About Surveys

 

In the May 13, 2005 edition of the Lake Spokane News Forum was published the “results” of a survey conducted on behalf of the Nine Mile Falls School District concerning the school district and the district facilities.

 

Several questions come to mind:

 

  1. Who participated in the survey?  Were the calls made randomly or were the calls made from the phone tree list known to exist as a rah-rah club for whatever the district wants?
  2. Were the questions open-ended, ie, unfettered input, or were the questions close-ended, ie, the respondent picks from among the choices given (agree, disagree, no opinion, not sure) which may or may not really reflect his/her thoughts?
  3. Were the answers in the questions?  This is a known tactic of market research companies who are there, after all, to give the one paying the bill the answers wanted.
  4. Were all the results tallied or only those that tended to be more supportive?

 

Surveys are great things for organizations who wish to project a certain persona in the face of adversity.  In 2004 two attempts to pass a bond for almost $8,000,000 failed.  The district now needs to convince the community that the $17,400,000 bond proposed this time around is what the community wants, ie, anyone who asks questions or expects accountability when things don’t add up is just …

 

1.      Anti-school;

2.      Anti-education;

3.      Anti-children;

4.      Anti-community;

5.      Ignorant;

6.      Misinformed;

7.      Mislead;

8.      Not a team player.

 

Never mind that the questions being asked are quite valid and should be quite valid to every taxpayer in the district, that’s beside the point and quite irrelevant.  Thus the letters written by school officials and appearing in the Lake Spokane News Forum attacking and maligning individuals who have asked questions and obviously not gotten answers that correlate with facts known.

 

The letters written by school officials make the definitive statement “we are the experts, how dare you question us”?  Yes, how dare we — the ones paying the salaries of school officials and the costs of building and maintaining the schools — do that!  Just who do we think we are, anyway?  How dare we, indeed!

 

Hey, all you Nine Mile Falls School District voters …. your place in the food chain is to do whatever the all-powerful and all-knowing government wants you to do, just like good little subjects!!!  If you don’t have the money to put food on your table, clothes on your back, gas in your jalopy to make it to and from work, or a roof over your head, too bad, the schools “for the children” come first and must be the most-est and the best-est in order for learning to occur!!  So sit down, shut up, and vote “yes” on May 17, 2005.

 

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