It's really not fair to blame Rigo Chavez

Journal editors took a cheap shot recently, link, at APS Director of Communications and Public Records Custodian Rigo Chavez.

The editors referred to him as "APS spokesman Rigo Chavez, who has mastered the art of answering questions while saying absolutely nothing."

Are the editors really so unsophisticated as to believe that Rigo Chavez decides what questions will and will not be answered by vastly more powerful administrators and school board members?

Rigo Chavez, like every other government public information officer, has a choice.

• He can enjoy a nearly $80K salary and an office high over the city for and from which to answer questions while saying absolutely nothing, or

• he can find another job.

He isn't allowed or expected to be more candid, forthright and honest. 

I don't blame Rigo Chavez for the game he and I are now playing;

• I want to find out what an examiner from the Austin Independent School District was looking for and found in APS Human Resources Dept. and

• Chavez needs to obfuscate that process as much as he can.

Chavez has the public records that I requested in hand.  He says I must come his office if I want to inspect them.  If I do, I will subject myself to possible harassment by the leadership of their publicly funded private police and or by, Executive Director of Communications Monica Armenta, who if she see's me, will accuse me of stalking her.

Chavez wrote;

With regard to your request for “any public records of any communications between the leadership of the APS and Michael Houser, including his colleagues and subordinates at the Austin Independent School District regarding their upcoming investigations of several APS departments,” I have received documents that are responsive to your request. You may call my office at 880-3730 to schedule a mutually agreeable time to review these records.

Should you want copies of any documents located, the district charges $.50 (50 cents) per page.

Chavez could scan records and email them to me.  (full disclosure, Chavez has tried in the past to convince me that he honestly has no access to a scanner - who knows?)

But when I ask him to scan and email the records he refuses.  This isn't our first rodeo; it is "his" practice.

Chavez purports; scanning a hard copy in order to email it, is the same thing as "creating a public record" which he says, the law does not require him to do.  He writes;

With regard to your request that information be provided in an electronic format, I can provide it electronically if it is available. However, you should be aware that under the NM Inspection of Public Records Act, public entities are not required to create documents in response to requests for information: “14-2-8. Procedure for Inspection… B. Nothing in the Inspection of Public Records Act shall be construed to require a public body to create a public record.” Further, according to the “New Mexico Inspection of Public Records Act Compliance Guide (Eighth Edition – 2015 (Page 32))” put out by the New Mexico Attorney General’s Office, “The right to inspect applies to any nonexempt public record that exists at the time of the request. A records custodian or public body is not required to compile information from the public body’s records or otherwise create a new public record in response to a request.”

As ridiculous and indefensible as his actions are, I don't blame Rigo Chavez.  He's stuck between a rock and a hard place; defending his own character and defending a bunch of corrupt and incompetent administrators and school board members.

The truth is, it is the board and senior administrators who want questions answered by saying absolutely nothing.

Journal Editor in Chief Kent Walz

I do blame the Journal editors for acting like it's poor Rigo's fault when they know damn well that he's only taking orders.

The Journal editors are simply too chicken shit and or too corrupt to call out the board and superintendents for their relentless failure to be candid, forthright and honest with stake and interest holders.




photos Mark Bralley

"New Mexico Museum Of Political Corruption"

may be one of the best ideas that blogger Monahan has ever presented, link.

Not only would it be a money maker, but all anyone who believes that their "trust" in politicians and public servants will protect their interests, can tour the museum to be disabused of their boggle.

APS settles for $750,000 and "nobody done nuthin" I'll bet

First and and foremost; the size of the settlement reported in the Journal this morning, link, isn't about what the teacher did, it is about what the leadership of the APS didn't.  And by "leadership" I mean the administration and the school board who sets the tone for the administration of school board policies.

The settlement is huge because the knee jerk leadership response in a case like this:

1. is to cover up the problem 
2. and then export it. (not to protect students at the school, but to protect the school's public image.)

Nowhere in the process, will a stink be made.  Stake and interest holders will not be allowed to find out what was going on at their child's school, and what was (not) being done about it.

The offender, rather than be outed in a stink, is given another chance at another school. If the problem resurfaces, it is covered up again by containing and exporting it.  The "union" is routinely blamed for the outcomes like these, but has never supported it and never will. imo

Most importantly, I'd be willing to bet that somewhere in the settlement, there is an admission of "no guilt" on the part of the administrators and board who knowingly permit and or negligently allow this to go on.

The $750,000 the Journal reported represents only money settled on the plaintiffs. 

The Journal didn't ask or chose to not report on the hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on APS family lawyers and now missing from the operational fund.  Nor did the Journal report on the plaintiffs' attorneys' fees which must be nearly as much.

By the time the dust settles, $1,250,000 will have been spent.  It was spent in meetings in secret without any real oversight and from an unlimited budget.

If the Journal were into truth telling, they would investigate and report upon the number of operational dollars* the leadership of the APS spends on lawyers, litigation and legal weaselry every year.

*Operational dollars are among the dollars that the people entrust to the board in order to educate their children, and that could, should, and would be spent in classrooms, if they were not being spent instead in order to obtain "admissions of no guilt" by administrators and school boards who are guilty beyond any reasonable doubt.

Twenty teacher salaries are gone from the operational fund.

... and nobody done nuthin.

APS discipline data; red herring

In July of this year, APS created a report called Disciplinary Infractions For School Year 2014-2015.  It is not posted on APS' award winning website.   I wouldn't put it past them to have suppressed report while the wheels were coming off the Valentino administration and until the dust settled.

APS produced for, or released to, KOB TV, a copy of the report and KOB followed up with a report of their own link.  I asked KOB whether the district had sent them the report or if KOB had asked for it.  They didn't respond.

The deception begins with the title; it's misleading.  The report is actually of an over-representation of minority students in reports about discipline problems.  The over-representation of minorities appears real (the statistics are unreliable and often invalid) and likely flows from one or both of two springs;

1. minority students actually do break more rules more of the time, and or
2. minority students are disproportionately singled out for prosecution by racist enforcement.

Boys are reported more frequently than girls in every category; and begs the same question; are boys

1. over misbehaving, or is their apparent over misbehaving 
2. a manifestation of enforcement bias?

As you can imagine, the possibilities stir up some passion, but are not really the point.  Either or both are red herring.

The leadership of the APS would like to distract attention from student discipline in general.  The problem we need to keep our eyes on is discipline in general in schools and classrooms.

Student discipline overall, is getting worse every year.
Disruptive students are getting more disruptive and there are more of them.  They're having an increasingly negative effect on the learning by other students. 

Student discipline in APS is getting worse every year.
(I will bow to controverting data.)

If we want to do anything about student discipline problems, we need data.  The data used in the report in question is flawed in a number of ways;

• only the most severe of multiple infractions are recorded and only the most severe were considered in the report.

• in order to create a more manageable format "several infractions have been grouped together" (conflation) and

• there is little consistency in record keeping* (*Oh yes, by the way,  we almost forgot;
  there isn't any real, reliable record keeping going on).

The leadership of the APS doesn't collect data on student discipline, not really.  They never have.  Student discipline is first and foremost an administrative responsibility.  If there is a failure to keep schools under the control of adults, it is an administrative failure.

That administrators don't keep records documenting their failures is not hard to understand; it is human nature.  In the APS, it is encouraged and enabled by a lack of any real consequences for administrators who don't document their problems.

The data they do collect is often conflated to render it useless.  Once, they conflated bullying and vandalism statistics.  Not because one has anything at all to do with the other, but more likely, in order to render bullying statistics meaningless.  APS has bullying problems they would like not to fully acknowledge.

There is a conflict of interest that comes with administrators reporting disruptive behavior.  The more disruptive behavior an administrator reports, the fewer unhappy parents they have to deal with, and the less likely they are to be promoted, and the worse their school looks.

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The APS Executive Director, Office of Accountability and Reporting Rose-Ann McKernan candidly admitted; "It is impossible to address the issues at the heard of school discipline when the information available is based on variable record-keeping." emphasis added

"Variable record-keeping".  You have to love it.  Talk about bureaucratic doublespeak; administrators not doing their jobs, and instead of being held accountable, it is all excused as "variable record-keeping".

Nearly 28,000 reports were made of "generally disorderly conduct"; defiance of school personnel, disrespect, general disruptive conduct, inappropriate or abusive language, conflict with a student, fighting and general violence.

Considering that only a handful of these acts were reported, the real number of disruptions must be higher.  It is much higher.  I wouldn't be surprised it if were five times higher.

So what are we going to do about 150,000 disruptions a year?

We are going to do nothing.  We are going to do nothing because it is impossible to address the issue unless you have good data, and the leadership of the APS, by their own deliberate choice, will not collect that data.

KOB dancing around APS cover ups

KOB TV is leading the local affiliates in coverage, link, of the efforts of APS school board members to keep former APS Supt. Winston Brooks' misconduct secret from stake and interest holders.

KOB's current headline;

4 Investigates: Did APS Board break rules in Brooks investigation?

Well yeah, they did.

There is nothing new to conclude from KOB's "investigation".  Aside from specific examples, they have reported nothing that I haven't been writing for nearly a decade;

APS administrators and school board members are not actually, honestly accountable to meaningful standards of conduct and competence.

KOB is gathering the low hanging fruit.  They could, with just a little more effort, expose the ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS.

The downside for KOB, is that someone is bound to ask;

why didn't you investigate and report on the scandal years ago?

Is there "honest to God accountability" in the leadership of the APS, or not?

Nearly a decade ago, auditors from the Council of the Great City Schools found what they described as a “culture” of fear of retaliation against whistle blower and other complainants.

Nothing has changed.

The premise is easily tested; ask an APS employee at any level;

is there a widespread belief that retaliation will follow filing of a complaint against an administrator?

Their answer will be yes; hell yes.

Whether the belief is justified is moot; perception is reality.
In fact, it is entirely justified.

The test is simple; all you have to do is look at their record (after prying it loose in court). See what they do to complainants.

They're spending millions of operational dollars on litigation and legal weaselry in order to pound complaints into accepting their “admissions of no guilt” in settlements. Filing a complaint against any one of them is a brutal process; ask anyone who has filed one.

Filing a complaint against any one of them is filing a complaint against all of them, and against the APS/litigation industry and all the power and resources they have usurped. They and their lawyers wield power and squander operational dollars without limit and without real oversight.

A culture of fear of retaliation is a useful tool in the hands of the unscrupulous and the powerful; they use it (routinely) to escape accountability for their incompetence and or corruption.

There is no doubt that Winston Brooks created fear of retaliation against complainants. There is no doubt that, rather than admit their hire was deeply flawed, the school board tried to cover it all up.

It is important, in the face of the upcoming bond issue election, to know whether these are isolated instances of incompetence and corruption.

I have argued for decades that they are not. I have argued for decades that administrators and school board members are not actually, honestly accountable to meaningful standards of conduct and competence.

If I am correct;

• it would be reckless of taxpayers to trust their stewardship over another $70M tax dollars. And

• the Journal, according to their obligation to inform the democracy, should expose the ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS.

If I am wrong,

• the Journal should expose the honest accountability to meaningful standards of conduct and competence within politics and public service in APS. 

The Journal should reassure voters that their continued confidence in the stewardship over millions and millions of dollars is justified.

The editors will at some point, take a stance on the APS bond issue election. They will encourage voters to support a shot in the arm for the local education/construction industry.

What they will not do, is to investigate and report upon honest to God accountability in the leadership of the APS.  Why not? What good and ethical justification can there be?

At best, they are complacent about the ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS.

At worst, the Journal editors and or owners, are complicit in its cover up.

APS ethics, standards and accountability scandal coming to light

Coverage in the Journal, link, and on KOB, link, might lead a less cynical person to believe that APS' house of cards; ethics, standards and accountability, is about to collapse.

It isn't really so much what former APS Supt. Winston Brooks did, as it is, how did the school board handle the complaints about what he did.  Allegedly.

None of the nine people who filed legitimate complaints against Winston Brooks found due process for their complaints.

They filed their complaints with then School Board President Analee Maestas.  This though Maestas had no place in any legitimate complaint process; she was personally conflicted and officially powerless to oversee, or in fact even be, part of any complaint resolution process.

What complainants were treated to instead, was a cover up of their complaints while Maestas struggled desperately to "fix" them without acknowledging their existence.

That is their modus operandi; cover up problems while solving them.  It's why they are so pathetically bad at problem solving.

Again, and still, none of this would be going on except that the establishment's press (the owners and news editors and directors at the Journal, KRQE, KOAT, and KOB TV) are complicit in, or at the very best, complacent regarding the ongoing cover up of an ethics, standards and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS.




photos Mark Bralley

Toulouse Oliver demands transparency

Bernalillo County Clerk and
Secretary of State hopeful
Maggie Toulouse Oliver has
joined a long list of politicians
"demanding" more transparency
in state government, link.



In so doing, she becomes only
the latest to demand;

• what is not now and 

• what never has been.

Things are the way they are as the proximate result of human nature; power corrupts and the abuse of power is enabled by a lack of transparency.

There is no reason to believe state legislators will do anything any differently than they always have.  The best predictor of future performance is past and current performance.

Oliver offers no specific plan to address the nature of politicians, except to heighten the demand that it change.

Good luck Ms. Toulouse Oliver;
let us know how things work out.

APS board to ban "sagging". Why?

"Sagging is a manner of wearing trousers or jeans which sag so that the top of the trousers or jeans are significantly below the waist, sometimes revealing much of the underwear." wikilink

Tonight, the school board will approve the Student Dress Procedural Directive, link.  I am assuming it was passed last night during a their policy committee meeting, link; I did not attend.  I am assuming it will pass during the meeting tonight, link.  The procedural directive reads in significant part;

“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.”

This isn't a new policy; sagging has been prohibited on APS campuses for decades.  Enforcement has been a nightmare, link.  If you go to any APS high school, you will see students sagging.  (I will bow as always, to controverting evidence.)

This is not about sagging. 
This is about the permission of prohibited behavior.

The board and senior administration have no intention to enforce the prohibition.  They will do as they have always done; prohibit sagging and then allow and enable it.

This is about telling students they can't do something and then letting them do it anyway, and right under your nose.  This isn't about kids sneaking a smoke behind a building somewhere, it is about a student lighting up and blowing smoke in the faces of adults who told him "smoking is prohibited".

It is in your face defiance.

Who is in charge at these schools; the adults who write the rules or the students who deliberately disobey them?

Students are in charge at any school where kids are permitted to sag.  Students are in charge whenever and wherever they openly disobey rules.

Major stakeholders in any procedural directive requiring enforcement, are teachers.  It is teachers, not administrators and not school board members who bear the brunt of the enforcement burden; instead of teaching!

Had they been asked, they might have advised; without executive and administrative support, enforcement of a dress code is exceedingly difficult, consumes enormous amounts of time and energy, is probably not worth the cost, and not a hill worth dying on in the first place.

All this though the procedural directive reads quite clearly;

Principals shall interpret and enforce the dress code of his/her school. (emphasis added)

The word "interpret" by the way, has its own special meaning for principals.  Every law that gets laid down by the board, comes with a "weasel clause" for administrators use when they want to not enforce a rule.  This particular dress code has it own weasel clauses, but the clearest statement of concept can be found in the Student Behavior Handbook.  It reads in significant part;

Nothing in the following is intended to prevent ... a principal or other administrator from using his/her best judgment with respect to a particular situation. (emphasis added)

A principal or other administrator's "best judgement" is not subject to review.  Whatever the judgement was, however bad, however indefensible, if it was their "best" judgement, it's alright.

The practical effect is that a teacher can bring a student to the office for consequences for their deliberate disobedience of a rule, and the principal can use his or her "best judgement" in providing no consequence.

Why would an an administrator provide no consequence for even deliberate disobedience? 

You aren't allowed to ask that question; "best judgement" is not subject to review. 

If you push it, you end up in a decades long battle battle with an army of lawyers invested in preventing senior administrators and school board members from bearing the consequences of their own deliberate incompetence and corruption.

A lot of people argue mistakenly, that teacher unions protect bad teachers from just consequences.  APS lawyers,

• underwritten by unlimited access to operational funds 
• to spend without any real oversight, 
• on litigation and legal weaselry, 

provide an equivalent service to board members and senior administrators; they keep incompetent and corrupt administrators and board members from feeling just consequences.

Nothing has changed.  After everything that has happened in the last year, nothing has changed.  The board remains oblivious to anyone but themselves.

State Auditor cites APS, Mora and Española schools districts for vetting failures.

"Today, the Office of the State Auditor (OSA) issued a statewide Risk Advisory, link, to alert schools and school districts to the risks of non-compliance with the School Personnel Act. The Act covers two key safeguards related to the professionals who educate the children of New Mexico: licensure and background checks. The Risk Advisory provides notice to management and administrators to review internal controls to ensure proper policies are implemented."

“Our state has seen problems with background checks and licenses in school districts in Albuquerque, Mora and Española,” said State Auditor Tim Keller. “Schools need to come into compliance to ensure the safety of children and educators, as well as to safeguard public funds.”

The question is not so much, is APS failing to properly vet employees, but why?  Why after nearly a hundred years in business, why isn't APS getting it right; why can't APS get it right?

Who dropped the ball?

Whose head should roll?

What will be their consequence instead?

Ball is in Reedy's court - we await her response

By way of background;

aps image

Interim APS Supt. Raquel Reedy
is in a bind.  She has inherited a
whole bunch of problems up to
and including a cover up of a
cover up of felony criminal
misconduct involving APS senior
administrators and the leadership
of their publicly funded private police force.

Because there is so much secrecy surrounding problems in leadership of the APS, even Reedy really has no idea how bad things actually are.  She admitted as much to the Journal, link;

“I don’t have the whole picture – nobody does.”

Reedy needs to know the truth even if only to help her hide it more effectively.

aisd photo

So she "hired" former APS good ol' boy Michael Houser and a couple of his subordinates to come and "investigate".

In the absence of any evidence to the contrary; Houser's investigative findings are to become "the property" of the leadership of the APS.  They will disseminate them according to their own interests.

If the findings are embarrassing, shaming or indicting, the leadership of the APS will spend operational funds without limit and without real oversight, on litigation and legal weaselry in order to keep the records hidden until their relevance expires.

That is is exactly what they did with the findings and evidence of felony corruption in the leadership of their police force, link.  They hid public records behind an army of lawyers until statutes of limitation finally expired on felony criminal misconduct.

In any event, the Journal editors called bullshit on Reedy's plan in an editorial yesterday; link.

The ball is in Reedy's court; the editors have called her out.  She has only two choices; respond to their call or ignore it; change her plan or plunge ahead with it as is.

Reedy has no choice but to plunge ahead with an investigation that reeks of appearances of conflicts of interests and impropriety.  She has no choice because she has to do some kind of investigation and a real investigation by independent investigators would bring down their house of cards.

Reedy can only afford to "hire" an investigator who is willing keep what they find secret from stake and interest holders.

I expect that what she and the leadership of the APS will do, is to simply ignore the editorial.

I expect that what the editors will do, is to simply ignore her ignoring them.

Else, they would be order up an investigation and report of their own, on ethics, standards and accountability in the leadership of the APS.

Who wrote this morning's Journal editorial; what have they done with editors?

In the Journal this morning, link, someone wrote an exposé of circumstances you first read about here last Thursday;  APS wants to "hire" one of their old good ole boys to investigate their current incompetence and corruption*.

*Whatever it is that is wrong with the leadership of the APS, flows from one or both of two wells;

1. incompetence; misfeasance; people not knowing how to do their jobs, and or
2. corruption; non or malfeasance, people choosing to not do their jobs.

The 100% effective cure for incompetence and corruption is high standards and honest to God accountability to them.

The are only two kinds of circumstances leading to success or failure in any endeavor;

1. circumstances beyond control, and
2. circumstances within control.

By definition, we cannot do anything about the circumstances beyond control.  By definition, we can do something about circumstances within our control.  There are no two circumstances within our control that are more important than standards and accountability.

If the standards of conduct and competence are high enough, and if people are held actually and honestly accountable to them, their endeavor will succeed.  If the standards are too low, or if they are not really accountable to meaningful standards, the endeavor will fail.  It is that simple.

That the leadership of the APS refuses even to talk about their ethics, standards and accountability is "proof" of problems with one or all three.  Problems so bad, so embarrassing, shaming or indicting, that they need to keep them secret from stake and interest holders.

That the Journal is yet assign a competent reporter to investigate and report upon ethics, standards and accountability in the leadership of the APS is I believe, "proof" that Kent Walz and the Journal are part of the cover up of the ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS.




photo Mark Bralley

A broken clock on occasion tells the truth ...

APS photo

and so did the Journal this morning, link, when they reported that APS interim Supt. Raquel Reedy, despite her many, many years in the leadership of the APS, has hired an "independent investigator" to clue her in on "unspecified" problems in the leadership of the APS.

Not the entire leadership of the APS mind you, just the finance, information technology and human resources offices.

Reedy will see the investigative results I assume.  A small handful of others will be "read in" to varying degrees on a need to know basis.

Stake and interest holders will remain uniformed of anything - unless they stumble onto something that looks like good; real standards and honest accountability.

AISD photo

Reedy has "hired" to investigate
on her behalf, ex-APS good ol' boy,
Michael Houser.

Houser is the Chief Human Capital
Officer for Austin Independent
School District, link.

They're all tied together by the Council of the Great City Schools, an organization that among other things, conducts investigations for member districts whenever they need investigations and control over the findings.

Nobody likes to hear, "I told you so". But I did.

For nearly a decade, I have been writing that there are standards and accountability issues in the leadership of the APS, and by logical extension and for the same reasons, standards and accountability issues in all levels of government in general.

There is now corroboration of those allegations.  A study indicating a situation so bad, even the Journal is reporting on it, link.  A far better report was penned by one time NM FOG Executive Director and journalist Gwyneth Doland, link, on NM Politics in Depth.

Power (whether earned or usurped) and accountability vary inversely;

the more powerful you are,
the less accountable to the rules you become.

As but one example; there really are too many too count;

a local (former) school board member, Marty Esquivel, has managed to spend nearly three quarters of a million dollars in litigation and legal weaselry in federal court already, in what amounts to a non-viable defense of his and a communication directors' egos, and is not finished spending still.

Politicians and public servants are not honestly accountable to meaningful standards of conduct and competence, even within their public service, by their own deliberate choice.

To believe that the situation is going to be fixed by
the people to created and maintain it is absurd.

Is upcoming APS Supt. Reedy able to create a synergy?

Over the next few months, the APS school board will be out and about, "gathering input" from anyone who chooses to attend one of the "input gathering meetings" they will conduct.  There is no evidence of which I am aware, that they ever used any of this input during the in-secret meetings that characterize the actual selection procedure.

Nevertheless, a list will be created, of all the qualities and traits the next superintendent will possess.

At the top of the list, should be the demonstrated ability to create a synergy in response to a problem.

The leadership of the APS isn't good at problem solving because they still believe in the manifestly ludicrous assumption that there are only a handful of people who know how to solve problems, and all you have to do is to hire one of them as a superintendent.

There is no magic, there are no magicians.  There is no problem a child can have, that there is not someone in the APS already, who knows how to best mitigate.  

Ask anyone in the know, and you will be find that in the APS there are a great number of people who have the education, training and experience to create and execute solutions to the problems they face in educating children.  Among "teachers" alone, there is nearly 100,000 years of ongoing teaching and learning experience.

What those people have never had in a superintendent, is someone who could (or would) bring them together and empower them to make changes.  They've never had a supt. who could or would create a "synergy" among stake and interest holders;

• a cooperative interaction among groups for an enhanced combined effect.

• an interaction of elements that produce a total effect greater than the sum of the individual elements and contributions; and a

• a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects.

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Has APS Supt. heir apparent Raquel Reedy ever created a synergy on the scale of a school district?

Could she, if given the chance?

Would she, if given the chance?

Until she demonstrates otherwise,
a reasoned assumption would be
that she got where she is in the
leadership of the APS for a reason.

The leadership of the APS is not about creating synergies.  Synergies sap control over power from board members and senior administrators, and restores it to the people who know best how to employ it.

It's all about hanging on to power.

Reedy cannot or will not* create a synergy in response to the district's failing performance.

*A reasonable assumption unless and until she proves otherwise.

Is it just me, or

is blogger Joe Monahan a little crotchety lately?

Tuesday he reamed APD Chief Gordon Eden; called him a poseur.  I bit on poseur, and found;

a person who pretends to be what he or she is not ...

and wondered who of them isn't posing?

The only thing I would add to Eden's evaluation is that he doesn't have the support of the people he "leads".  They're not being led, they're following orders; a distinction and a difference.

I would point to the need for a survey of the rank and file; every last one of them.  We need to know what they think is wrong and how they think it needs to be fixed.  I doubt that their legitimate concerns over compensation are the only problems they would identify.  Is their education, training and experience of no account what so ever?  In whose interests are subordinates not surveyed?

photo GACC website

This morning, Monahan let the Greater Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce and its perpetual President and CEO Teri Cole experience what looks like his own growing frustration with the never ending bullshit that politics and government have turned out to be - my words, not his.




Monahan photo Mark Bralley

Of what use is the truth if you're too afraid of it to consider it?

There is a truth about ethics, standards and accountability in the leadership of the Albuquerque Public Schools.  It is an important truth because the only protection of the public interests in the public schools are the standards of conduct and competence that apply to the politicians, public servants and their stewardship of the people's power and resources.

That truth could be found by independent examiners.  They could identify every ethic and standard that applies to public service in the APS.  They could identify the processes by which administrators and school board members can be held accountable to those ethics and standards.  They could evaluate the effectiveness of those processes.

The truth they determine will make the leadership of the APS look good, bad, or somewhere in between.

If the truth would make them look good, or even not too bad, they would be pointing to it.

It is because the truth, that there are no ethics or standards to which they are actually and honestly accountable, looks very, very bad, that they need to hide it.

If interim APS Supt. Raquel Reedy is to solve the problems vexing the leadership of the APS, shouldn't she have a really good picture of what they are?

If we are to hold her and the board accountable for their conduct and competence, needn't we have a really good picture as well?

Is Reedy ready?

aps image

All we know about interim APS Supt. Raquel Reedy so far is that she has what it takes to get promoted to the top of APS' good ol' boy oligarchy.

We don't know for example, whether she's willing and able to be candid, forthright and honest with stake and interest holders. We don't know if she will respond in good faith to legitimate questions about the APS.

Is Reedy ready for example, answer a question that no APS supt. has answered, ever?

Is she ready to look us in the eye and promise;
to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the (ethically redacted) truth about the public interests and her public service?

Any answer except yes, means no.

First test question;

APS students are expected to model and promote honest accountability to nationally recognized, accepted and respected code of ethical conduct.

As the senior-most administrative role model of student standards of conduct, will you show them what honest accountability to those standards looks like?

Will you be held honestly accountable to the same standards of conduct that you establish and enforce upon students?

When the question is;

are you willing to be held honestly accountable as the senior-most administrative role model of student standards of conduct?

any answer except yes means no. There is no such thing as an inconspicuous role model; a concept that continues to elude the senior-most executive role models of student standards of conduct; the school board.

Or will you join the rest in spending operational funds hand over fist; without limit and without real oversight, on litigation and legal weaselry to avoid honest to God accountability even to the law; buying “admissions of no guilt” for violating the lowest standards of conduct acceptable to civilized human beings?

Any answer except yes, means no.

Spinning the PARCC results

PARCC test results are finally becoming available.  The "prediction"  from the NM PED and Secretary Hanna Skandera, that the results would be disturbing, has come true.

The upset will be addressed with a poultice of spin and distraction.  Forgotten will be the bottom line; most students are doing poorly in public schools and do more poorly every year - and not because "standards are being raised".

Wherever it is we find ourselves in the effort to educate children, we were led here.  We were not led here by teachers and others who work at the educational interface; where the system and the students meet face to face; the classroom.  We we not led here by those who really know what they're doing.  We were led here by supposed education experts who may or may not have any real, honest to God, teaching experience.

The focus will be deflected from those led us in the wrong direction, and placed on those who were (mis)led.  Teachers will be held responsible for the failure to "properly" implement the latest fad passed down from the supposed experts.

If the PARCC results show any thing at all, it is that decision making needs to include the people who are supposed to implement changes; in particular if those people are the most educated and experienced people at the table.

APS; "... (the defendants) have hired an army of lawyers."

A development like that might come as a surprise to some.
It will not come as any surprise at all to anyone who has filed a complaint against a senior APS administrator or school board member.

The Journal comes this morning, link, with a report including perhaps the most telling eight words the Journal has ever printed about the leadership of the APS;

"... (the defendants) have hired an army of lawyers."

I'm sure it must have been an accident.  I posted this comment;

There is an expression about keeping one's eye on the ball. The Journal has (unwittingly) dropped "the ball" into a front page story;

"(APS) ... (the defendants) have hired an army of lawyers".

Full disclosure; those are not the Journal's words and I had to take them out of context to cut and paste them. Nevertheless, the Journal has mentioned APS "legal" defense tactics; one of which is to hire "armies of lawyers" to provide "cost is no object" legal defenses underwritten by "operational" funds. Operational dollars are dollars that would actually be spent in classrooms, were they not being squandered in courtrooms.

The ball; the underlying issue; the fundamental failure is that politicians and public servants, in this case school board members and superintendents without any real oversight. "Subordinate oversight" is not oversight; it is an oxymoron.

They and the law "allow" (as opposed to "require") them to spend unlimited amounts of operational dollars on their own defenses. They discuss and approve it all in meetings they hold in secret and relentlessly refuse to record.

They spend, if they want, on litigation and legal weaselry against the public interests. They spend in violation of the first ethic in their code of ethics;to spend ... in the best interests of students" Their code of ethics is of course, utterly unenforceable, by their own deliberate choice.

They spend until they have spent enough to make their problem go away, or at least until they have spent enough to but "admissions of no guilt"; the opportunity to take their name and guilt out of the settlement. Even for those who are guilty beyond reasonable doubt. All it takes is power. Power and or unlimited access to money that can be spent in secret from the people whose money it was.

This will be the last time the Journal drops the ball.

Not only will they never again mention the "army of lawyers" serving not justice, but rather and instead, the personal interests of school board members and superintendents, they will never investigate and report upon the millions of operational dollars the "leadership" of the APS spends every year to escape the legal consequences of their individual and collective incompetence and corruption.

It isn't newsworthy, apparently, not even in the face of a bond issue election worth millions more dollars.

Somewhere in the Journal, if you go looking for it, you will find them wondering why people don't vote in school board elections. You will not find "the ball" mentioned anywhere, nor will you find any investigation and report on ethics, standards and accountability in the leadership of the APS - good or bad.

Do APS students get manhandled?

There is in the news, a story about a student being manhandled by a police officer.

It would be a shame if the outrage felt when watching the video of the arrest, ends the interest in a case in point and more importantly; the circumstances that routinely create levels of frustration that manifest themselves in "out of control behavior".

Whether it is by self control or other control,
behavior is either under control or out of control.

One person's out of control does not justify out of control behavior in another person.  Just because the student was out of control, the police officer's out of control remains unjustified.  Understandable maybe, but unjustified.

A student's out of control behavior is causal.
A student's out of control behavior determines, at least in part, the outcome of the inevitable confrontation with whomever is trying to exercise the authority they have been given to maintain order in their classrooms and schools.

The police officer's out of control is not the issue.
The issue is the circumstances that led to the confrontation.
The student's behavior was out of the control of those (adults) with the power or right to give orders, make decisions, and enforce obedience.  The situation spun out of control because the people in authority hadn't the power to influence or direct the students behavior or the course of events.
 
The circumstances are; teachers have "authority" over students,
but not the power to enforce that authority.

Having authority and being in charge are not the same.
Teachers have the authority to ban cell phone use during class; they haven't the power to make students obey the rule.  Students are out of control.

Not all of them and not all of the time, but most of them
some of the time and, some of them most of the time.

In every school, in every class room, there are students who deliberately break rules. For whatever reasons within or beyond their own control, there are out of control students in classrooms and schools and breaking rules.

Inevitably then, there will come a confrontation;
the teacher tells an out of control student to put their phone away and
the out of control student's response means "no".

1.   "Put your phone away." the teacher says.

2.  "No." the student responds.

At moment, class is disrupted.

Other students will stop doing what they're supposed to be doing and start attending to their friend's confrontation with the fun spoiler.  A few will climb on desks or tables to get a better cell phone camera shot to post on Facebook or maybe, national news. Up to that point only the teacher's and student's time was being wasted; now the entire class has stopped doing what they were supposed to be doing and are instead, attending to the confrontation.  Learning has ground to a halt.

Whatever else, it is a shame that teachers and police officers find themselves in circumstances where, despite their legitimate and manifest authority, they have no power to influence behavior (apparently) except by roughly dragging or pushing out of control students.

Out of control students are not a teacher's responsibility.
They are an administrative responsibility.

Teachers should be busy teaching and not with dealing with (chronically) disruptive students.

Sure, children disrupt spontaneously on occasion as a manifestation of their human nature.  Those disruptions should be handled by the adult in the room.  But when the response means no; when the disobedience is deliberate, when the authority has been rejected, the responsibility moves out of the classroom and into the principal's office.  There to receive appropriate interventions including, at least in my opinion, punishment.

Such is not the situation in the APS.  The administrative and executive response to chronically disobedient students is to put them right back in the classroom*.

*This is a story the Journal could investigate and report upon.  They won't of course, because the handling of chronically disruptive students is an example of administrative and executive incompetence, and the Journal, as matter of course, stays away from senior administrative and executive incompetence and corruption investigations

How does APS deal with chronically disruptive students?


You have to pay some attention to the fact that nobody, and I mean nobody, is even suggesting that student discipline and behavior is APS classrooms and schools is improving.  They will continue to let the assumption remain that things are under control and to the extent things are out of control, it is the failure of the adults in the classroom. The onus to create and maintain discipline is upon teachers from whom, they have stripped the power necessary to enforce what little authority they have.

It makes a difference, from an educational standpoint,
who is "in charge" in the classroom.  The person "in charge" in any situation, is not the person who establishes the expectation; it is the person who decides to not meet that expectation.

To the extent that students are in charge in classrooms and schools, the educational effectiveness and efficiency of those classrooms and school ill be diminished.

Test results correlate (logically) with the out of control in students individually and collectively, (however it is you want to collect them).


There are students whose record is of chronic disruption of classes by and because of their out of control behavior.  The record is of the failure of the leadership of the APS to prevent even chronic disruptions.

It follows then that there will be confrontations between teachers and students and that some of those confrontations will escalate to the point where the weaker of the two gets manhandled.

So do APS students (and adults) get manhandled?

My money is on yes; there are students in the APS who get manhandled by adults.  And there will continue to be for as long as adults have authority over students, but not power and control.

APS' cover up of the Moya accident; whose bright idea was it?

If KOB TV reporter Caleb James' report, link, is accurate, a senior APS administrator was involved in a chargeable traffic accident in a company car.  Unclear at this point; whether the accident happened on company time because James/KOB did not post the police report they flashed on.  At this point, if you want to see the report yourself, you'll have to go down town and buy your own copy.

James/KOB did not report the time of day of the accident, so it's still unclear whether the administrator was on company time, at the time.

In the days and years following the accident, someone somewhere in the leadership of the APS made a decision regarding the accident and all of the subsequent legal machinations; whether to inform stake and interest holders.

The last fist that pounded the table belonged to someone who decided to keep it all secret.

If James were to try to find out who decided how to handle the incident from a public relations standpoint; who decided that the word would be "mum", he, or any other reporter, would find no one willing to defend, deny or even acknowledge that the decision had been made.  After enough time for a phone call or two from the top of the twins to the news director/station owner, the reporter would receive would be a a memo from the news director; "find something else to report on".

The person who made that decision casts a big shadow in the public relations world.

I would suppose that the decision was made at the most senior level of APS' million dollar a year PR effort.

The senior-most administrator, although she would rather be called "an APS spokeswoman", gets paid (a lot) to be the APS Executive Director of Communications.  She is Monica Armenta.

Armenta, after noticing that
her photo was being taken by
by photo/journ Mark Bralley,
put on a show with Maes.

Armenta, and former APS School Board heavy hitter, current NM Broadcasters Assoc President Paula Maes, have enough influence over the NMBA affiliates, that they don't let their reporters dig around in APS administrative and executive incompetence and corruption.

Everyone of them knows that the leadership of the APS is covering up a cover up of felony criminal misconduct in the leadership of their publicly funded private police force.  The Journal exposed it, link, and then let them get away with covering it up.  To this day, none of them will report that the board is spending operational dollars on litigation and legal weaselry to keep public records of investigative findings secret from public knowledge.




photo Mark Bralley

Did APS cover up Moya's auto accident?

KOB TV comes tonight, link, with a report on an automobile accident involving former APS CFO Don Moya.

I would argue that APS covered up the accident.  They were none of; candid, forthright nor honest with stake and interest holders in reporting the loss to them.

They might have an alternate take.  Likely it will be based on the fact that hiding the truth was "legal".

The APS board will meet in secret Friday morning next, link, to decide what they are going to do about the whistle blower complaint, link, Moya has filed against them.

Donald Moya, Plaintiff, v. the Board of Education of the Albuquerque Public Schools, Luis Valentino, in his official capacity as Superintendent of the Albuquerque Public Schools, and Hanna Skandera, in her individual capacity, Defendants - Number D-101-CV-2015-1940 (Discussion Action)

photo Mark Bralley

Valentino, and the board, are ready to "move on".

"Time to move on" is APS speak for "never mind the corruption and or incompetence you just witnessed, we're going to do better".

Except that they won't. There will be future incompetence and corruption because when they "move on", it is always before anyone is held actually, honestly accountable for what they just did or didn't do; the quality of their public service.

Even when they break the law, they are not accountable. They spend millions of dollars on litigation and legal weaselry in exchange for "admissions of no guilt" even when they are guilty beyond any reasonable doubt.

Nothing will change because nothing has changed. The Journal is still printing drivel, link;

"“In the end I wish APS well,” (Valentino) wrote in conclusion."

and refusing to investigate and report upon (the) ethics, standards and accountability (crisis) in the leadership of the APS.

Why are the ethics and standards that govern public service in the public schools, and the actual, honest to God accountability to them not newsworthy in anticipation of a bond issue election worth millions of dollars?

The APS Board of Education has a Code of Ethics, to which they are utterly unaccountable.

The Journal could ask them to explain, why not?
They won't.

They could ask them to explain why nearly three quarters of a millions dollars have been squandered in federal court defense of a board member and public relations hacks' egos.

They won't.
Why not?

Squeaky clean Arnold-Jones perfect for Secretary of State.

Blogger Monahan came this morning with news that former NM State Representative Janice Arnold-Jones' name is in the mix to replace former NM SOS Dianna Duran.

When  Janice Arnold-Jones was running for governor, I wrote of her character, courage, competence, and grace, link; none of which has diminished in the interim, in the least.

There is no one more able to restore voters' confidence in the Secretary of State's Office than the highly qualified and squeaky clean Janice Arnold-Jones.


photo Mark Bralley

Abq Journal; having no defense, stays in hiding over APS crisis

Undisputed facts;

1. The APS Board of Education has a Code of Ethics, and 

2. that code is completely unenforceable.

These facts have been known to the Journal for some time.

The “Journal” made a deliberate decision nearly a decade ago, to not investigate and report upon those facts; to not inform the democracy.

In the face of a bond issue worth who knows how many millions dollars, let us not pretend that those facts are not "newsworthy" by any reasonable definition.

Why will they go unreported  in, and un-examined by the Journal?

Yet to be disputed allegation;

The “Journal” has not and will not investigate and report upon self-evident proof of an historical and ongoing ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS because

1. The “Journal” lacks the courage to report on the crisis, and or, 

2. The “Journal” lacks the character to investigate and report upon the crisis.

No third reason has been suggested; no denial, no defense, not even acknowledgement of their refusal.  I can think of a number of reasons why I, if I were them, might want to respond to allegations that their refusal to investigate and report upon the ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS stems from their own lack of character and or courage.

If the “Journal” can think of even one reason of their own to mount any defense of their character and courage, a ready and complete defense could not be easier to provide; all they have to do is point to just one alternate explanation for their refusal.

Because that alternate explanation does not exist, they will resort instead to the only defense of indefensible positions; it must be hidden. They will continue to hide their position; their cowardice and their corruption.

Why does the APS School Board have a code of ethics?

At some point, the APS board of education invested a lot of their time and our money in the creation of a code of ethics.

Considering the public resources they invested in writing it, and considering the implications of codes of ethics in general, it is fair to ask, why?  Why do they have have a code of ethics?

Codes of ethics in general serve one of two purposes;

1. they provide higher standards of conduct to which adopters are then held accountable, or
2. they are written and published to create the appearance of accountability to higher standards of conduct.

The APS School Board is, by their own free admission, utterly unaccountable to their own code of ethics.  There is no venue anywhere, where a complaint can filed and where that complaint is guaranteed due process.

The ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS remains secret from stake and interest holders because Journal Editor in Chief Kent Walz*  too, is utterly unaccountable to any code of ethics.  To the contrary, he is actually being celebrated for his lifetime achievements; incredibly including his part in covering up the ethics, standards and accountability scandal in the leadership of the APS.

*He and his counterparts at former school board heavy hitter Paula Maes' NM Broadcasters Assoc affiliate stations KRQE, KOAT, and KOB TV,

Mum's the word, again.

A forensic audit is underway, of APS' handling of some of the more than a billion tax dollars over which they are stewards.

Forensic;

applying scientific methods and techniques
to the investigation of crime

The audit is of self-evident interest to APS' stake and interest holders as "the crime(s)" in question, would involve dollars they have entrusted to the leadership of the APS in order to help educate their children.

It isn't so much that the word is mum for now; there are good and ethical reasons for at least temporary secrecy.  The findings will not be temporarily secret; they will remain secret forever*.

*The audit and its findings are being done under conditions that will enable the school board to keep the findings secret for as long as it suits their interests.  They have unlimited resources which they can spend without any real oversight*, on litigation and legal weaselry to effect that outcome.  *Subordinate oversight is not oversight; it is an oxymoron.

Anyone who doesn't believe that, simply needs to examine the circumstances that have allowed former APS school board enforcer Marty Esquivel to continue to spend nearly $750K in an ongoing and non-viable defense of his ego; even though he is no longer on the board.

He is still good enough friends with Journal Editor in Chief Kent Walz, that the Journal won't investigate and report upon his squandering of public trust and treasure.  

Nor will Walz and the Journal investigate and report upon the ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS that is the basis for all of these problems, and which Esquivel and the board need so desperately to hide. 




photos Mark Bralley

APS needs complete physical; Journal editors will settle for a proctoscopy

In the Journal this morning, the editors point to a need to audit APS' financial division.  While there are more than enough reasons for such an audit, there are as many reasons to examine and review standards and accountability in every department.

The district wide lack of ethics, standards and accountability is a fundamental problem in APS and auditing one department is a woefully inadequate response that will only enable more incompetence and more corruption.

As but one example; the manifestly necessary audit is of APS' abuse of the operational fund to underwrite "cost is no object" legal defenses of school board members and senior administrators and the subsequent purchase of "admissions of no guilt" despite their guilt beyond any reasonable doubt.

Journal editors; "And that is something taxpayers should be blowing the whistle on."

In the Journal this morning, link, the editors come with decades late umbrage over the fact that APS administrators are kept in positions of responsibility and authority despite their irresponsibility; that the district wrongly protects them from the consequences of their incompetence and or corruption.

The editors feign outrage upon learning that though there is a legitimate need to not comment on incidents until the facts are known,
"As is often the case at APS, mum’s the word."
for far beyond what can be ethically justified.  They hide the truth for as long as they can, even by means of expensive legal weaselry and litigation against the public interests.

The wheat buried in the editorial chaff is this; because the leadership of the APS

• "... retaliates against employees who try to report unacceptable conduct ..." 

• "... students and staff at multiple schools can now deal with drama that simply should not have been allowed to drag on."

The editors wonder in print;

• if  the allegations are true and 

• if APS considers a principal showing up drunk to be inappropriate.

Instead of sending reporters to investigate and report on an ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS, the editors have decided;

"... that is something taxpayers should be blowing the whistle on." 

on their own.

Thanks editors; for doing your part in informing the democracy.

APS battling new retaliation claim but that's only the tip of the ice berg.

The NM Political Report's Joey Peters comes with a report, link, on a complaint filed in State District Court against APS.

Nothing new; allegations of retaliation against someone who filed complaints against a principal.  Although it is astonishing that the problem got as bad as it did without being addressed until the union started making waves.

Peters' investigation and report on the "fear of retaliation" aspect of his report was limited to Hoover Middle School. 

Had he, or if he, broadened his investigation, he would find that the fear of retaliation is district wide.. The board and senior administration have known or should have known about it for years and they have done nothing substantive to allay the fear.  They established a waste, fraud and abuse whistleblower hot line, but it has from it's inception been waste, fraud and abuse of its own, link.

APS' next Superintendent; one like RRPS' Supt. Sue Cleveland?

RRPS photo

KOB TV has run an interview with
Rio Rancho Public Schools Supt.
Sue Cleveland, link.

Cleveland, link, has been the Supt.
since the district was formed in 1994.

APS could do worse.

In fact they have done worse; a whole
lot worse, and over and over and over.

Perhaps, now that they're back from their California junket,  they could spend some time getting know Sue Cleveland and what a really good superintendent looks like.

Journal editors shake APS' (money) tree

In the Journal this morning, an editorial, link, decrying spending by the APS school board.  The Journal editors asked on behalf of stake and interest holders;

what they are paying for and why?

concluding that it looks like they're paying for a lot of nothing, or a lot of nothing more.

Real "news" found it's way into the editorial.

Reported no where else in the Journal;

"... acting Superintendent Raquel Reedy has no public comment on the something-for-nothing Moya controversy, board president Don Duran (who as an elected official supposedly represents the public) no longer answers requests for comment but occasionally reads a prepared statement.

They complain about APS spokesman Rigo Chavez, "... who has mastered the art of answering questions while saying absolutely nothing ..." and fail to point out that Chavez is only following orders.

The interest in answering questions while saying nothing belongs to school board members and senior administrators.

APS photo

The editors complain that Supt. Rachel Reedy is being less than candid, forthright and honest with stake and interest holders, why is no one of them assigning a reporter to investigate and report on why?

The editors have the power and resources to follow their feeling and insist on good faith responses to legitimate questions about the public interests in the public schools, but do not. 

As brave as they are able;

... it would be interesting to hear what anyone in a leadership position has to say about the district’s largesse ...

I blame the Journal's Editor in Chief Kent Walz.

He and they write;
To deserve that vote of fiscal confidence, district leaders need to first be accountable for their personnel expenses.

To deserve reader confidence,
Walz et al need to establish their own accountability by investigating and reporting on the real problems in the leadership of the APS.

They need to stop covering for their friends.

He and they have allowed their personal allegiances to board members to trump their obligations to stake and interest holders and informing the democracy.




photos Mark Bralley

The cure for voter indifference is transparent accountability.

For whatever individual and collective reasons voters did not vote Tuesday and may never again, the net result is that decision making is now in the hands of fewer proportionally more powerful politicians and public servants.

It is too late I'm afraid, to expect to fix the system by means of the system.  We can't elect anybody and reasonably expect that they will be able to change anything. 

People cannot be elected who will restore control to the people, over the spending of their power and their resources.  It's just not the way that usurpation of power works; usurped power is never simply just "given" back.

In the struggle over the truth Politicians and public servants have as their champions,

an eloquence of lawyers happy to litigate in the interests of politicians and public servants even against the public interests.

The people have as their champions

a relatively small handful of people who vote, attend meetings, ask questions, and in general dig for the truth and accompanied by an even smaller handful of real "press".

The champions face to face are grossly unmatched;

Entire law firms underwritten by nearly limitless spending against the public interests, often in secret and without real oversight, on litigation and legal weaselry in order to escape the consequences of their incompetence and corruption,

v.

a few dozen people, most of whom have neither the resources not the inclination to engage in years long legal battles over public records and access to meetings.

... David versus Goliath if ever there were.

Goliath has to support him, current law based on a fundamental misassumption;

the truth belongs to the politicians and public servants who possess it; 

and because possession is 9/10ths of the law, it will remain in their possession unless and until it is pried loose court.

The truth is; the assumption should be;

the truth belongs to the people 

and will be made available to them in a timely manner. 
The onus rightly should fall on politicians and public servants to prove that they have a legitimate need to secret it.

Public records and meeting access should never be in the sole possession of powerful people who might have selfish reasons to hide or deny them.  There is the appearance of conflicting interests. 

It would be mindbogglingly naive to think that the legislators are going to go to Santa Fe in January to write and pass legislation that will see them as actually, honestly and transparently accountable to the people, as the law will allow.

Perhaps it is equally naive to believe that a bill could be written, that would make state government as transparently accountable to the people as it will ever be,  And further that that bill could be carried to Santa Fe in person by enough people to see it passed as the second order of business.

But, unless anyone has a better idea,
what have we got to lose?

The Journal got around to this, this morning;

APS CFO Don Moya

a re-hash, link, of a story you might have read nearly two months ago, link, about the operational dollars being wasted while another APS senior administrator remains on administrative leave under suspicious circumstances; (Michael Vigil, Gil Lovato, Steve Tellez, and who know how many others.)

I posted a comment on their report for their and their readers consideration.

The one thing you can count on is that we will never know the truth about the squandering of our trust and treasure. There will never be a candid, forthright and honest accounting of the misspending of our power and resources.

There's only one reason to hide the truth; to escape the consequences of the truth being known. The "leadership" of the APS will continue to hide the truth in their own self interests.

The Journal will continue to refuse to investigate and report upon the underlying and causal ethics, standards and accountability crisis in the leadership of the APS, for reasons yet to be articulated.

The Journal's immediate problem, in the face of APS trying to float a bond issue in a couple of months, it's newsworthy as hell either way.

Either there are in place, ethics and standards high enough, and accountability inescapable enough to protect the public interests in the public schools, or there are not.

Stake and interest holders deserve the truth; the whole truth and nothing but the truth about the spending of power and resources belonging fundamentally to the people.

The Journal is yet to honor its obligation to inform the democracy in anticipation of that election.




photo Mark Bralley

Despite panning; APS board sailing off to Long Beach

If nothing else the Albuquerque Public School Board of Education is resilient.

Days after a major ass-handing in a Journal survey, link, and a month after their superintendent's debacle, the board has decided to cancel their next regular board meeting and public forum.  Instead, link, they will be attending a Council of the Great City Schools Conference, link, in Long Beach California.



They are somewhat obliged to attend.  Because they sponsored a similar conference, link, and expected other bigwigs to attend their gala; they now are obliged to be the bigwigs in attendance at theirs.

The way it apparently works is;

if a superintendent and school board somewhere can put on a conference for the CoGCS, the supt. gets to be the CoGCS "Chair" for a year.  Former APS Supt. Winston Brooks was "elected" the same year he and APS public relations staged their fall conference.

It looks great on everybody's resumes, but is otherwise just another junket, link.

You know it's a junket because when they get back,

1. they can never tell you what they learned there, and that
2. they should not have known already.

When it comes to public school education,
there is no magic and there are no magicians.

If there were, we would know about them and instead of the board traipsing off to Long Beach in search of their illumination, they could simply be brought here to teach everybody.