Journal reporter encourages voting before the forum

What could easily be the biggest and most important APS school board forum is yet to take place.  Nevertheless, Journal education reporter Hailey Heinz is encouraging voters to join her in voting before the forum, link.  Are they afraid something might happen at the forum that might hurt the incumbents?

She also informs us that the Journal will be publishing its candidate questionnaires next week.  What do you want to bet that among the questions you will not find;

1. If you are elected to the school board, will you hold yourself honestly accountable to the same standards of conduct that you establish and enforce upon students?
2. Are the Pillars of Character Counts! that standard, or will you seek to lower those standards in open and honest public discussion of standards and accountability in the APS?

Just to be fair, I have sent the following to Ms Heinz

Ms Heinz,

Realizing that the Journal questionnaire has already been sent out to the candidates, I am wondering if there is any good and ethical reason that the Journal questionnaire (process) could not include the following two questions;

1. If you are elected to the school board, will you hold yourself honestly accountable to the same standards of conduct that you establish and enforce upon students?
2. Are the Pillars of Character Counts! that standard, or will you seek to lower those standards in open and honest public discussion of standards and accountability in the APS?

Grateful for your time and attention

ched macquigg

 

Are school board members role models?

They are of course, but I mean, in some sense where they can actually be held accountable.

APS has published their school board candidate questionnaires.  The candidates' individual responses can be found through links on APS' website, link.

One of the questions reads;

7. What is the role of individual board members?

School Board Candidate and School Board President Paula Maes answered the question by writing;

The role of individual board members is to do the best of his/her ability to serve the children of APS and work as a whole made up of seven board members to be committed to the well-being of the district.

In response to question number 9;

What unique qualities would you bring to the Board of Education?

Maes replied;

The qualities I possess and would bring to the Board are as a proud parent of 4 APS graduates, and I have the experience as board member, having held a position on the board for 12 years.

She did not mention her role as a role model for reasons I will now develop.

The first rule in any set of rules is, you have to follow the rules.
You have to hold yourself honestly accountable to the rules.
If that is not the expectation, there is no point in any of the rest of the rules.

That makes the number one role of any leader, to show everyone else what it looks like to hold oneself accountable to the rules.  It is the whole point of the fable about George Washington chopping down a cherry tree.

At some point you have to do something more than tell kids tales of character and courage and honor, you have to actually show them what they look like.

I posit;

the most important role of individual board members, is as a role model of accountability to APS' standards of conduct and competence; personal accountability to rule number 1.

Board members have no choice but to hold themselves honestly accountable to the standards they establish and enforce upon students.  If the Pillars of Character Counts! are too high a standard, they have two choices; lower the standards far enough to enable their compliance or resign.  Pretending accountability to higher standards of conduct is categorically unacceptable. 

School Board candidates who are unwilling to declare the standards and accountability that will define their own service on the school board should resign from the race.

I am disappointed that not one candidate mentioned role modeling as an important role for individual school board members.  I won't try to hold them accountable for what could be an inadvertent omission.  It is fair to hold them accountable for their answer to two questions;

1. If you are elected to the school board, will you hold yourself honestly accountable to the same standards of conduct that you establish and enforce upon students?
2. Are the Pillars of Character Counts! that standard, or will you seek to lower those standards in open and honest public discussion of standards and accountability in the APS?

Paula Maes has the distinction of actually voting to strike the role modeling clause from her own standards of conduct.  She voted to strike the language which read;

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

Paula Maes, when there were still power and resources to be spent, was the President of the Character Counts! Leadership Council.  When the money ran out, and while she was looking at litigation compelling her and the board, as role models of APS' student standards of conduct, to litigate according to the nationally recognized, accepted, respected code of ethics, she voted to remove the language and her own liability under it.

She has never had to explain her action, not in either of the school board elections she has run in since.  Co-incidentally, she is the President and CEO of the New Mexico Broadcasters Association, link.  The appearance of a conflict of interests is generated by Maes' close association with local news directors and station owners and their obligation to report impartially.

The manifest product of the conflict is, not one of them will investigate and report upon credible evidence of an ethics and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS, in which Paula Maes is pivotal.

If you go to a school board candidate forum, and you should, make an effort to put standards and accountability on the table.

The next forum, of which I am aware, is 6:00 p.m. Wednesday, January 23, in the John Milne Community Board Room at 6400 Uptown Blvd. NE.

I would go, but I'm banned from the forum.  Litigation will prove that I am banned not because of my conduct, but because of the content of my speech; I would find a way to stand in front of them and ask them to explain why students are expected to model and promote the Pillars of Character Counts!, and they are not.

You're outa here!

It isn't school board enforcer Marty Esquivel's unlawful restraining order that is keeping me out, it is his publicly funded private police force; his Praetorian Guard.




photos Mark Bralley

Teachers and parents should be supporting Don Duran

Don Duran is running for the APS School Board.  He is the first candidate I've heard say that he thinks decision making authority should be delegated to school communities.

The accumulation of decision making authority in 6400 Uptown Blvd is counterproductive; things are getting worse, not better.

Between them, APS teachers have a hundred thousand years of teaching experience and more.  Most hold masters degrees, many hold doctorates, many hold national certifications.  They have everything they need to be effective and efficient, except a seat at the table where decisions are made.

No one of us is a smart as all of us, or knows as much,
or has as much experience as all of us, or has as many good ideas.

When Winston Brooks came to APS, he initiated a power grab that saw decades of progress in site base management trashed in a few key strokes.

Board Members Paula Maes and David Robbins supported Winston Brooks' power grab, undoing decades of progress in empowering teachers.  Their record is not of empowering teachers and supporting site based management.  They are the antithesis to meaningful participation by teachers and community members, in decision making  regarding the education of nearly 90,000 of this community's sons and daughters.

Inexplicably, the teachers union that once fought so hard for a teacher's voice, has endorsed Paula Maes. link.

Apparently the union people who decided to endorse Maes, don't care as much as they once did, about the necessity of including teachers, staff and parents in the decision making process.  When I interviewed with them, they were more concerned about my support for collective bargaining than my offer to fight for a real seat for them, at the table where decisions are made.  They endorsed Marty Esquivel instead.

I didn't think to ask Duran, when I chatted with him at the Tea Party Candidate Forum, but I will as him the next time I see him, if he will support a survey of teachers, allowing them to relate their impressions sans fear of retribution or retaliation over their responses.  They have not been surveyed heretofore, link.  Not once.

Teachers, parents, staff, and community members interested in participatory governance in their neighborhood school should be interested, I think, in Don Duran, link, for School Board District 6.




photo Mark Bralley

Prophecy easy, with APS

It didn't take a prophet to predict that APS would begin it's evaluation of Supt Winston Brooks in secret.  It required only to have been paying attention.  Nor did it take a prophet to forecast that the Journal was going to ignore the secrecy, again.

I offer another prediction; no prophetic gift,
just paying attention past practice.

School Board Member Lorenzo Garcia has made repeated reference to the need to establish a forum in which the "hard to have" conversations can take place.  Three times at least, he has pointed to the problem, and suggests that he can fix it.

Garcia heads the district's Community and District Relations Committee.  All he has to do, to begin open and honest conversation about where we can have open and honest conversations, is to put it on his agenda, link.  I predict that he will not; not because I'm a prophet, just because I've been paying attention.

To not open the door to candid, forthright and honest two-way communication between the leadership of the APS and the community members they serve is Garcia's deliberate decision.

Just as the decision to not have open and honest public discussion of role modeling and the leadership of the APS, was the deliberate decision of Policy and Instruction Committee Chair David Peercy.






Just as the decision to not have open and honest public discussion of due process for whistleblower complaints is the deliberate decision of Audit Committee Chair Marty Esquivel.






Just as the decision to obstruct any investigation that individually identifies corrupt and incompetent administrators and board members is the deliberate decision of School Board President Paula Maes.





Just as the decision to withhold all this from the people, even in the face of school board, mill levy and bond issue elections, is the deliberate decision of the Journal and the rest of the establishment's media.

photos Mark Bralley

Another meeting in secret for Brooks' eval

The agenda, link, has been posted for a special board meeting Thursday.  It reads in significant part;

Adjourn to Executive Session ... for the Purpose of Discussion of the Superintendent’s Evaluation (Action)

This will be the second meeting in which action has been taken on the Superintendent's evaluation and from which interest holders are banned.

Open government law allows the APS school board to do things it doesn't require them to do.  For example; the law allows them to publish agendas 24 hours and 1 minute before the meeting, it doesn't require them to to wait until the last minute.  If asked why they won't give a more reasonable 48 or 72 hours notice, they will not justify it, except to say what they're doing is "legal".

The law allows them to meet in secret to discuss very specific issues.  They are required to reveal what they intend to discuss "with reasonable specificity"; they do not.  They've made a deliberate decision to not record the meetings, so in truth, they could be talking about anything - including things they should be talking about in front of the people.

Some part of the truth about the spending of the people's resources, and the wielding of their power, is reasonably hidden from public knowledge.  It is the people who decide, through their representatives, what truth will and will not be shared with the people to whom it all fundamentally belongs.

The worst thing any politician or public servant can do, is anything they do in unnecessary secret, regardless of "legality".  The terms of public service are the prerogative of the people, not of the servants.  It's not up to petty politicians and bureaucrats to redact the record or their own public service.

Transparency is not allowed by the law, it is limited by the law; and the law alone.  In start contrast to their own behavior, is their requirement that students prove their own character by expecting from themselves, "more than the law requires, and less than the law allows".

In the absence of a good and ethical justification for every element of their secrecy, it fair to assume the secrecy serves their personal interests alone.

Such a blatant disregard of the spirit of open government laws is utterly unacceptable.

Salvation lies in electing four new board members, men and women unafraid of oversight, and unafraid of transparent accountability to the people they serve, to replace four who are.

That will be difficult with an establishment media unconcerned by secrecy unnecessary or otherwise.

KRQE coverage manifestly biased

KRQE offered a report two days ago on the APS Police force.  They reported that the APS Police have upgraded their video surveillance of schools.  I think it's fair to say the report is a positive one; likely to make voters feel good about the publicly funded private police force, and likely to sway legislators when they are asked to allow APS have a police department, effectively removing oversight by the Bernalillo County Sheriff's Office or anyone else.

And that's OK, there is no reason that KRQE shouldn't report upon APS success stories.  But at the same time, KRQE knows

1. there was a scandal in the leadership of  APS Police force, link, and
2. there is credible evidence that the scandal included felony criminal misconduct involving senior APS administrators, and
3. the APS Police force is the only agency of law enforcement allowed to investigate the corruption in the APS Police force, and
4. the findings of their self-investigation, and the findings of at least two other investigations, have not been produced for public inspection.  KRQE's own request to inspect the records has not produced the ethically redacted truth, and that
5. this is evidence of a cover up of a cover up of public corruption and incompetence.

They know this kind of information could turn an election in a completely different direction than the spin they offered.

Yet they steadfastly refuse to investigate and report upon credible evidence of a cover up of felony criminal misconduct by senior APS administrators.

And that, in my opinion, in manifestly biased.

cc KRQE upon posting

School Board candidate promises to be an inconspicuous role model

which is of course, utterly oxymoronic.  Except among those in hiding, there is no such thing as an inconspicuous role model.

Sitting and listening

School Board Member Lorenzo Garcia spoke before an Albuquerque tea party forum last night.

He made mention of the need for a forum where we can have the hard to have conversations.  An example of which might be; a conversation (open and honest two-way communication) between the leadership of the APS and the community members they serve

• regarding their abdication from their obligations as the senior most role models of APS' student standards of conduct; the Pillars of Character Counts!.  Or,
• about the findings of at least three investigations of felony criminal misconduct involving senior APS administrators, or 
• about the denial of due process to hundreds of whistleblower complaints, or 
• about their abusive misuse of their publicly funded private police force.

This isn't the first time Garcia has acknowledged that there is no venue in the entire administration of the APS, where stakeholders can ask questions about the public interests and their public service, and receive a candid, forthright and honest response; be told the ethically redacted truth.

In so far as he has spoken the truth aloud, he is a role model for students, staff and community.  There is not one other board member who has admitted that APS offers no venue where citizens can speak truth to power, no place where they can speak freely and petition their government for redress of any of their several grievances.

A better role model would be fighting for such a venue.

The Citizens Advisory Council on Communication came to Garcia's Community and District Relations Committee with an offer to establish open and honest two-way communication between the leadership of the APS and the community members they served.

Character Counts? not anymore

He acquiesced to likes of
former Character Counts!
Leadership Council
President Paula Maes.

The subject of establishing
any such venue has not
come up in Garcia's agenda
again.  

There is no indication that it ever will.

no way, no role modeling clause

Just like reinstating the role modeling clause in board members code of conduct, is never going to come up in the coward David Peercy's Policy and Instruction Committee.


I'm sure Garcia has his reasons for blowing off the CACoC petition for standing.  But the fact is, he has done nothing else instead.  He won't put "venue for hard to have conversations" on his own agenda.

Two times last night, he pointed to the ongoing need for open and honest two-way communication between the school system and the community.  And two times, he pointed to his own failure to effect any change.  He admits to being "sitting and listening" kind of a guy.  Which is fine, unless what you really need is a warrior kind of a guy - someone who will do more to right the wrong, than point at it.

There are board members and senior administrators whose interests are served by stifling open and honest public discussion of the truth.  They are not going to simply accept honest accountability for their conduct and competence, because Garcia is sitting and listening and watching them.

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

All that is necessary for there to never be, open and honest
two-way communication between the leadership of the APS and
the community members they serve, is for good board members
to do nothing, nothing except sit and listen.





photos Mark Bralley

Voters disenfranchised by Journal coverage

To the extent that information is the foundation of democracy,
it is only information that voters have in time to act on it.

The Journal has finally acknowledged that the school board is doing their annual evaluation of the superintendent, link.  Their headline reads; Superintendent Evaluation Starts.  It should have read; "started".  By the time the Journal clued in their readers, it was too late for them to do anything - the process began in unjustified secret from stakeholders.

The Journal has an obligation to inform stakeholders in time for them to act.

"The Journal" knows the evaluation has been, and will be, conducted in meetings allowing input from on one, not from teachers, not from staff, not from parents, not from students and not from the people.

They know Brooks evaluation will take place in secret from interest holders.  They know board members are conflicted in the evaluation of their own hire, have not denied, defended, or even acknowledged their conflict, and enjoy no oversight whatsoever in their process.

But they won't report it.
Not in time for anyone to do anything anyway.

Just watch.

Unwarranted secrecy is an affront to democracy

Democracy depends upon a fully informed electorate.
The worst possible thing a politician or public servant can do,
is anything they do in unnecessary secret.

Citizens cannot hold politicians and public servants accountable for their public service, if their service is conducted in (unnecessary) secret.

School board members have three jobs,

1. create district policy, 
2. approve district budgets, and 
3. hire superintendents.

Voters are entitled to hold board members accountable for each.  They are entitled to hold board members accountable for their conduct and competence in hiring their superintendent and in extending his tenure.

We are entitled to hold board members accountable, at their election, for their record of holding the superintendent accountable.

Four board members are running for re-election; Paula Maes, David Robbins, David Peercy, and Lorenzo Garcia.  Before election day, but after early voting has begun, they will "evaluate" Winston Brooks, and they will extend his contract beyond the terms of their election to the board.

They will do this in a meeting in secret from voters.
They will do this in a meeting they will not record.

They will not be held accountable at election because voters have no idea what they're doing.

Keeping the truth from voters, amounts to disenfranchisement, pure and simple.  Every relevant fact about APS Supt Winston Brooks' performance over the last year, will be shared only with manifestly conflicted board members, men and women who have a personal interest in the outcome - If Brooks looks good, the board looks good; if Brooks looks bad, the board who hired him and keeps adding to his golden parachute, looks bad.



How are voters to hold board members accountable for holding Brooks accountable, if the whole process is carried out in secret?

Brooks' evaluation is a sham,
in no small part due to the fact
that establishment media interest
in fully informing voters in
anticipation of very important
elections, is a sham.




photo Mark Bralley

Agenda finally posted, Brooks' evaluation on tap tonight

APS has finally posted the agenda for their "Special Board Meeting" tonight, link.  There is only one item on the agenda,

Consideration for Approval to Adjourn to Executive Session Pursuant to the Open Meetings Act NMSA 1978, § 10-15-1 (H) (2) (Limited Personnel Matters) for the Purpose of Discussion of the Superintendent’s Evaluation (Action"

They will adjourn into a meeting in secret from interest holders to evaluate APS Supt Winston Brooks' performance over the last year.  They have known for quite some time what they were going to do tonight - the only reason to wait until the last minute to post the agenda is to diminish public attention.

The agenda for the regular meeting tomorrow night, the meeting where they will approve the action they take tonight, is still not posted.

In all likelihood, the board will extend APS Supt Winston Brooks' contract until 2016, beyond the terms of many board members.

A recent poll by KOAT on the subject of Brooks' contract extension, link, drew nearly 700 responses, 85% of which were against an extension.  KOAT pulled the link down for reasons of their own.

As is their want and practice, the Journal reports nothing.

David Robbins opponent Paula Maes stands foursquare against honest accountability.

School Board President Paula Maes is on record in opposition to any audit that will individually identify and corrupt and incompetent senior administrators or board members.

Ask her, will you insist upon an independent review of APS executive and administrative standards and accountability, and that reports to the public record and not to the people they have exposed?

She will not answer; she will stonewall.
Any answer except yes, means no.

No answer, means no.

She once voted to remove from her own standards of conduct, her obligation as the senior most role model of the APS Student Standards of Conduct.  Before she struck it, there was a role modeling clause.  It read;

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

It made them accountable, as role models, to higher standards of conduct than the law.  So they struck it.

With a stroke of her pen, she abdicated from her position as the senior most role model of the student standard of conduct; model and promote the Pillars of Character Counts!, a nationally recognized, accepted and respected code of ethical conduct.

Maes and the board voted unanimously to hold themselves accountable instead, to no real standards of conduct at all.  She has never been compelled to explain to students, why they are expected to hold themselves honestly accountable the Pillars of Character Counts!, and she is not.

School Board President Paula Maes was once the President of the Character Counts! Leadership Council.  Then the money United States Senator Pete Domenici had seen appropriated, tens of thousands of dollars, ran out.  Now you can't get her to even talk about Character Counts! much less hold herself accountable as its most senior role model in the entire APS.

Unfortunately, neither will David Robbins, Lorenzo Garcia, nor David Peercy.

Role modeling clause? We don't need no stinkin' role modeling clause.

There is not one of them who will restore the role modeling clause to their own standards of conduct.

There isn't one of them who will hold themselves honestly accountable

• as role models of the student standards of conduct, the standards they establish and enforce upon students,
• to any standard of conduct higher than the law; the lowest of standards. and
• especially not accountable to a nationally recognized, accepted and respected code of ethics.

I met once with David Robbins, the last time he was running for the board.  I was looking to him to put a motion on the table to restore the role modeling clause.  I expressed to him my belief that there are two reasons and two reasons only, that a school board member or senior administrator would not hold them themselves honestly accountable to the Pillars of Character Counts!, at least for the few hours a day, that is their expectation of students.

Those two reasons are; the lack of courage and/or the lack of character.  There is no third good and ethical reason to not step up as a role model.

He agreed, without hesitation or reservation.

I have stood in front of every one of these people at public forums in school board meetings many times since.  I have asked them over and over and over again, to point to any other reason, other than their lack of courage and character, that prevents them from stepping up as honest to God role models of the APS Student Standards of Conduct.

Their response is to have their publicly funded private, police force arrest me rather that allow me to exercise my Constitutionally protected human right to ask them the question ever again.

I have asked the Journal, KRQE, KOAT, KOB, and KKOB, over and over and over again, would they ask them the question?
 Would they ask the leadership of the APS to explain why there are two standards of conduct in the APS and, why the higher standard by far, applies not to board members and senior administrators, but to students alone.

The Journal has been part of the cover up now through at least three school board elections and probably as many mill levy and bond issue elections.  As evidenced in their rag by the absence of even the most rudimentary investigation and report upon credible evidence of the ethics and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS.

Is there any reason at all, that candidates for school board seats should not be expected to declare candidly, forthrightly and honestly, their understanding and intentions with regard to executive and administrative standards of conduct, accountability and obligations as the senior most role models of higher standards of conduct than the law?

You would be surprised how hard it is to get to ask the question,
much less to receive a good faith response.



photos Mark Bralley

Brooks headed for another contract extension this week

One of the responsibilities of the APS school board is to evaluate their superintendent every year.  I believe they will do it this week, though it isn't on any published agenda.  There are three meetings of the board scheduled for this week and not one agenda posted.

It is their record and their policy to post agendas at the last moment allowed by the law, link.   It serves no purpose but to discourage public participation in the meetings.

When board members evaluate their superintendent, they are also evaluating themselves.  If they determine that the superintendent is doing a good job; they simultaneously validate their selection and ongoing support of their superintendent.  It justifies their extending his contract by yet another year.

They have no choice but to determine he's doing great.  To determine otherwise, means they made a mistake in hiring and giving him exorbitant contract extensions.  If they determined the superintendent is doing a bad job, someone is sure to point out; hey, you hired him! it's your failure.

It's called creating the appearance of a conflict of interests.

Note that no other input is being sought or allowed.  There is no empirical data that he is doing a fine job at all.  No one has asked teachers, based on their accumulated 100,000 years of teaching experience, if they think he's doing a fine job.  It's all based on incestuous daisy chains of self-evaluations; everybody things everybody else is doing a fine job.

Superintendents should be impartially evaluated; they all should.  Recently, auditors from the Council of the Great City Schools, found APS' administrative evaluations were "subjective, and unrelated to promotions or step placement."   They found a good ol' boys club.

Even if the board were not conflicted in the evaluation process, they're not qualified to conduct one.  What does anyone one of them know about how APS really runs?  What is it about being elected by a majority of 3 or 4% of voters, that qualifies them to evaluate the administrative expertise of the 17th largest school district in the United States?

If  you ask the board to begin an independent audit of administrative standards and accountability, they would tell you its too expensive, too complex and too burdensome to undertake.  They, however, can sit together in secret for a few hours and produce its equivalent, no problem.

In two of the three meetings this week, they will decide that APS Supt Winston Brooks is doing a fine job;

• covering up felony criminal misconduct involving senior APS administrators, and
• denying due process to hundreds of whistleblower complaints of administrative corruption and incompetence, and
• covering up his, and their, abdication from their obligations as role models of student standards of conduct; the Pillars of Character Counts!. and
• employing a publicly funded private police force, a praetorian guard, to deny citizens free exercise of their Constitutionally protected human rights to speak freely and to petition the government.

They will decide that he has done such a fine job, they will increase the size of his already formidable golden parachute; they will extend his contract by yet another year.  They will vote to extend his contract beyond the ends of their own terms of election.  In the next meeting, likely the next day, they will vote again, and make it all legal.

The following day, the Journal editors may or may not whine about it, link, (there are other editorials decrying the process - their website search engine is nearly useless.)

They only get get away with this year after year, because the Journal and School Board President Paula Maes cronies in the broadcast media steadfastly refuse to investigate and report upon corruption and incompetence in the senior administration and board,

thereby depressing voter turnout to ridiculously inadequate levels.

David Robbins still unwilling to step up as a role model of accountability to the Pillars of Character Counts!

This report was first posted on Friday, July 17, 2009.

Robbins is running for re-election to the APS School Board.
He hasn't changed.

When David Robbins was running for the District 7 seat on the APS Board of Education, he offered stakeholders the promise of two notable reforms; 1. restoration of the Role Modeling Clause to administrative and executive standards of conduct and, 2. an honest and impartial audit of the administration of the public trust and treasure in the administration of the APS.

He now fights for neither.

Students in the APS are accountable to a nationally recognized, accepted, and respected code of ethical conduct. As role models, the leadership of the APS is accountable to the same standards of conduct.

Yet that accountability cannot be enforced, because the leadership of the APS removed from their own standards of conduct the phrase which read;

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

While their moral obligations as role models are unaffected by the existence or not of words in their standards of conduct, the enforcement of those obligations is affected. Removing the clause provided the opportunity to use their legal weaselry to except themselves from any real accountability to any standards of conduct at all.

David Robbins placed a motion on the table in a Policy Committee Meeting, that would have restored the clause to the employee standards of conduct. And that was it. When I asked him if he had ever done anything more than that, he told me that he had

"... raised the issue in committee meetings." and

"I believe the intent and results of regarding standards of conduct and role modeling are what is important and not the specific wording requested by any single individual."

When I asked, "which meetings and, with what response and, from whom?" and, "What other wording would possibly serve the same intent with the same results? or In what other way besides restoring the role modeling clause, could the same intent be served, and the same results had?" he responded;

"I have answered these questions previously. I believe my answers have been clear and suscinct.
I don't see the point of the endless questioning, other than you are trying to trip me up."
(Note; there were 12 questions in total, with 7 follow-ups made necessary only the the lack of candor, forthrightness, and honesty in his initial responses; hardly "endless" questioning.)

I asked him if he had ever promised voters a standards and accountability audit. He responded;

"I do not remember every promising such and audit ..."

Sensing that he was hiding behind semantics, I asked the question again in more general terms; "Would you agree that, you promised voters an "independent audit"?"

His response;

I have answered these questions previously. I believe my answers have been clear and suscinct.
I don't see the point of the endless questioning, other than you are trying to trip me up.

On the issue of his denying my request for the simple review and approval of my whistleblower complaints by the Audit Committee that he chairs; review and approval that is called for, rather specifically, in board policy, he replied;

"The Audit Committee was provided information consistent with Federal Law ..."

Clearly not the candid, forthright, and honest response that is called for by the standards of conduct that he is supposed to be role modeling for students, I pressed the point;

Can you provide any good and ethical reason not to provide individual review and approval of my complaints in particular?

To which he responded;

I have answered these questions previously. I believe my answers have been clear and suscinct.
I don't see the point of the endless questioning, other than you are trying to trip me up.

I once posited to Robbins that the only reason that any member of the leadership of the APS would refuse to hold them self honestly accountable to the same standards of conduct that they establish and enforce upon students was, a lack of courage and a lack of character, he agreed.

That was before his own lack of character and courage manifest itself.

I'm a sure that he, and they, would like us to believe that there is a third reason; a less despicable one. There isn't.

If there were, either he or they, would be able to point to it. Neither he, nor they, can.

The leadership of the APS, individually and collectively, are not now honestly accountable to the APS Student Standards of Conduct, because they, individually and collectively, cannot summon the character and the courage to make it so.

cc. David Robbins upon posting. He will have an unfettered opportunity to explain, defend, deny, or even acknowledge these several charges.




photo Mark Bralley



Update; Mr. Robbins has responded in a comment on this post.

"I have stopped responding to Mr. MacQuigg's endless questions. I have answered most of his questions at least twice over the past four months. He does care what Federal or State laws require or limit regarding Board actions, he wants his way, period. What he has posted is a very narrow selection of my responses and he should be ashamed for presenting my responses in such a biased and shaded fashion. The Board of Education is reviewing all of its policies and I have informed Mr. MacQuigg, but he is note satisfied because I haven't demanded his words be included immediately in policy. He wants me to force his words into the policies regardless. That is not how the APS Board of Education functions; not in this democratic country.
Mr. MacQuigg apparently has an axe to grind and I will no longer be part it. I will continue to ask for and expect high standards for all APS staff, including the Administration."

He will not however, ask for or expect APS staff (administrators and board members) to be held accountable to as high a standard as the Pillars of Character Counts! which are the APS Student Standards of Conduct.


He has accused me of posting;

"... a very narrow selection of my responses and he should be ashamed for presenting my responses in such a biased and shaded fashion."

At the end of this post, please find the entire exchange, and that I have not presented his answers in "a shaded and biased fashion" at all.

He also wrote the following;

"He does care what Federal or State laws require or limit regarding Board actions, he wants his way, period."

There is nothing that I have requested that is limited by Federal or State Law. The truth is while neither State nor Federal law "require" what I have requested, neither do they limit or prohibit the actions that I have requested. It is simply a a legal loophole through which Robbins will slither, rather than step up to honest accountability as a role model of the APS Student Standards of Conduct.

Note that, Robbins can not point to a single request of mine, compliance with which, is actually prohibited by law. For example, I want an Audit Committee hearing of my complaints as is required by board policy. Neither State nor Federal law require those hearings, but neither do they prohibit them as Robbins would have readers mistakenly believe. It is a deliberate deception on his part. It is typical of the lack of candor, forthrightness and simple honesty that Robbins brings to the table.

This is his response to the first letter, his responses are mixed into my letter to him. I will highlight his responses with boldface italics.

Ched - below are my responses.
David L. Robbins
(I have deleted Robbins phone numbers from this space)

----- Original Message -----
From: "Charles MacQuigg"
To: (Robbins email address)
Sent: Thursday, July 2, 2009 11:01:01 AM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific
Subject: facts check

Mr. Robbins,

I am preparing a post and I would like to verify some facts before I post.
I would like to know if each of the following points are, in fact, true;

On the subject of a standards and accountability audit of the leadership of the aps;

1. you promised voter/constituents an impartial standards and accountability audit of the entire leadership of the APS

If I have misclassified the type of audit, or the nature of your promise, please elaborate.

I do not remember every promising such and audit but that independent financial audits must be performed in a timely manner and available to the public. APS has caught up on all previous financial audits, and is on track to completing and submitting to PED the audit for the 2008/2009 school year.

2. You have not brought up the subject of such an audit, on the record, since your election.

APS' Internal Audit group does conduct audits on schools and administrative areas regarding following policies, procedures and providing requested information. Federal Law must be followed regarding all audits. APS Policies are being reviewed for consistency and adherence to current law and some will likely be need to be updated. I hope this process will be completed in the next couple of months, but I don't have a completion date.

3. There is no such audit in planning, even in light of the upcoming $650M bond issue election in Feb.

I'm not clear what this statement means.

4. You do not intend to bring up the subject of any such audit, in time for the bond issue election.

See answers to # 1 and 2 above.

On the subject of audit committee review and approval of whistleblower complaints;

5. The audit committee is charged by board policy with "review and approval" of whistleblower complaints.
6. There has never been even one such approval, and
7. You are now more than a hundred complaints in arrears.
8. You have no intention of putting the review and approval of whistleblower complaints on the agenda of any audit committee meeting,
9. for no other reason than to deny that review and approval to my two complaints.

The Audit Committee was provided information consistent with Federal Law regarding confidentiality. In May were were provided a summary of the status of complaints and the total number open was fewer than 2 dozen.
Your two complaints have been closed.

On the subject of executive and administrative role modeling of the student standards
of conduct by means of restoration of the role modeling clause, to the employee standards of conduct.

10. you promised voter/constituents that you would fight for the restoration of the role modeling clause to the employee standards of conduct.

The inclusion of such a clause has been proposed. The Policies are under review and I will continue to work in a constructive manner to ensure role modeling is addressed in APS Policies and Procedures.

As I have no recording of your promise, please feel free to furnish the exact wording, which I will publish it uncensored.
11. You have done nothing about that promise, except that you put it on the table in a policy committee meeting.
12. You have no intention to do anything, except that you put it on the table.

I have raised the issue in committee meetings and will continue to work with the Board and Administration. I cannot force the other six members of the Board to agree to a specific wording. I believe the intent and results of regarding standards of conduct and role modeling are what is important and not the specific wording requested by any single individual. I would like progress to come quicker, but in any large organization, progress is slower than what many would like. I will continue to work to ensure that honesty and transparency are practiced within APS. I can not nor will I guarantee the results will satisfy everyone. Sincerely,David L. Robbins

The courtesy of a response will be appreciated.

In the absence of any controverting arguments from you, I will assume that my understanding of the situation is substantially correct.

Grateful for your time and attention

ched macquigg

And the second letter and his response.

I have answered these questions previously. I believe my answers have been clear and suscinct.

I don't see the point of the endless questioning, other than you are trying to trip me up.

David L. Robbins

----- Original Message -----
From: "Charles MacQuigg"
To: (Robbins email address)
Sent: Wednesday, July 15, 2009 7:22:10 AM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific
Subject: follow up questions

Mr Robbins,

Thank you for taking the time to respond to my questions. Your responses have raised a few new questions.

1. Did you promise to respond to questions candidly, forthrightly and honestly, (according to the following logic, if there is a problem, please be specific about the point at which the logic breaks down. or where you specifically disagree.)

1. You promised to hold yourself honestly accountable to the APS Student Standards of Conduct
2. which are the Pillars of Character Counts!
3. which require truth telling- responding to questions candidly, forthrightly and honestly.

2. If you will not agree that you promised a "standards and accountability audit, Would you agree that, you promised voters an "independent audit"? An audit performed by someone outside the APS

2. My impression is that regardless of whether “Federal Law” was followed, board policy stating that the audit committee is charged with “review and approval of whistleblower complaints”, obviously requires review and approval of individual complaints, and not review and approval of the “process” or of a statistical “summary” of the complaints.
Do you agree that, regardless of "Federal Law", board policy requires review of individual whistleblower complaints?

3. Do you agree that the audit committee has not reviewed and approved a single individual complaint?

4. Do you intend ever, to place on an audit committee agenda the individual review and approval of whistle blower complaints?

5. You wrote "Your two complaints have been closed." which does not answer the question that I asked which was; Why will you not provide the review and approval of those complaints according with board policy?. Can you provide any good and ethical reason not to provide individual review and approval of my complaints in particular?

6. You wrote that you “… have raised the (role modeling) issue in committee meetings …”

6a. At what committee meetings, beside the Policy Committee meeting where you first placed the issue on the table, did you revisit the issue?

6b. With what response, and from whom?

7. You wrote that “I believe the intent and results of regarding standards of conduct and role modeling are what is important.”

Considering the phrase;

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

7a,What other wording would possibly serve the same intent with the same results? or
7b. In what other way besides restoring the role modeling clause, could the same intent be served, and the same results had?


Again, I am grateful for your responses, and I apologize for intruding in your life at a difficult time.
Were the issues not so important, I would happily just let them drop.

ched macquigg

Please note that nowhere in his response to my "endless" questioning, does he offer any explanation for his unwillingness to hold himself honestly accountable as a role model of the APS Student Standards of Conduct, the Pillars of Character Counts!, except his personal lack of courage and character.

APS executive and administrative standards of conduct, competence and accountability

Are the standards of conduct and competence that apply to APS school board members and administrators, high enough to protect public interests and resources from incompetence and corruption?

Is accountability to those standards swift and certain? 
Are there venues in the APS where a complaint filed against an administrator or board member, is guaranteed due process?

In fact,there is no due process for complaints naming administrators and board members.


If there were, it would be easy for any board member, any administrator, any one of their lawyers, or any one of their lawyers' lawyers, to just point to it; the venue where there is honest to God due process for complaints made against senior administrators and board members.  How does their publicly funded private police force get to be the only investigators of their own felony misconduct?

If they provide any venue at all, where the adjudication of complaints against administrators and board members is free from blatant conflicts of interest, why won't they point to it? 

It is curious that they won't.
It is more than curious that they won't.

Curiouser still, the Journal's steadfast refusal to investigate and report upon the ethics and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS.

The first legitimate use of power is to defend it from abuse;
to provide transparent accountability its exercise.

The primary accoutrement of power, the most powerfully corrupting, is the increasing lack of honest accountability to meaningful standards of conduct and competence.

It corrupts absolutely.

If you're powerful enough, or believe you're powerful enough,
you don't have to respond to legitimate questions about the
public interests and your public service; you can ignore them,
you can stonewall them.

• Why won't they produce ethically redacted public records of at least three investigations into felony criminal misconduct by senior APS administrators?
• Why are they denying due process to hundreds of APS whistle blower complaints?
• Why won't they produce a candid, forthright and honest accounting of their spending at 6400 Uptown Blvd?

Government of, by and for the people entitles the people to transparent accountability in the administration of their power and resources.  Transparent accountability begins with transparency; transparency of the sort found in the standards they established and enforce upon students; "candid, forthright, and honest"

Cultures of corruption and incompetence rest upon foundations of inadequate standards and/or insufficient accountability to such standards as there are.

It is a shame that an election of a majority school board members and the entrusting of control over nearly a third of a billion of our dollars, there will be no discourse on standards and accountability in the leadership of the APS.

No one of them is ever going to have to explain why, or even admit that, there are two standards of conduct in the APS, one for students, one for board members and administrators.  No one of them will have to stand up in public and declare their allegiance to the law, or to a nationally recognized, accepted and respected code of ethical conduct; the student standards of conduct.

No one of them has ever said, no one of them will say;

Within my public service, for the few hours a day I hold control over the people's power and resources, I will hold myself honestly accountable, by means of a mechanism over which I have no undue influence and powerful enough to hold me accountable even against my will, to meaningful standards of conduct and competence.  And,

In no case shall my own standards of conduct
be lower than the standards of conduct for students.

... or any words to that effect.

Families United for Education candidate forum, the morning after

The forum was held in the clubhouse at La Madera Golf Course.  The place was packed - kudos to the FUE and all their many hard workers.   Reporter Hailey Heinz and the Journal even covered the forum, link, albeit belatedly.

I can't immediately recall another time I've seen so many people so excited about the potential of a school board election.  The forum surrounded anecdotal input from FUE members, followed by their question.  There were opportunities for a number of community members to stand at the podium, express their concerns, and then ask a question.

There is never enough time at these things, for all the questions to be asked.  I am disappointed that one question never gets asked.  Candidates are never asked talk about their obligations as the senior-most role models of student standards of conduct.

"Don’t worry that your children never listen to you,
worry that they are always watching you." unk

If we really want students to grow into adults who embrace character and courage and honor, someone has to show them what it looks like.

If we really want students to grow into adults who hold themselves honestly accountable to higher standards of conduct, someone needs to show them what it looks like.

Do we really not care anymore about the example that adults set for children?  Is it ridiculous to expect school board members and superintendent's to lead by their personal example?

I was disappointed that the FUE didn't ask the candidates a question; a "yes or no" question;

Are you willing to hold yourself honestly accountable
to the same standards you establish and enforce upon students?

Will you create a mechanism over which you have no influence, wherein a complaint can be made regarding your conduct, and where complaints see due process?  A system that will hold you accountable even against your will.

Whatever else they are, these four will be elected to senior-most role models of the standards they establish and enforce upon students.  If one of them is elected school board president, they will become the senior-most role model for students, staff and the community.

By unanimous school board resolution, APS Student Standards of Conduct are the Pillars of Character Counts!, link, a nationally recognized, accepted and respected code of ethical conduct.  According to those standards, students are expected to be candid, forthright and honest, and that in their failure to do so, their good character is forfeit.

The school board removed a role modeling clause from their own code of conduct.  It used to read;

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

Is it time to put it back? or has role modeling grown passé?

All it takes to hold oneself honestly accountable to any standard of conduct, is character and courage. 

The elephant in the room at the FOG seminar.

The New Mexico Foundation for Open Government has announced a seminar on public access and government; public records and open meetings laws!.

Attendees will be brought up to speed on the latest developments in public records and open meetings law by among others, APS School Board Member Marty Esquivel and Journal Managing Editor Kent Walz.  The Journal in fact, is hosting the event.

Currently, APS is hiding public records of at least three investigations into felony criminal misconduct by senior APS administrators, in the scandal that rocked the leadership of the APS Police force in 2007.

Esquivel is complicit or
complacent in hiding
the ethically redacted truth
about public corruption and
incompetence in the leadership of the APS.






Journal Editor Kent Walz is
fully aware that APS is hiding
public records and he will not
assign a reporter to investigate
the cover up of felony criminal
misconduct by senior administrators.
Or the cover up of that cover up.

Esquivel and Walz will sit together in the front of the room acting like nothing's going on.

As will everyone else in the FOG.




Esquivel by Mark Bralley
Walz by yours truly

Brooks' defense; "Discipline referrals are down"

APS Supt Winston Brooks is upset with the Journal and other unnamed "reflexive critics" over our lack of appreciation for the success he has created at Rio Grande High and Ernie Pyle Middle schools.  He has penned a response to us, link.

Among the indicators of his success at these schools, Brooks claims; "discipline referrals are down" at the schools.  He cites no empirical evidence; none is available on his "award winning" website.

Discipline Referrals are the "press hard, there's four layers of carbon paper" opportunity that teachers and staff members have, to report disruptive students to the administration for consequences. What Brooks has said in simplest terms, teachers and staff members have filed fewer reports than previously. 

He would have you believe that the number of referrals is down because student discipline is improving.

Assuming they really are down, there is another reason why fewer discipline referrals are being filed.  Teachers and staff members may have been told overtly or otherwise, to submit fewer referrals.

Sidebar; In my own experience; I once filed a referral on a student.  He had been amusing himself one morning by throwing rocks at elementary school students walking by our campus.  The referral came back to me with a Post It note on it reading; Please handle this and all similar problems yourself.

A recent audit by the Council of the Great City Schools found, administrators routinely falsifying crime statistics to preserve their school's public perception.  Nothing has changed, link.  Another impartial audit will find the truth about student discipline and crime in schools is still being hidden, most often by deliberately not gathering meaningful statistics in the first place, Journal link, D6 link.

When I was teaching, there was clear contract language that placed the responsibility for enforcing discipline policies on the shoulders of the administration; on Brooks' shoulders.  It lies there still.

Brooks' idea of a discipline policy places insubordination among the least consequential of student misconduct.  Rule one is; you have to follow the rules.  If teachers and staff members have no authority over students, students cannot be compelled to obey any rules at all.

Brooks is not being candid, forthright and honest with stakeholders; not about the discipline issues at RGHS and EPMS, and not about student discipline district wide.  He can have read to you, a PowerPoint presentation on anything you want, except the truth about student discipline in the APS.

Students are in-charge in schools.
It is their will being done.

Brooks is hiding the discipline problem in order to hide his failure to deal with it.

A problem cannot be solved and hidden at the same time.  Student discipline problems will not be solved for as long as they remain hidden; by Brooks and by the Journal.




photo Mark Bralley

APS resolute in their ban on monkeys

Not just monkeys, but skunks, bats, raccoons, and turtles will feel the sting of being banned by the School Board through their Policy.

As per past practice in APS banning policies/letters, the board is free to use their publicly funded private police force; their Praetorian Guard to arrest if necessary, any primates sans sphincters, that might stray onto school board property.

The "banning letter" for monkeys and their disease carrying cohorts is hidden among forty-one pages of other policy changes and re endorsements, link.

It is more than three years now, link, since School Board Member David Robbins put the re-institution of the Role Modeling clause in the School Board's Code of Conduct, on the table for open and honest public discussion.  Unfortunately, he hasn't been seen or heard on the issue, since.

The Board doesn't have the character and courage it takes to hold open and honest discussions about their obligations as role models of the standards of conduct they establish and enforce upon students; model and promote the Pillars of Character Counts!; nationally recognized, accepted and respected "higher standards of conduct".

No way, no discussion, ever.

Policy Committee Chair and coward David Peercy tabled Robbins' motion, link, and then, in blatant disregard for Roberts Rules, allowed the item to be removed from the future topics agenda without a vote.

Peercy can't find time to talk openly and honestly about executive and administrative standards of conduct and their obligations as role models of student standards of conduct, but, he can find the time to ban monkeys.

They're both up for re-election.
School Board election; Feb 5.




photos Mark Bralley

Families United for Education to hold candidate forum unbeknownst to voters.

It's not the Families United for Education are doing anything to hide the forum.  The only reason I know anything about it at all, is because it was mentioned tangentially in a letter to the editors, link, written by one Tony Watkins, identified as one of their members.  According to Watkins, On Jan. 10 at 6 p.m., Families United for Education will be hosting a candidates forum for District 5 Candidates, at the Ladera Golf Course (3401 Ladera Dr. NW).  There is only one candidate in the race for the District 5 seat; the newly created west-side district.

APS claims no knowledge of the forum, they have, they say, asked candidates to keep the board office informed of any candidate forums they learn of.

This typical Journal coverage; the editors will spend more ink in one editorial chastising apathetic voters the day after the election, than they will spend during the whole election trying to interest voters in an election where APS' philosophical direction and more than a third of a billion dollars are at stake.

You would think a newspaper looking for newsworthy stories, would have a reporter sniffing around to see if anything was going on in the election that voters might want to know about - like candidate forums.  They might want to know about some of the issues in the election.

APS has their own forum scheduled,  – 6:00 p.m., Wednesday, January 23, 2013.  Details TBA.

It will be held in their castle keep where their publicly funded private police force can keep dissidence and dissidents in check, or, deny them entrance entirely.

If anyone knows of other forums, let me know, I'll publish them.

On the character of the leadership of the APS

I offer the following;

1. from my complaint, #45.

   When Mr. MacQuigg's turn to speak came, he began his comments by discussing what he called the "Pillars of Trustworthiness."  His speech reflected the tenets of Character Counts, a program APS had once followed.  Seconds into Mr. MacQuigg's speech, a member of the Board, Robert Lucero, admonished Mr. MacQuigg for directing his comments to individual board members rather than to the board as a whole.  Shortly thereafter, the Board President Defendant Esquivel, intervened, directed Mr. MacQuigg to stop speaking, and required him to leave the public meeting.  The order came well before Mr. MacQuigg's two minute time limit had expired.

2. from Certain Defendant's Answers to my complaint, #45

   These Defendants deny the allegation contained in Paragraph 45 of Plaintiff's Complaint.

3. from APS' award winning website, link, the videotape of the entire incident; it begins 42 minutes into the meeting.

I expect that you, and the jury the defendants have demanded, will see a legitimate exercise of my Constitutionally protected human rights to free speech and to petition of my government, being abrogated by a publicly funded private police force following unlawful orders from a school board member.

Trust me that all of the evidence we bring to this proceeding, is every bit as compelling.


Never the less, a huge of number of operational dollars are going to be spent in an effort to insulate a few board members and administrators from the consequences of their corruption and incompetence.

A great deal of money will be spent on lawyers who must argue that the defendants, despite their expressed declaration to the contrary, are not actually accountable to any standard of conduct higher than the law, if for no other reason than that they successfully removed the role modeling clause from their own standards of conduct.  Their code of conduct once read;

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

There was a time when board members and students were expected to hold themselves accountable to the same nationally recognized, accepted and respected code of ethics.

Students are still expected to model and promote the Pillars, Board members and administrators no longer are.  There are two standards of conduct in the APS; one for students, one for adults.  Board members and administrators hold students accountable to a higher standard than they will hold themselves.

It is morally unconscionable; as indefensible as it is outrageous.

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



Were they still accountable as role models of the student standards of conduct, were they still required to model and promote the Pillars of Character Counts!, link, they would be expected to present facts to the best of their knowledge; to be candid, forthright and honest.

Instead, dollars that could be spend in schools will be spent in courtrooms instead, arguing that these certain defendants are not accountable to any higher standard of conduct than the law; the lowest of all commonly accepted standards of conduct.

Students are told;

Character counts.  And character often means doing more than the law requires and less than the law allows.

Money that could be spend in classrooms teaching students that their character counts, will be spent instead, proving that according to the law, character has nothing to do with it.  There are no higher standards of conduct than the law, that actually apply to board members and administrators.

Their abdication from their obligations as role models is only the most disappointing facet of the ethics and accountability scandal that grips leadership of the APS.

You would think the ethics and accountability scandal would be fodder in upcoming school board, mill levy and bond issue elections.

You would think people would be reading about the scandal in the Journal.

You would be wrong on both counts.
The one, the proximate result of the other.

Shame on "the Journal".

A response to my complaints.

Two months ago, I filed a complaint in federal court, against the APS School Board and against individual board members and administrators, link.

School Board enforcer Marty Esquivel has lawyers all his own; while the rest are being represented together.  We have heard from those, link.

They of course, deny doing anything wrong.

Among their denials, that I am a member of the press (52)
and that I write "original news" for Diogenes' Six (5).
If they're telling the truth when they deny reading the blog (35),
in what position are they to deny that it contains original news?

I look forward to litigation that will recognize that among bloggers
are the political pamphleteers of our day and age.  And that,
as such, they are fully entitled to the First Amendment protection
established for the pen and parchment pamphleteers of  that day and age.

It's a shame that an unlimited litigation budget, feeding from a large bore pipeline to APS "operational funds", money that could be spent in classrooms and in the best interests of students and their teachers, will be spent instead, arguing that they are not.

32 Days Until 2013 APS School Board Member, Mill Levy, and Bond Issue Elections.

Wednesday, February 6th, 2013 will be a day too late to start paying attention to the election of a majority of APS School Board members.  It will be a day too late to exercise any control over the encumbrance of more than a third of a billion tax dollars.

Wednesday, February 6th, 2013, will also be the day a Journal editorial will lament a 3% turnout in such an important election.

Members of the press have certain obligations; among them, the obligation to monitor government and power and then tell the truth about what they see,  They are obliged to manifest first loyalty to the people including providing them a forum in which to petition their government.. 

The Journal has an obligation to the people, to report the facts as they know them.

The Journal has 32 days to report to the people that the four incumbents running for re-election, David Robbins, Paula Maes, Lorenzo Garcia and David Peercy;

• are party to a cover up of felony criminal misconduct by senior APS administrators, including refusal to produce the findings of at least three investigations into the public corruption and incompetence in the leadership of APS' police force and that,
• are party to a denial of due process to hundreds of whistleblower complaints against administrators and board members and that,
• have individually and collectively abdicated their obligations are role models of the standards of conduct they establish and enforce upon students, the Pillars of Character Counts! and that,
• they will not, or can not, produce a candid, forthright and honest accounting of the last mill levy and bond issue money they spent at 6400 Uptown Blvd

The Journal has 32 days to tell voters about the ethics and
accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS, and that
four of the candidates in the election are complicit in its cover up.

A pox on them if they don't.




photo Mark Bralley

Stark hypocrisy in the Journal this morning.

I call your attention to an editorial in the Journal this morning, link, and a Journal story on "improvement" at Ernie Pyle Middle and Rio Grande High Schools, link.

On the one hand, the Journal's heavy hitters are rightfully perturbed that the results from a survey of APD union members were being hidden from the process, (and from public knowledge).

The union claims ownership of the truth and a need to hide it to prevent retaliation and retribution against any of their members who chose to speak truth to power.

The editors and I believe, the (ethically) redacted results should be surrendered to the process (and ultimately, according to the Public Records Act, to public knowledge).

The editorial upset doesn't make any sense, unless the editors believe survey results have value, that they are important and useful.

"... officers are the ones who have to put policies into practice, who know firsthand what works and what doesn’t on the street. Why ask for their insight and then keep it secret?"

Ignoring the insight of those who police the streets

"... does not serve Albuquerque or the members of its police force."

On the other hand and in stark contrast, the editors are giving their cronies in the leadership of the APS, a complete bye for taking no surveys at all.  The leadership of the APS is yet to give a one of them, the opportunity to respond to what's going on in APS classrooms and in particular, what's going on at Rio Grande and Ernie Pyle.

Among them, APS teachers have more than 100,000 years of personal insight into what works and what doesn't work in classrooms and schools.

APS has an entire department dedicated to the gathering and manipulation of data.  They have never surveyed teachers. They never ask them for their honest input about what is wrong in their schools; there is no subordinate evaluation of administrators.

Did the Journal interview teachers about the results of the spending of millions of extra tax dollars at these schools, or students, or their parents?  Did the Journal go to those " ... who know first hand what works and what doesn't (in classrooms)? for their input?  Did they give students or teachers the opportunity to speak without fear of retribution and retaliation?

Worse than the editors' omission is their commission; a biased report on the results nearly $5M bought. 

For their information, they went directly to the APS administrators most responsible for success or failure, and asked them how they're doing.  The utter disregard for appearance of an egregious conflict of interests in "a source" is frightening.

The Journal quotes one student twice.  She couldn't be more thrilled with what the Brooks administration has done to fix her school.  She did not reflect upon, or was not asked to reflect upon, the fact that test scores and graduations rates remain essentially unchanged.

"Officials" provided for one citation.

The APS senior administrator most accountable for improvement at those schools, Eddie Soto, was interviewed.  He was quoted at least five times in her report.  We glean from him and Heinz, he's doing a fine job.

The senior administrator on site, Principal Yvonne Garcia was quoted at least four times.  Again, she and the Journal agree, she's doing a fine job as well.

No interviews with parents, teachers or students with divergent opinions were reported.  None will be scheduled.  In especially with four board members running for re-election and depending upon the establishment media to make no waves.