themselves accountable as role models of the student standard of conduct. They struck the words which used to read;

In no case shall the standard of conduct for an adult
be lower than the standard of conduct for students.

The Student Standard of Conduct is the Pillars of Character Counts!
It is a nationally recognized, accepted, and respected code of ethical conduct.

Students, according to the APS Student Behavior Handbook, are required

" ... to model and promote
the Pillars of Character Counts!"

Their most senior role models are not required by their
code of conduct, to model anything at all,
much less a higher standard of conduct than the law.

Not any more.

Not since they struck the role modeling clause from their own code of conduct.

The truth is that there is not a single "leader" in the entire APS who is willing to hold themselves honestly accountable to the same standard of conduct that they enforce upon students; not even for the few hours a day that they hold students accountable to that standard.

That simple truth is central to every problem in the APS.

There is no legitimate agenda that does not move forward on the day that these public servants find themselves honestly accountable to meaningful standards of conduct and competence.

There are only three kinds of administrators in the APS;

1. the corrupt and incompetent,
   
2. those with guilty knowledge of corruption and incompetence,and
3. those who are standing up demanding an immediate, impartial, full scale audit of standards, accountability, corruption and incompetence in the leadership of the APS.
   

So far, group three is empty and likely to remain so.
Ergo, there really are only two kinds of administrators;

1. the corrupt and incompetent, and
2. those who are not themselves corrupt and incompetent,
   except for the fact that they tolerate and enable corruption, incompetence, and the on going betrayal of the public trust because they lack the character and the courage to stand up for what they believe in.

An administrator, or school board member in either group,
is reasonably disqualified to be a role model for
89,000 of our sons and daughters, and 12,000 employees.

Any administrator who does not qualify as a role model, especially if it is by their own deliberate choice, has no business assuming the role of role model in the APS.

They should resign or be fired.



Character counts in the leadership of the APS?
Right, and a pint of Häagen-Dazs serves four.

School board minutes are inaccurate

APS video tapes its board meetings. There really is no reason
why those video tapes cannot be the official minutes;
except that they represent the incontrovertible truth.

Instead, someone, I'm not sure who, is tasked with creating
an anecdotal and subjective impression of what happened.

I submit as evidence, the minutes which will be approved
at the meeting tonight. link

My public forum presentation, where I again asked
the leadership to set a time, a day, and a place where they
will answer any legitimate questions, candidly, forthrightly,
and honestly, was cleaned up before public dissemination.

The anecdotal impression reads;

Charles MacQuigg asked the APS Board of Education
to find a place, time, and date when it will address
the issue of Character Counts.

Close, but not the actual truth. It lacks the punch of the
actual presentation.

I cannot challenge the accuracy of the minutes because
the leadership of the APS will not allow their minutes to be
challenged; they approve them before the public forum begins,
and they will not allow public comment before the public forum.

This is problematic, because in their invitation to the community
to participate in the forum, they invite people to speak to a specific
agenda item if they so choose; except that they will not
allow anyone to speak on the record against two specific items;
approval of the agenda, and approval of minutes.

They did this in my opinion, because the board room is full
of all of the people that they are honoring at each meeting,

and they want them all to leave the room before
the public forum begins.

It is patently dishonest,
and par for the course.

There is a board meeting tonight, and the agenda still isn't posted.

The agenda will include a public forum,
and your opportunity to stand up to demand meaningful
standards of conduct and competence, and
honest accountability to those standards.

Meeting starts at 5 pm, the public forum usually begins
about 5:30.

If you want to speak at the forum, you must sign up before
5 pm.

If not you, then who?
If not now, then when?

Journal editors grow a pair.

Today, they are rightfully upset that a student has fallen
victim to arbitrary and capricious decision making by a high
school principal. link

Jo Ann Coffee is the same principal who let APS tennis courts
be used exclusively by the husband a fellow principal for his
personal business. link

I wish I knew what it would take to get the Journal editors
to be upset about the leadership of the APS simply deciding
that they would no longer be held accountable as role models.

As proven when they removed from their own standard of conduct, the phrase and the expectation that;

In no case shall the standard of conduct for an adult,
be lower than the standard of conduct for students.

APS Board Meeting Wednesday, December 3

The agenda was not posted today on the APS website.

They are required by law to post an agenda
for 24 hours before the meeting.

Oops, their bad.

Journal Editors write kudos for APS leadership

The editors wrote kudos wikilink to Winston Brooks this morning link.

The editors are rightly impressed that APS fired their Director of Internal Audits, Michael Kimbrell without months of administrative leave, a pay off, or any of the other nonsense that normally surrounds the firing of an APS senior administrator.

I agree.

Unfortunately, a firing of this type is a fluke,
and no one can point to a similar firing.

An optimist might see this as new beginning.

Their steadfast refusal to name a time, a day, and a place,
where the leadership of the APS will respond to legitimate
questions; candidly, forthrightly, and honestly,

and their steadfast refusal to stand up as role models of the
student standard of conduct; a nationally recognized, accepted,
and respected code of ethical conduct,

paints the real situation in its true colors.


The Journal editors chose not to mention the fact that
the firing was kept secret from stakeholders by Winston Brooks,
and that the only reason we know about it at all is because
Larry Barker broke the story, and only after APS spent
a month jerking him around on the surrender of public records
(the pictures taken by the APSPD) . link

photo Mark Bralley link

cc Winston Brooks upon posting.

APS' SilentWhistle

There is an article in the Journal this morning. The Journal
has not provided a link. It is on page B2, and is entitled;

"Report APS activity with SilentWhistle."(one word)

The gist of it is;

People who have information about possible illegal, unethical or inappropriate activities within the APS can report same to SilentWhistle, who will then relay the information to the APS Internal Audit Department.

The immediate problems are;

1. There is no code of ethical conduct to be violated. The leadership of the APS steadfastly refuses to point to a code of ethics to which they will be held accountable; not even the Student Standard of Conduct, which is an ethical code of conduct.
2. SilentWhistle then shoots the complaint back to the good ol' boys. It goes directly to the now thoroughly discredited Internal Audit Department, to be adjudicated by someone who is not too busy playing slots or watching porn. It creates a blatant appearance of a conflict of interest -APS' stock and trade.
   

So beside the fact that there are no rules to break, and
beside the fact that good ol' boys will (not) be actually
holding themselves accountable for their misconduct,

what is left, but another deliberate deception about standards
and accountability in the leadership of the APS?

I will file a complaint with the Journal over their misrepresentation, for what ever good that will do. Emailed upon posting, to accuracy@abqjournal.com.

Dear Sir or Ma'am,

On page B2, you have a story; Report APS activity with SilentWhistle

The story mistakenly implies that APS enforces a code of ethics.

If you investigate this at all, you will find that the APS
does not have a code of ethics, to which they admit accountability.

ched macquigg

Mary Lee Martin is kaput.

If Mary Lee Martin is inclined to run for re-election to her
seat on the school board, she will find that she is up against
some stiff competition;

David L. Robbins
www.ImproveAPS.com link

When asked if he would hold himself honestly accountable
as a role model of the student standard of conduct,
he answered yes, emphatically, and without hesitation.

Update; Robbins, once elected, morphed into a sniveling coward and reneged on his promise.

Mary Lee Martin won't answer at all;
which means; no.



cc. Mary Lee Martin upon posting.

Different strokes for different folks.

There are at least some public forums, where if you want to speak, you just join the line, and if there is time permitting,
you get to speak.

The APS board requires that you sign up before the meeting
and enforces that rule vigorously.

I can only suppose that it limits the number of people who
can speak, and specifically to those who can get off of their
work early enough to sign up.

If there is a good and ethical reason, it escapes me.

What good is a principle, if no one is willing to die over it?

Sacrifice is the currency of commitment.

You can say that you are committed to a principle,
but unless you can show us some of your blood, your sweat,
or your tears on the ground,

it is just "talk" about your commitment to the principle.

I submit as a principle worth dying for,
the hill upon which I am willing to die;

It is critically important that we show children
by our personal example,
what character and courage and honor look like.

And further,

Any educator that refuses to be held accountable
as a role model, is a threat to the ethical well being
of 89,000 of our sons and daughters in the APS.

Am I really the only person that cares about character counting in the APS?



The sacrifice you need to make on behalf of your belief that character counts, is to show up at the public forum at the APS School Board meeting, next Wednesday. You need to get there before 5pm in order to sign up to speak at the public forum.

You need to tell them that you expect them to explain, defend, or deny the fact that they removed the role modeling clause from their own code of conduct.

They struck the language which read;

In no case shall the standard of conduct for an adult,
be lower than the standard of conduct for students.

This is a hill worth dying on.



Else,
explain to me in words that any student can understand,


... why you will not.

How many tax dollars are actually missing?

I have suggested on a number of occasions that,
the lack of standards, accountability, and record keeping
in the APS Finance Division reported by the Meyners
auditors have cost taxpayers millions of dollars.

APS will not respond, which illuminates a few possibilities;

1. the figure is correct, and millions have been lost or stolen, or
2. the number is even greater than I imagined; tens of millions.

The third possibility; that my estimate is too high,
would, you would think, generate some kind of response
from the APS; they would point to a lower amount.

They haven't pointed to a lower amount,
so apparently if the number is lower,
it isn't lower enough to bring them any relief.

One would think that as taxpayers,
we have a right to know the truth about the cost to taxpayers
of the incompetence and corruption in the APS Finance Division.

Monica Armenta's first anniversary passed without notice.

It has occurred to me that Monica Armenta's first anniversary
as the Executive Director of the APS Communications, came
and went without notice. She came into her position in June 2007.

In the following year,
she was paid $105K, at more than $50/hr and a million or so
more dollars were spent by the department as a whole,
"communicating" with stakeholders.

Let's take a look at the last year's communication.
The community still doesn't know;

• the truth about the Peanut Butter Gate scandal in the APS Police Department,
• that APS still has not surrendered evidence of felony criminal misconduct involving senior APS administrators,
• that the upcoming expiration of statutes of limitation which will allow the good ol' boys to escape accountability for their misconduct in the APSPD scandal,
• the truth about connections between vendors that supported the administrative soiree at the Inn of the Mountain Gods, and the benefits they received in the form of lucrative APS contracts, link
  
• the truth about the student militia that was formed at Manzano HS to curb student fighting during lunch periods,
• why the leadership of the APS will not conduct an impartial administrative accountability audit that would expose corruption, incompetence and the practices that enable them,
• the administrative leaves of the former CFO and the subordinate who filed sexual harassment charges against him,
• students are in charge at schools, because the District has no written discipline philosophy, not even a bad one,
• one of the least user friendly websites on the planet,
• spending at the Uptown Complex, specifically on the still unjustified board room,
• the abysmal failure of Character Counts! in the APS, despite national success of the program,
• the truth about the relationship between the APS and the Modrall law firm, and their litigation against the public interests, in excepting APS senior administrators and board members from accountability to the law,
• the truth about Grade Gate,
• the truth about the principal shuffle,
• the truth about the lack of meaningful standards of conduct and competence for administrators and board members,
• the lack of any system that guarantees a principled resolution of any complaint made against an administrator,
• that auditors revealed a "culture of fear of retribution and retaliation" against anyone who files a complaint anyway,
• the lack of standards, accountability, and record keeping in the Finance Division,
• and the millions of tax dollars missing as the result,
• the real truth about the Meyners Audit,
• that the Director of Internal Audits was fired a month after he was vetted for, and promoted to, one of the highest ranking slots in the APS.
• the truth about the cancellation of fire safety inspections in schools, to free up money to build a fancy new board room outfitted with the finest electronic wizardry,
• the damage done to APS bond rating by the Meyners Audit results, and the cost to tax payers,
• the promotion of two subordinates in the APS Finance Division, who never blew the whistle on the irregularities in the Finance Division, to positions from which a cover up could be mounted,

The point is; if the question, or the answer, are inconvenient
Monica Armenta will not respond candidly, forthrightly and
honestly. She will not respond at all.

None of them will.