"Technical difficulties" prevent streaming of board meeting

Anyone who tried to watch yesterday's school board meeting online, on APS' award winning website, found the following instead;

PLEASE NOTE: Due to technical difficulties, the Wednesday, August 15, 2012 Board Meeting will not be available to watch live. We're working on the problem and will have the archive video posted later this month.

This isn't the first time.

The likelihood of a technical malfunction correlates with the board's discomfort with being seen. The stupider or more shameful their conduct, the more likely it is that the record will be damaged or lost entirely. They've a long and rich history of not getting it right, link.

There are people in the world, who can record meetings on flip phones and have the video posted online in a matter of minutes.

They don't work, apparently, for the APS.

APS bought more than a hundred thousand dollars worth of electronics and then hired two "experts" to run it, and still can't seem to get things up on the internet.

They get away with it because Kent Walz and the Journal won't investigate and report upon credible evidence and allegations of an ethics and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS.




photo Mark Bralley

Publicly funded, private police force stiffling dissent.

A small group of supporters of a Citizens Advisory Council attended the Policy and Instruction Committee Meeting last evening.  The Committee Chair, the coward David Peercy, link, doesn't allow interest holders to open their mouths during meeting he chairs, so the petitioners were carrying posters.

They were met by the Albuquerque Public Schools Police, in cars and afoot; at least five in all.  The APS police, link, are a publicly funded, private police force that reports directly to, and only to the leadership of the APS.  As a police force, they are unaccredited, un-certified and un-certificated by anyone except the leadership of the APS.

Though they are not supposed to take orders from board members, they routinely do.  Their efforts to harass me and other petitioners flow from an unlawful restraining order created by an individual board member acting without school board authority, link.

The group was met outside the building and told they would not be allowed to enter with posters.  When they asked for some proof that there actually is a rule or regulation that prohibits citizens from exercising their right to carry posters as a matter of free speach, they were offered a Procedural Directive, link, entitled;  Distributing or Posting Promotional Literature: Fundraising, Campaign and Other Material.

Nowhere in the directive does it say, petitioners cannot carry posters onto APS property or into board meetings.

It is a naked abuse of power.

School Board enforcer Marty Esquivel and Chief of Police Steve Tellez own it.

Journal Managing Editor Kent Walz and the establishment media enable it.




photo Mark Bralley

Character education in the APS

Two questions;

1. what is character education, 
2. should there be any in the APS?

What is it?  Wikipedia, link, offers an acceptable definition;  

Character education is an umbrella term loosely used to describe the teaching of children in a manner that will help them develop variously as moral, civic, good, mannered, behaved, non-bullying, healthy, critical, successful, traditional, compliant and/ or socially acceptable beings.

Should there be any in the APS?

Forget for the moment, it is specifically and explicitly required in APS School Board Policy, link,

I offer as a premise; aside from disagreement over the best model to follow, there is widespread support in the community, and as widespread a belief that character education is actually part of education in public schools.  Therefore, there should be some in the APS.

In fact, there is.  A few schools here and there, make a concerted effort to teach children in a manner that will help them develop variously as moral, civic, good, mannered, behaved, non-bullying, healthy, critical, successful, traditional, compliant and/ or socially acceptable beings.

But, there is no district wide effort. None. Zero. Nada, Zip.

In blatant disregard for School Board Policy.

Why, you're wondering, no character education?

It is because there is no model for teaching character education that does not rest on accountability.  It is the bedrock character.  Character is all about holding yourself honestly accountable to meaningful standards of conduct and competence.  Accountable under a system over which you have no undue influence and powerful enough to hold you accountable, even against your will.

The leadership of the APS cannot advocate for character because they are unwilling to be role models of accountability.

If there were accountability, the could point to it.  They would point to it.  The truth is; they provide no venue where a complaint can be filed against them, and where that complaint will see due process.  They are absolutely unaccountable to anyone except each other.

Why, you're wondering, does no one know about any of this?

Journal Editor Kent Walz would love to run  a story about how APS is a model of transparent accountability to stakeholders.  He would love to run a story about their courage as role models for staff and students.

He hasn't run a story like that because he can't.  He can't because he's part of a conspiracy to cover up the lack of administrative and executive standards and accountability.  He's part of the cover up of an ethics and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS.

His best effort so far, to join APS School Board enforcer Marty Esquivel in bamboozling the Directors of the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government into giving APS Supt Winston Brooks a hero of transparency award for hiding public records of felony criminal misconduct in the leadership of their Praetorian Guard.

Walz has been asked, over and over again, to investigate and report upon the abandonment of character education in the APS, and he won't.  90,000 of this community's sons and daughters are being denied any meaningful character education because of corruption in the leadership of the APS, and he chooses rather than exposing it, to join instead, the conspiracy to keep it all secret from their parents.

Walz singing Winston Brooks virtues in front of the FOG

Journalistic malpractice, corruption, cowardice?




framegrab Mark Bralley

Walz gives Korte 46 inches, and a headline

In the Journal this morning, link, an op-ed by the Journal's darling on the APS School Board, Kathy Korte.

Korte would like to blame APS' failure to educate half its students on bad teachers.

For the sake of argument, let's say the failure really can be blamed on a relative few bad teachers and no way to hold them accountable.

Korte and Walz would have readers believe that the current version of the Negotiated Agreement between teachers and the APS, makes it hard to fire bad teachers.

I've been hearing that for a third of a century.  The contract does not protect bad teachers,except from corrupt administrators who might want to fire them out of spite instead of for cause.   A recent audit found a "culture of fear of retribution and retaliation" against whistle-blowers and complainants.

Were it not for the contract, some bad teachers might have been fired sooner, but a lot of good teachers would have fallen victim to retaliation and retribution by administrators.

Walz could investigate and report upon that culture of fear of retaliation; does it still exist?  But he won't.

Just like he won't investigate and report upon the cover up of felony criminal misconduct by APS senior administrators.

Or upon the lack of due process for complaints filed against administrators and board members.

Walz could report that the leadership of the APS has rewritten school board policy to eliminate any accountability as role models of the student standards of conduct.  He could tell stakeholders that the entire leadership of the APS has abdicated as role models of standards of conduct that require actual and honest accountability to meaningful standards of conduct and competence.  But he won't.

Walz could report that Korte and her kronies are going to vote tonight, to rewrite school board policy in order to eliminate citizen advisory councils, in particular the Citizens Advisory Council on Communication.

But he won't.

Korte is a hypocrite.  It's time for her to put up or shut up.

Accountability starts at the top of an oligarchy, not at the bottom.  Unless of course the top of the oligarchy is trying shift the blame, in which case, the accountability begins at the bottom.

Either she points to the place where a complaint filed against her will see due process, or she stops whining about subordinates' lack of accountability.

Good leaders accept personal accountability,
great leaders demand it.  Character is taught by example.
Character is taught only by personal example.

If we expect students to hold themselves honestly accountable to meaningful standards of conduct and competence, if we want them to grow into adults who embrace character and courage and honor, somebody has to show them what it looks like.

Somebody like School Board President Paula Maes, who said she would "never agree to any audit that individually identifies" corrupt or incompetent administrators.

Somebody like School Board enforcer Marty Esquivel, who, along with their corrupt Chief of Police Steve Tellez, is enforcing an utterly unlawful restraining order to keep me from pointing to his corruption during public forums.



Somebody like Supt Winston Brooks, who along with his corrupt Chief of Police Steve Tellez, is hiding public records of felony criminal misconduct by APS senior administrators.







Somebody like School Board Member Lorenzo Garcia who admitted to the need to have hard conversations, and then voted last night to do away with citizen advisory councils where those conversations might take place.







Somebody like School Board Secretary Kathy Korte.




photos Mark Bralley

APS' Sagger Solution

I am told that the leadership of the APS has come up with a solution to avoid having to enforce an Administrative Procedural Directive, link, that prohibits sagging.

At, at least one middle school, the rule about having shirts tucked in has been suspended.  If you can't see their belt line, you can't see they're sagging.

So who won the sagger wars;
the Superintendent who prohibited
students from sagging, or
the students who pulled their
shirts out to cover their sagging,
and got away with it?

If Supt Winston Brooks had taken any advice from anyone on this issue; he would have been told this was going to happen.

This isn't about sagging.

There's a reason why Winston Brooks won't talk about student discipline.

It is about the permission of prohibited behavior.  It is about teaching kids they don't have to obey rules.




photo Mark Bralley

Testing the media's mettle

The following was sent to the Journal, KRQE, KOAT, and KOB.
My expectation is that Journal Editor Kent Walz will decide to ignore it, as will the managers at KRQE, KOAT and KOB.

The APS School Board intends to vote to change school board policy during their Policy and Instruction Committee meeting.
 https://v3.boardbook.org/Public/PublicAgenda.aspx?ak=1000056&mk=50057628

They intend to strike the language that provides for Citizen Advisory Committees. The Current language reads in significant part;

K.01 Community Involvement
"The Board of Education recognizes that constructive study, discussion, and active participation by citizens is necessary to promote the best program of education in the community. To encourage this participation ... Citizens Advisory Councils will exist to provide for greater community involvement in the educational planning process. ..."

The language will be struck in its entirety.

There is no public forum, no citizen input will be allowed.

It will be passed en masse with “consent items” the following evening during the regular board meeting. The agenda is not available, and will not be available until the last minute allowed under the Open Meetings Act.

The change will allow the leadership of the APS to ignore any citizen group they don’t create themselves. They will never create one that examines student discipline, administrative and executive standards and accountability, due process for whistle-blower complaints, or the cover up of felony criminal misconduct in the leadership of the their publicly funded, private police force.

The change will allow them to ignore the Citizens Advisory Council on Communication, whose petition carrying more than 100 signatures is yet to see due process from the board.

I have a Constitutionally protected human right to petition my government for redress of my grievance; their ongoing denial of a legitimate petition carrying more than 100 signatures. I am denied my free exercise of that right, the right to speak freely, and the right to assemble freely, by the APS Police force, an unaccredited, un-certified, and un-certificated publicly funded, private police force, reporting directly to, and only to the leadership of the APS. The MOU with the Bernalillo County Sheriff certifies its officers, not the police force itself. Legally, it is not a Police Department.

They are enforcing an unlawful restraining order written by then School Board President Marty Esquivel,

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9fa0iBA0W4FAFiODfcl7WWlGKg2l1o-BM6ksgmho6l83u23Cg8Xlj3_lfnk2lwf3A_qjssud4RcvowW_IwF9xW_SGKVszeVWsZUl6qG8MnSBTeFpLxm-AcjwiQOsrV74SHAR5/s1600/Scan_Pic0001.jpg

This though school board policy specifically and explicitly prohibits board members from acting individually.

http://www.aps.edu/about-us/policies-and-procedural-directives/policies/b.-board-of-education-governance-and-operations/bb1-board-member-authority

That he acted individually in writing what he calls a “banning letter” is proven by the lack of any agenda or minutes reporting that the board discussed and acted upon the letter in compliance with the Open Meetings Act.

In the letter, Esquivel mentions my behavior on Nov 4, 2009. You can view that behavior and my arrest on APS website.

http://model.inventivetec.com/inventivex/mediaresources/checkout_clean.cfm?ContentID=30084&TransactionID=522602&Checksum=%20%20195715&RepServerID=&JumpSeconds=0
I speak and am arrested (deprived of my liberty) between 42:00 and 43:50.

You will see that my arrest was based on the content of my speech, and not on any unlawful conduct; a violation of my Constitutional rights to speak freely and to petition my government at a public forum.

There is a recording of the Audit Committee Meeting mentioned in the letter. If you care to listen to it, you will find I was arrested and ejected based on someone else's alleged misconduct, and not on anything I done myself.

I have repeatedly accused your management of being complicit or complacent in the cover of an ethics and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS. I will continue to make the allegations in the absence of any effort to investigate and report upon credible allegations and evidence of a cover up of the ethics and accountability scandal including the cover up of felony criminal misconduct by APS senior administrators, including but not limited to; moving cash from evidence to petty cash and spending it without record keeping, and a least a half dozen illegal criminal background checks done on whistle-blowers and a Deputy Superintendents fiancée.

Time to pick a side.

Auditgate lands in Martinez' lap

Blogger Joe Monahan published an email this morning, link, that built a pretty good case for holding Governor Susana Martinez accountable for the fraudulent New Mexico Finance Authority audit.

The email came to Monahan from a "Senior Gator" and read;

The buck stops at the Governor's office. No matter how much finger pointing is going on, the NMFA is controlled by Martinez appointees. The Board includes four members of her cabinet, some of whom attended very few meetings. Furthermore, she changed almost all the other members so that 8 out of 11 NMFA board members are her appointees. The Board failed badly in its fiduciary responsibilities. The President of the NMFA, Richard May, is her designate as well.

S/he makes a compelling argument.

Will accountability in the scandal ever actually reach the Governor?  Not likely, which is why New Mexico state government is riddled with incompetence and corruption.  It is only the underlings whose heads ever roll; never the people who were supposed to watching them closely enough to prevent scandals before they happen.

Governor Susana Martinez will not be held accountable for appointing a whole bunch of people to a job they were unable or unwilling to perform.

Shit, does not roll uphill.




photos Mark Bralley

APS students sagging; so what?

For as long as there have been fun seeking children and fun spoiling adults, adults have been setting rules and children have been breaking them. It is to be expected.

There are different kinds of disobedience; deliberate and inadvertent. Inadvertent disobedience isn't the problem. A kid forgetting gum is not allowed, will get rid of the gum when they are reminded of the rule. The real problem is children, students, who deliberately break the rules.

We are no longer talking about chewing gum.

We are talking about bringing and using drugs and weapons at school. We are talking about intimidation and bullying. We are talking about chronically disruptive students who destroy educationally efficient environments.

There are two kinds of deliberate disobedience; sneaky and brazen. Sneaky disobedience implies some respect for the rules, those who enforce them, or at least some fear of the consequences for getting caught breaking them. Brazen disobedience is a kid standing in your face, telling you, you can't tell them what to do, even at school.

Sagging is brazen disobedience; deliberate, in your face defiance. Anyone who thinks you can find success in a school where students are allowed to defy the authority of adults is wrong.

I never once had to stop teaching because a kid was sagging. Those times when I did have to stop teaching to deal with a discipline issue, it was a kid who didn't think s/he had to follow rules or submit in any other way, to the authority of adults. It was their attitude more than their misconduct.

This will end one of two ways; saggers will or will not comply with Brooks' edict. Brooks will either provide certainty in likelihood meaningful consequences for defiant saggers, consequences that will actually end their willful disobedience, or he will fold in the face of their relentless resistance.

When APS Winston Brooks decided to pick another fight with saggers, he picked a fight he hasn't the stomach to win.

Ask any teacher, ask any adult who works with students, when has the senior administration in APS, ever provided certain and substantial consequences for deliberately disobedient students? Brooks himself, counts student insubordination and defiance of authority as one of the least consequential of student misconduct; a level one (of three) offense.

The issue is not kids breaking rules, it is the permission of prohibited behavior; making rules and then not enforcing them. The issue is of schools getting further out of control instead of less.

There's a reason the leadership of the APS doesn't keep, falsifies, or hides data on student discipline and its effect on individual and collective student learning and performance, link.

There's a reason Kent Walz and the Journal won't investigate and report upon student discipline in the APS.




photo Mark Bralley

Does APS Board back the new sagger policy; do they even know about it?

My cursory research into the creation of a Procedural Directive, link, prohibiting "sagging" indicates the new administrative ban on sagging may come as as big a surprise to APS School Board Members as it will to saggers showing up at school on Monday with their butts hanging out.

Yeah, we're sagging.  So whadya gonna do about it?

I went looking for some evidence that the board actually understood what they were agreeing to when they approved the procedural directive banning sagging, and found none.

The Board is charged with policy making, not procedural directive approval, so the opportunity to provide "feedback" on an administrative initiative doesn't carry legal weight. Still, there is no indication I could find, that they even discussed the actual sagging issue.  It looks as though then Board Member Robert Lucero motioned (sic) for approval of a bunch of consent items and the board went along.

If we had a newspaper that would investigate and report upon student discipline issues, they could interview board members for their individual reactions to reopening hostilities between saggers and adults on campus.  If only ...

I suspect the reactions will be quite different when saggers and school board members find out about the prohibition.

Saggers will be greatly annoyed, insisting they have a right to dress however they want, and further insisting "they can't throw us all out!"  They will push back, without consequence, until the adults stuck with enforcing the ban, give up.

Board members reactions will fall into two groups based on their experience with the first and unsuccessful attempt to prohibit sagging, circa late 80's early 90's.  The new members, those who
didn't go through the first experience may think APS Supt Winston Brooks has a great new idea to regain control over students at school.  The more experienced members will remember how badly the first attempt failed and will be perplexed that it will be tried again under nearly identical circumstances; no buy in from anyone except administrators who will expect teachers to do all the heavy lifting in enforcing the ban.

APS throws down gauntlet on "sagging"

The leadership of the APS has sent a letter out to new parents, advising them of important issues related to school readiness.  On the subject of how to dress, they offer a link to a Procedural Directive that prohibits "sagging".

"Prohibited clothing and accessories include, but are not limited to:
'Sagging', or the wearing of pants below the waist and/or in a manner that allows underwear or bare skin to show, and "bagging", or the wearing of excessively baggy pants with low hanging crotches."

What was reported by KRQE, link, as a aberration at three high schools, apparently will apply to all schools.

According to the same directive (here quoted in significant part, emphasis added);

"... Principals may customize their individual school dress codes ... through use of a process which ensures input from students, parents, faculty and staff of the school and other interested community members. Students and their parents/legal guardians shall be aware of the individual school dress code and shall conform to those requirements. Principals shall interpret and enforce the dress code of his/her school. Individual school dress codes shall be reviewed periodically with parents, teachers, and student group representatives to enlist their support and encourage pride and good taste".

It would appear that if individual schools want to address their dress codes, they can, as long as they endeavor to involve the community in the decision making process.

In contrast, it would appear if Supt Winston Brooks gets a wild hair up his ass and decides to draft teachers into a war they had no part in starting and wouldn't if they could, there is no need to involve anybody in the decision.

Brooks is seen here at a community meeting at Manzano High School just before ordering the arrest of petitioners, link, looking for stakeholder input in decision making that affects their interests.

If the decision making that will start the sagger wars again, included the teachers and staff members who will be expected to do the wet work of enforcing an unpopular dress code, I doubt they would have adopted this issue as a hill they're willing to die on.

In particular, any teachers who were around the last time the district decided to draft teachers into their war on sagging, and who remember how utterly unsuccessful that effort was (students are still sagging after all) they would be less inclined to try the same thing all over again.

The circumstances have not changed; teachers and staff will be expected to enforce the ban on sagging without administrative backing.  They will take kids to the Office where they will sign a "contract" or some equally feckless stupidity, and will finish their paperwork before the teacher finishes theirs.

There are nearly 100,000 years of current and ongoing teaching experience in this district, and no seat anywhere at a table where decisions as far reaching and with such impact as these are made.

School starts Monday August 13th.  By Tuesday, the war against saggers will have begun in earnest, and by Wednesday, it will be apparent who is going to win, again.




photo Mark Bralley

Arnold-Jones has been warning anyone who would listen, about quasi-governmentals for long time.

Journal editors, link, have grown concerned about quasi-governmental agencies.  Quasi-governmental agencies are "quasi" because they are government without government oversight.  Not that government oversight is any great shakes, but it's better than no oversight at all.

Rep Janice Arnold-Jones at Conspiracy Brews

Those who attend Conspiracy Brews, have heard Rep Janice Arnold-Jones' expressed concerns about quasi-governmental agencies for years.  It's not just the lack of transparent accountability in the spending of our resources that Arnold-Jones has brought to the attention of the political discussion group she began many years ago; she and the group have discussed our lack of oversight over the spending of our power as well.  The regulatory authority quasi-governmental agencies exercise comes to them largely unaccountable to those whom they regulate.




photo Mark Bralley

Esquivel; "I'm not an educator."

Some community members are upset that APS has a library named after one of the greatest betrayers of the public trust in state history, Manny Aragon.   KRQE, no link yet, also interviewed some community members who are happy letting bygones be bygones, who thought Aragon's theft of public resources was no big deal, and were happy continuing to hold him up as a role model for students, staff and the elementary school's community members.

School Board enforcer Marty Esquivel

APS School Board Member Marty Esquivel got some more face time on KRQE and responded for the board, on the issue.  He said;

the Board is so busy, it could be months before the board can deal with the issue.

Yet, a cursory examination of the record of past board meetings, link, reveals the cancellation of no fewer than 25 meetings this year alone.  And they were cancelled why?  Too much to do?

The issue of role modeling doesn't resonate with Esquivel.  I have been trying for as long as he has been a school board member, to get him to be a role model of accountability to the same standards of conduct that he establishes and enforces upon students; the Pillars of Character Counts!, link. As a school board member, Esquivel is one of the senior-most role models of student standards of conduct.  During those times he was School Board President, he was the senior-most role model of all.

When I argued, that as an educator, he was obligated to step up as a role model of APS' student standards of conduct, he told me, "I'm not a educator", link.

He's not much of a role model either.  APS student standards of conduct specifically and explicitly require holding oneself honestly accountable.  Esquivel cannot point to any venue where a complaint against him is guaranteed due process.  Where is the venue in APS where I can file a complaint alleging his creation and enforcement of an utterly unlawful restraining order, and see due process?  There is none.

How can one be a role model of accountability without having to demonstrate any real accountability?

NMBA and School Board President Paula Maes

It helps that fellow School Board Member Paula Maes has some juice with NM Broadcasters Association affiliates KRQE, KOAT, and KOB; none of whom will investigate and report upon credible allegations and evidence of an ethics and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS.



It helps as well that Esquivel crony, Journal Managing Editor Kent Walz is more than happy to do his part to cover their asses.

Walz is captured here, praising APS Supt Winston Brooks as a Hero of Transparency, while at the same time Brooks was/is hiding public records of felony criminal misconduct by APS senior administrators, link.




photos and Walz frame grab Mark Bralley

APS "courageous" in sharing data

The UNM Center for Education Policy Research has compiled a 130 page document, link, entitled, Mapping the Landscape of Educational Outcomes in Albuquerque.

The document begins with a declaration of their intent; "... to support the conversations that will make this city an even better place to live." The conversations that make communities better are dependent on a number of things, not the least of which are data; complete and accurate. Their intention then, was to provide data, and to provide it in an easy to understand format. They produced a hundred or more different maps and charts to display the data graphically.

Charter schools were not included.  Instead, they offered a promise to include that data "at a future time".

By page three, the authors have moved to Our Most Important Messages.  First among them;

"We thank Albuquerque Public Schools for the courage to share these data"

APS courageously shared data on; "... daunting inequalities including disparities in economic, health, and social support; and academic achievement and attainment".

The researchers used that data to determine how students are put "at risk" of failure in their effort to graduate from  APS with a useful skill set.  The data shows that risk factors accumulate in different areas of the city, and accumulate at different times developmentally.

According to researchers; there are no schools without risk factors;

"... students are at risk in some way, in every school and in every neighborhood in Albuquerque."

In their examination of risk factors, the researchers conceded;

These maps and charts include only some of the important data that impact student success.

Those in the know, know that a primary impact on student success is discipline, their own and their class and schoolmates. I went looking for the data on student discipline.  Three pages qualified, if only marginally.  Two offered data on the percentage of students who were bullied at school, middle and high, and a third page on the percentage of students who reported having been in a fist fight at school.

Other than that, nothing.

One page offered the "Primary 'Off-Track' Indicators for Potential Dropouts".  They include attendance, behavior, and academic performance. Behavior, they write, is significant if a student has received an  “unsatisfactory” behavior mark in at least one class.

In my experience, middle and high school and a decade old,
is there is no such thing as a "behavior mark" unsatisfactory or otherwise.  There is no longer, a citizenship grade.  If students were graded on behavior, I suspect the results would correlate powerfully with other risk factors.  They would also document an administrative and executive failure to control disruptive students.

Years ago, APS and UNM teamed up at times, to survey teachers to gather their input on what's wrong.  They no longer do.  When they did, one of the questions allowed teachers to estimate the negative effect on teaching, of disruptive students.  Teachers reported that it was a significant issue.

One year, the question disappeared from the survey. I asked why? I was told; "because the data never changed."

The leadership of the APS, the board and administration, is hiding data on student discipline, link.

Kent Walz and the Journal,
are hiding the hiding.




photo Mark Bralley

Sagger wars, on again, in earnest

This isn't about "sagging", wikilink.

Three APS high schools will attempt to do what has never been done before; end sagging in an APS high school.

This isn't the first time its been tried. In the late 80's early 90's "sagging" was specifically and explicitly prohibited in APS School Board Policy. The leadership of the APS then did their best to get kids to pull up their pants; they're still sagging.

KRQE reports, link, Eldorado, La Cueva and Volcano Vista  High Schools will try once again to enforce dress codes that prohibit, among others fashion faux pas, sagging.

Wish them luck.

Saggers, all well versed in Constitutional law, point out that it's first amendment issue, and they will resist on principle.  They will resist as well, to remind adults who is in charge.

If adults at a school establish a rule and students ignore or deliberately disobey it, who is in charge, the adults or the kids?

The out of control in schools, the lack of authority of adults over children, interferes with education, yet we never talk about discipline in schools when we talk about reform.  Why not?  Who benefits from the lack of attention paid to student discipline and its effect on test scores and graduation rates?

Administrators and school board members are the only players I see, who have an interest in keeping the lid on the truth about discipline in schools.  Creating district wide discipline policies is specifically a school board responsibility.  Enforcing those policies is an administrative responsibility.  The failure to establish and enforce effective discipline policies is an administrative and executive failure.

As I first pointed out, this isn't about "sagging".  It is about the permission of prohibited behavior.  It is about telling kids
they can't do something, and then letting them get away with
doing it anyway.

The costs of acculturating children to believe they can ignore rules at will, is enormous, link.

Students won the last sagger war; they will win this one.
They will prevail because the leadership of the APS lacks
fortitude in dealing without of control students, link.
Ask any teacher.


As easy as it is to blame teachers for student discipline issues, it would be unfair.  If a teacher sees a student doing something wrong, they are obliged to ask the student to stop doing whatever it is they are doing.  If the students response means "no", the problem is no longer one of educating the student, it is one of managing the student; baby sitting the student.  If you want to use teachers for teaching, then you have to use somebody else for "babysitting" chronically disruptive students. And that is an administrative responsibility.

Their priorities are confused.  The administrative priority isn't eliminating student (and adult) discipline problems, it is hiding them, link.

Their strategic plan to end sagging falls short; they haven't asked "what if" enough times.

Q. what if a kid sags?
A. we're going to call his parent(s)
 
Q. what if that doesn't work?
A. uh, well, we'll suspend them (in school or out) further complicating graduation and test score issues.

Q. what if that doesn't work, what if kids still sag?
A. uh, well, ...

In rekindling the sagger war, the leadership of the APS is picking a fight they haven't the stomach to win.  These principals will find they're on their own; the higher they go up the chain of command, the less support they will find.  The Board and administration aren't willing to do what must be done, to re-establish the authority of adults in schools.

Students will push dress code to the limit and adults have to be ready to push back.  Writing rules and then allowing students to break them, just trains students to ignore rules.

At some point you have to be willing to stand on the property line and turn away saggers, chronically disruptive students, and any other students who won't obey the rules and who won't submit to the authority of adults on campus.

Adult authority over children in schools is under siege.  It doesn't help that Supt Winston Brooks places so little importance on kids obeying adults.  Given the opportunity to categorize misconduct for middle school students, Brooks came up with this;

Level One (the likes of); tardiness, horse play, profanity, violations of the dress code.

Level Two (the likes of); profanity toward staff, bullying, cheating, and vandalism.

Level Three (the likes of); theft, possession of alcohol or drugs, fighting and gang related activities.

Brooks included in Level One; the least consequential misconduct; insubordination, defiance of authority.

He tells teachers to enforce rules they have no part in establishing,
and then tells kids he doesn't care all that much, if they ignore or disobey adults.

Some people would call that clueless, and utterly unfair to teachers and other
adults working in schools.

We never talk about student discipline, link, because the Board and administration have the wherewithal to keep their failure hidden; not the least of which, Kent Walz and the Journal, and the NM Broadcasters Association affiliates.  If  Kent Walz and the Journal or any of the TV stations were inclined to investigate and report upon discipline in schools, parents and community members would learn how out of control APS schools really are.  Walz, the Journal, KRQE, KOAT and KOB are not so inclined.




photo Mark Bralley

If Schultz had to stand for election, would he win?

City Councilor Ken Sanchez thinks Albuquerque voters should pick their Chief of Police by the same process
they pick their County Sheriff, election.

The prospect of Chief Ray Schultz running for Chief begs a question;



if did have to run, could he win?




The obvious answer; no, is by itself, justification enough
to insist that he stand for election.




photos Mark Bralley

Skandera plan credibility questioned

NM Education Secretary Designate Hanna Skandera and Governor Susana Martinez have implemented a plan for evaluating public schools. Because the plan is utterly indefensible, it has met with resistance as considerable as it was predictable.

In an effort to make it easier for parents and community members to understand how schools are performing, they implemented a plan based on mathematical machinations that "only a few people in the entire state can understand."

It has been seven months since the Secretary was asked, link, for a paragraph or two, plain English explanation of the math that supports the curving. I have yet to receive a response.

The harder it is to understand a grading system for schools, the more likely that system is a smoke screen around abject failure.

If you are a parent looking for a school for your child, all you really need to know about a school is;

1. How do students behave at that school; are adults in charge or are the students?
2. Does the school have supplies, tools and technology.
3. Is there accountability for adults at the school? Do complaints against teachers or administrators see due process, or are they swept under the rug?
4. And, most importantly, are student's individual needs accommodated, or are they sat down in five rows of six, there to join a thought choir preparing to perform on standardized tests?

As an aside; APS and Supt Winston Brooks won't discuss student discipline, and won't discuss adult standards and accountability, smoke screen or no.
APS routinely provides cemetery seating for learners.


Senators Linda Lopez and Howie Morales, and Rep Rick Miera called her out in a press release Wednesday;

PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Date: July 25, 2012
Contact: Lorraine Montoya-Vigil,
505-986-4723

LEGISLATORS EXPRESS DEEP CONCERN OVER PED REFORM CREDIBILITY

Santa Fe—“Based on testimony presented to the Legislative Education Study Committee last week, it has become readily apparent that Governor Susanna Martinez’ proposed cure for better school performance may very well cause more harm than good,” said Senator Linda M. Lopez. “The methodology and process of the reform models are severely flawed, with no scientific or educational findings proving their worth. We all want better school performance, but gambling on our children’s education with an untested and untried mandate is not acceptable.”

Senator Lopez, LESC member and chairman of the State Senate Rules Committee, was joined by Senator Howie Morales, LESC member, and Representative Rick Miera, LESC member and chairman of the House Education Committee, in expressing concern with the dramatic and unrealistic changes in school grades from the new school grading system. The system has drawn considerable criticism from administrators, educators, parents and students over its incomprehensibility and steep fluctuations in a school’s scoring between the old and new system. The fluctuations were demonstrated with one school dropping from a B to an F and another rising from an F to a B within a one semester period.

“Some members of the legislature have not embraced PED’s reforms from the very beginning, and have consistently asked the Public Education Department for supporting documentation related to their proposals,” said Rep. Rick Miera.

“This legislative caution was validated last week, “ added Senator Morales, “when it was revealed that the A-F grading system promoted by this administration is lacking in clarity and substance to even the Coalition for Excellence in Science and Math Education, which is composed of some of the state’s finest scientists and mathematicians.”

Today, Senators Lopez and Morales and Rep. Miera are calling upon Governor Martinez and PED Secretary Designate Hannah Skandera to adopt the educational reform recommendations developed by the Coalition for Excellence in Science and Math Education. These include:

• Peer review of the PED Reform Manual by knowledgeable, independent educational statisticians
• Clear and completely defined methodology
• Provide all data and software to the school districts prior to grade distributions
• Simplifying the Value Added Model for ease of use by the school districts.
• Not placing multiple components into one grade. This includes not combining demographically neutral growth and proficiency residuals with non-demographically neutral proficiency scores in a meaningful way, when they are in fact two different measures with two different outcomes.

The PED grading system should also include the following traits:

1. A defensible, clearly defined, and more easily replicable mathematical process that is available for district use.
2. A transparent, defensible process – possibly mathematical – to determine the optimum grading factors' weighting.
3. The optimum weighting factors are necessary for combining the various similar, meaningful performance output factors to derive a grade.


For additional information, contact: Sen. Lopez 505-831-4148; Sen. Morales 575-590-7804; or Rep. Miera 505-843-6641.

####

photos Mark Bralley

Brooks backed down on principal transfer

APS Supt Winston Brooks stirred up a hornet's nest recently; he transferred the beloved and respected community member and principal of 14 years, out of Mission Avenue Elementary School.

The issue is as much how Brooks handled the transfer, as it is the transfer itself.

Either it never occurred to Brooks that he should involve the community in the decision to replace their principal, or it did occur to him, and he decided against it. It amounts to incompetence or corruption.

It is small wonder that Brooks will not hold himself accountable as a role model of student standards of conduct, which do respect stakeholder rights in decision making.

Brooks' manifest disrespect for community members and their right to participate meaningfully in decision making affecting their interests is what energized them. They have been showing up at public forums for months, and protesting the move.

They were moderately successful; a new principal will be selected, and the community will participate in the selection.

Full success was denied them, when Brooks let them know
he's still boss; the principal they really want, will not be on the list from which they will select the new one.

Brooks has the "right" to run his little Chinese fire drills with principals; but that doesn't make it "right" that he does. Just because he has the "right" to deny stakeholder rights in decision making, doesn't make it "right" that he does.

The Journal reports, link, that the community members who pushed back were "publicly chided" by Brooks and the Board. The circumstances of the chiding are what passes for two-way communication with the leadership of the APS; citizens ask questions in the forum that board members won't answer, and then Brooks and the board take pot shots from the dais when the targets have no opportunity to respond without being declared unruly, and possibly removed from the meeting by APS publicly funded, private police force, link.

You can watch if you wish, link and click on "video" for the July 18th board meeting. Watch the meeting; the public forum and responses from Brooks and the Board.

The Journal reports that Board Members Esquivel and Robbins went off on community members, at one point the meeting being stopped until order was restored.

It was John Kennedy who pointed out;

those who make peaceful revolution impossible,
make violent revolution inevitable."

By extension, those board members and superintendents who make it impossible for interest holders to involve themselves "peacefully" in decision making that affects their interests, will involve themselves "un-peacefully".

It is the School Board and the Superintendent who establish and enforce the rules for community involvement in the APS. It is they, who force the form of their opposition.

If they had the character and the courage to provide a venue for "harder conversations" to take place, they wouldn't have to take place at public forums between the podium and the dais.

The Journal is yet to investigate and report upon the efforts of the Citizens Advisory Council on Communication to establish just such a venue, and the Board's rebuff by denial of due process for their lawful and legitimate petition.




photo Mark Bralley

Emailgate only one aspect of shadow influence

As emailgate unfolds, the extent of the "alleged" shadow government in Santa Fe will come as a surprise to some people. They will be further surprised to discover that the width and depth of the shadow hides much more than politicians and public servants' in-private public business..

The shadow, by which I mean the players, extends beyond government to every other influential institution, even the press.

There is a theory that no two people on earth are further away from each other than six introductions, wikilink. In the shadows there are no introductions needed.

There is at most, one degree of separation between an overwhelming majority of members of bodies of influence. A relative handful of people, serving on a disproportionately large number of boards, executive committees and task forces, exert a shadow influence on all decision making.

It would be interesting to examine the degree of separation between influential institutions and government by means of the small group of people and commingled directorships.

It is hard to imagine more diametrically opposite endeavors than participation in a effort to end shadow government, and being a major player in a "legal" shadow government. Yet Pat Rogers was not only a player on both teams, but one of both teams' heavy hitters. Can anyone say, appearance of a conflict of interest?

Pat Rogers, a player in a shadow government and a player in the institution bent on eliminating shadow government. Is that one degree of separation or none?


With regard to in-private decision making about the public interests, Rogers argues, its all "lawful", and in so doing, points to the standards of conduct, to which he is willing to be held personally accountable.

Not to put to fine a point on it, but
the "law" is the lowest standard of
conduct there is, and not a very
high bar.

People who hold themselves
accountable to higher standards
of conduct, require from themselves
more than the law requires, and afford themselves of less nefariousness than the law allows.

And there are higher standards of conduct than the law; ethical standards for example, and the most widely shared delusion about government, is that politicians and public servants are somehow accountable to them. They are not, clearly.

There are other people of the if its "legal", it's alright ilk.
They and the shadow they bring with them to stretches to Boards of Directors, Executive Committees, and governance committees of all sorts everywhere.

Though they may have no particular allegiance to each other, the have allegiance to a system that accommodates people just like them. They take care of each other. They protect each other. They protect the system that enables their continued wielding of power by means of in-private deliberations and decision making.

And its all "legal".

Shadow government, shadow influence everywhere,
is evidence of a deliberate and concerted effort to continue manage transparency. They manage the conflict by pulling strings on both sides of the fight.

Pat Rogers was equally adept and welcome pulling strings on both sides of a fundamental principle of democracy.




photo Mark Bralley

Ed reform and teacher evaluation

By any reasonable measure, public education is performing poorly. Fifty percent literacy in math and reading, and 67% graduation rates point to fundamental flaws in the way we're doing business.

Teachers play a part in the failure, but overall, a smaller part than most people think. There is no weak link in public education, the whole chain is failing from one end to the other.

There are a few inescapable facts and obstacles to educating young children in particular. Their attention span and interests for one; they really are kitten like in their approach to learning.

In stark contrast to individual student needs, we find a need in public education to immediately seat these kids in five rows of six desks, there to join into a "thought choir" thinking and learning in unison, and then singing together in standardized testing recitals.

You can't make people learn. You especially cannot make the immature learners learn. Learning is the responsibility of the learner. If the learner is disengaged, for any reason, for any amount of time, there is no learning. You cannot make people pay attention; you cannot make children pay attention to what you want them to pay attention to.

Children pay attention all the time. Every minute of every day, they are paying attention to some thing, but rarely the same thing.

Succeeding in public education's cemetery seating model of education, depends upon the ability to get thirty kittens to pay attention to the same thing, at the same time, all day long, for twelve years. This though it could be argued that the only time they really need to be on the same page on the same day, is the day when their cumulative achievement is finally measured by "testing" and they are given a diploma that implies certain levels of achievement in basic areas.

An important mission of public education is to create independent lifelong learners. That objective should be its top priority, and its most immediate objective. Yet teachers are being evaluated on their ability to make many kids learn in unison; using a fundamentally flawed, manifestly obsolete education model.

What do we want from teachers? What do we need?

Most kids don't need a "teacher" most of the time.
Most of the time, most kids just need to be watched.
When a student does need a teacher, they need a whole teacher, a teacher who can give them individual attention for as long as they need it.

Cemetery seating dictates that every kid will have (a small part of) a teacher all of the time; one thirtieth of a teacher, all the time.

Students need "teachers" when they need help learning; students with learning disabilities for example. Students struggling with subject material, need subject material experts. Students who need help finding information don't need a "teacher". Students who need help staying on task, don't need a "teacher".

Regardless of the model used, there is an elephant in the room with respect to evaluating teachers. No one wants to talk about subordinate evaluation, having students evaluate teachers.

It isn't surprising, because we don't talk about teachers evaluating administrators either.

APS Community Relations Committee still owes due process to CACoC

The APS District and Community Relations Committee meeting agenda is posted, link. It lacks follow through on a problem that came up during a previous meeting of the committee.

On March 27 of this year, representatives from the Citizens Advisory Council on Communication were given an opportunity to speak on behalf of a petition they delivered to the board in early August last year.

With exception of a "thank you" note from School Board President Paula Maes, the Board ignored a legitimate petition signed by more than a hundred people, for more than six months.

The petition is yet to see due process.





During the board's discussion of the petition, District and Community Relations Committee Chair Lorenzo Garcia spoke to the need for the board to "learn how to have the harder conversations"; the very kind of two-way communication the CACoC is trying to enable.

It is now four months later, and you have seen what the Board is actually willing to do to learn to have the harder conversations; nothing.

Their manifest intention, is to avoid having them altogether.

... if they can.

There are at least two reasons why the Board isn't willing to actually have the harder conversations;

1. they lack the courage, and/or,
2. they lack the character
   
   that they need to begin them.

If there is a third reason, I cannot imagine it, and no one in the leadership of the APS has ever articulated it.

Now would be a good time.

If there is a reason beside the lack of character and courage;
if there is a good and ethical reason to not create a venue
where the harder conversations can take place, what is it?


What good and ethical reason is there to not create a venue where we can have the harder conversations about;

• administrative and executive standards and accountability,


• student standards of conduct,


• the responsibilities and obligations of the senior-most role models of the student standards of conduct,


• the whereabouts of evidence of felony criminal misconduct involving APS senior administrators and the APS Police Force,


• the denial of due process to hundreds of whistleblower complaints,


• the lack of due process for complaints filed against administrators and board members, and of course,


• the board's denial of a petition for standing for a committee of volunteers ready, willing, and able to put together, open and honest two-way communication between the leadership of the APS and the community members they serve.

One would think that Kent Walz
and the Journal would investigate
and report upon the efforts of the
Citizens Advisory Council on
Communication to create real
communication between APS
and the community.

One would think Walz would
report upon the board's
response to the CACoC efforts.

One would think Walz would report upon the board's efforts to avoid having the harder conversations that will expose the corruption and incompetence they are trying to hide.

One would be wrong.




photos Mark Bralley

Rogers avoids showdown with FOG

Modrall Attorney Pat Rogers has resigned from the Board of Directors of the NM Foundation for Open Government, the proximate result of his involvement in the brouhaha over emailgate.

The FOG notified its membership in an email today.

In his resignation  letter, Rogers argued that his actions, conducting public business using private email accounts, "were always lawful"; the problem in a nutshell. Nevertheless, he offered his prompt resignation to ... "avoid further distractions... for the FOG and its volunteers"


By resigning, Rogers avoids what certainly would have been a very awkward discussion about whether FOG Directors can serve on the FOG Board while at the same time personally engaging in the very conduct the FOG is fighting to eradicate.

Also breathing a sign of relief. I suppose, that there will be no discussion of Board of Directors members embarrassing the Foundation with their personal efforts to obfuscate open government; Marty Esquivel and Kent Walz. 




photo Mark Bralley

Accusing Kent Walz

There is a post on Heath Haussamen's website having to do with NM FOG considering whether Pat Rogers should remain on their board, link. I took an opportunity to again accuse Journal Managing Editor Kent Walz of covering up the ethics and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS. Haussamen took exception to my accusations, and chose to not publish it. He feels that my allegations lack the substantiation Journalist's Ethics require.

My accusation; Kent Walz is complicit in a conspiracy to cover up an ethics and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS.

The premise; there is in fact, an ethics and accountability scandal.

Yet to be refuted facts;

1. There are two sets of standards of conduct in the APS; one applies to students, the other to administrators and board members. The one, a nationally recognized, accepted and respected code of ethical conduct; the Pillars of Character Counts. The other, the law; the lowest standards of acceptable conduct among civilized people, replete with all the loopholes and escape hatches that unmitigated legal weaselry will allow.

That, if true, is newsworthy on its face. That administrators and board members will not hold themselves honestly accountable to the standards they establish and enforce upon students, is newsworthy.

2. There is no place in the APS, where a complaint can be filed against an administrator or board member, and where that complaint will see due process. Every complaint against an administrator or board member is adjudicated by a colleague, or in the case of a complaint against the Superintendent, a subordinate. The manifest appearance of a conflict of interest is unaddressed, since the board reneged on its promise to provide executive "review and approval" of the handling of every single whistleblower complaint.

That allegation, if true, is newsworthy. The allegation is true. An effort was made to hold APS COO Brad Winter accountable for his refusal to provide a candid, forthright and honest accounting of spending at 6400 Uptown Blvd; the board room in particular. The result; he could not be held accountable for refusing to respond candidly, forthrightly and honestly to a legitimate question about the public interests in the APS, link.

The Journal reported during construction, link, the board room was running way over budget. Today, Walz knows Winter won't tell the truth about how much over budget they finally went, and isn't investigating and reporting on it.

3. While I was running for the school board, then School Board President Marty Esquivel wrote an utterly unlawful restraining order, link. It is co-signed and enforced by the APS Chief of Police Steve Tellez, link. The APS Police Force is a publicly funded, private police force that reports directly to, and only to, the leadership of the APS. The police force is unaccredited, uncertified, and uncertificated by anyone except the leadership of the APS.


The restraining order is still in effect; I am arrested at the door if I try to exercise my Constitutionally protected human right to petition my government at public forum, link.

That an citizen, much less a bonafide school board candidate, can be barred from school board meetings by a Praetorian Guard waving an unlawful restraining order is newsworthy.

4. Public records of felony criminal misconduct by APS senior administrators is being hidden from District Attorney Kari Brandenburg.

Kent Walz and the Journal know about the public corruption and incompetence in the leadership of the APS police force, they first exposed it, link. Walz know that felonies were committed by senior APS administrators; moving money from evidence to petty cash without record keeping, and running federal NCIC criminal background checks on whistleblowers in an effort to harass and intimidate other whistleblowers.

Walz knows that the corruption was never investigated by any agency of law enforcement outside of APS. Walz knows of the existence of public records, the Caswell Report, link, for one, which are being redacted in their entirety, in blatant violation of the law, that name the names of senior APS administrators who have yet to be accountable. Walz knows the evidence of felony criminal misconduct was never turned over to District Attorney Kari Brandenburg for prosecution.

5.  More than 100 citizens signed a petition for standing for the Citizens Advisory Council on Communication.  The CACoC seeks to create a venue for the "hard to have" discussions; a place where there is open and honest two-way communication between the leadership of the APS and the community members they serve.

Kent Walz and the Journal and the Journal know about the petition and the board's response, and have reported on neither.

6.  Student discipline problems and their effects on other student being covered up, link,

Walz and the Journal know that a recent audit by the Council of the Great City Schools found APS administrators routinely falsifying crime statistics to protect the reputations of schools.

Walz knows or should know of all these allegations.  If not, his willful ignorance is no excuse.   Walz knows of credible allegations of public corruption and incompetence in the leadership of the APS and will not investigate and report the truth to interest holders.

For what reason except that he is part of the cover up?




frame grab Mark Bralley

Will Esquivel and Walz sit in judgment on Pat Rogers?

In an emailgate spinoff, we find Attorney Pat Rogers' membership on the Board of Directors of the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government, being questioned.

Some find his membership on the Board difficult to explain, in light of his involvement in emailgate; the diametric opposite of open government.

Who will decide the propriety of Rogers continued presence? Will the entire Board participate, or will a few FOG heavy hitters take care of business behind closed doors? Either way, Marty Esquivel and Kent Walz are likely invites.

If the FOG Board were really committed to open government, Esquivel and Walz would be sitting beside Rogers, not across from him.

Esquivel and Walz are covering up an ethics and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS. They are covering up, the cover up of felony criminal misconduct by APS senior administrators, link, including hiding evidence from the DA. The APS Police Force investigated its own public corruption and is holding the evidence still, even as statutes of limitation expire.

Esquivel's real commitment to open government is manifest in my arrest at a public forum, link, for asking inconvenient questions about the public interests and about his public service. It is further manifest in an unlawful restraining order, link, that his Praetorian Guard uses to deny my free exercise of constitutionally protected human rights to freely assemble, freely speak, and freely petition my government.

Walz' real commitment to open government is manifest in the Journal's failure to investigate
and report upon credible
evidence of an ongoing ethics and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS.

Neither of them is suitable to judge Rogers.

Neither of them is suitable even to sit on the Board of Directors of the FOG, for the same reasons Pat Rogers is unsuited.

In light of their own ongoing scandal, if either the them sits in judgment of Pat Rogers, the judgment is a sham.



photos and Walz frame grab, Mark Bralley

$750,000 for duplicate investigation

The New Mexico Finance Authority has hired an international law firm to investigate "how and why" a fake audit was filed.
They intend to pay up to $750,000 for the investigation.
The investigation will duplicate the investigation by the State Auditors Office.

If both probes are honest and competent, they will have identical findings, and taxpayers will simply be out three-quarters of a million dollars for no reason except to enable corrupt and incompetent public servants begin building their legal defense at taxpayer expense.

These are people who are going to need a whiz bang legal defense to escape the consequences of their corruption and incompetence, and what better way to begin than to have an inside track on the investigation and gathering of the evidence that will be used against them.

Look what APS did with their self-investigation of felony criminal misconduct in their police force, link; they (with the aid and abet of Kent Walz and the Journal) buried the whole thing.

Why do we let corrupt and incompetent public servants investigate themselves?

Why do we allow them to redact their own public records?

Update; during a subsequent meeting of the NMFA, the plans to hire their own investigators was put on hold, at least for the time being.