Floyd County Georgia

SAVE OUR SUMMERS / SAVE OUR SCHOOLS!

Knowing that year-round education (YRE) does not raise academic achievement, how might an administration go about convincing the board to implement it anyway?

Manipulate public opinion.

Since there is no evidence that year-round education improves test scores, rather, the evidence says that it makes no difference either way, it seems to be a common practice for administrations to "survey" the community in order to give the illusion of support for YRE to the board.

By holding presentations and immediately surveying the attendees before they have an opportunity to digest the information, the YRE advocates are skewing the survey results in their favor.  The survey form itself has many flaws which will have the effect of making the results easily manipulated.

Another method of skewing survey results is to make it more difficult to obtain information. One way to do this is to give the subject a different name. Your superintendent is proposing year-round school. Why not call it that?  Because "Modified Calendar" sounds like something else, less extreme. It is also harder to find information on "Modified Calendar" than it is to find information on "year-round school" or its proper name, "year-round education."  And you know that someone will inevitably make a comparison between year-round school and modified calendars, thereby suggesting to the uninformed reader that they are different things.

If those advocating year-round school wanted a legitimate survey with accurate results, wouldn't it be more efficient for them (the school district) to put out fair, balanced, and complete information especially in light of the fact that your tax dollars are funding the whole effort?

The best that can be hoped for on a survey is if the community thinks or feels that it is a good idea.  These feelings and thoughts are based on a combination of the information put out by the district, and the trust and loyalty that the community has for its educational system.  

Legitimate surveys simply show how well, or not, the community was educated on the subject, and how much they trust/support their school administrations and vice versa.  Surveys show opinions and perceptions, not the reality of  whether year-round education is actually a good idea or not.  

Here is the survey used in Auburn and some of the problems identified with it.

Auburn City Schools Survey Form on YRS/Alternative Calendar
http://www.auburn.edu/~enebasa/html/surprobs.pp.html

Your current survey is at the bottom of this page.  It has similar design problems.

Here are some unfortunate characteristics of this survey.

1. This survey is designed for the results to be reported deceptively to the board.  This is a strong statement and I do not make it lightly.  Consider that the only way a survey like this could be designed so badly is due to either incompetence or dishonesty.  I would tend to rule out incompetence due to the training and education that the individual(s) who designed the survey most likely possess.
   
   Are the people in charge of the district office uneducated or do these people hold advanced college degrees?
   
   Who approved the survey for use?  Who is responsible?  Not the task force.  The task force is a tool of implementation.  
   
   It is an unfortunate conclusion and one that your board will have to deal with.
   
   If you want to survey parents then survey only parents.   If you also want to survey employees of the district, then survey them separately. If you want to survey students, then survey them in a separate survey.  This way, if some are parents and employees, they can fill out one survey for each role that they have. The results would be reported separately as the parent survey and the employee survey and the student survey, for example.  Otherwise, student surveys, district employee surveys, and parent surveys would all be reported together as one batch.  
   
   One scenario:  Suppose 500 people were surveyed, "so far."  300 students who were convinced by their school that the year-round calendar was a good idea voted yes,  100 teachers also voted yes, and 100 parents all voted no.  The district tells the newspaper that, "so far", out of 500 people surveyed, 400 were in favor.  Does a practice like this sound honest, moral, or in any way, ethical?  Does the statement tend to mislead?
   
   On the other hand, should students have an equal voice as their parents?  Should district employees, who may be voting based upon intimidation from their administration, have an equal voice as parents?  Should students have an equal voice as teachers?
   
   The answers are obvious. 
   


2. The survey asks what level you have children at.  This is quite irrelevant since the proposal covers all students. As time progresses, students will progress from one level to another anyway. This also tends to suggest that anyone with no children in school at the time of the survey are unaffected by the decision. What about those who will have children in school 2 or 3 years from now?  Was any attempt made to survey them?  How were they identified?
   
   One scenario: It is reported that 95% of parents who have children in high school answered in favor of the survey.  The only problem is that those parents only made up 25% of the total number of parents, while the remaining 75% may have been opposed.  Several similar reports would give the illusion of diverse community support.
   
   Again, this question and the few that follow could be used to group people for the purpose of reporting statistics in a way that is favorable to the calendar change.  
   


3. The tool of *Triangulation Strategy is employed at the bottom of the survey.  The year-round calendar is the middle choice.  This is not by accident.  The previous revision of the survey had no option for the standard calendar.    
   


4. "I have heard a presentation about the modified (balanced) calendar."  First, did anyone notice the pains that someone went to in order to avoid calling the calendar proposal what it is?  It is Year-Round School!
   
   This question appears to have two basic purposes.  The first is obviously to downplay a percentage of the "NO" votes who have not seen the survey.  The percentage of "YES" votes who have not seen the survey may go unreported. 
   
   Example: "Out of 100 people who voted "NO", only 5% had seen the presentation."  This implies that 95% of those voting against the calendar are uninformed.  What percentage of your county were able to attend a meeting when there were only 6 opportunities?  How many read the newspaper but are counted as uninformed?
   
    The second purpose of this question could be to help the district gauge how effective their "presentation" is, remembering that they gave out surveys immediately after the presentation.  By immediately counting those received at the meeting, they could judge the effectiveness of their presentation and alter it before the next meeting.  
   


5. "I am in favor of Floyd County Schools adopting a modified calendar."  This is a statement of affirmation.  An unbiased question would more likely read "Are you in favor of ..."
   

*Triangulation Strategy is a technique of maneuvering the extreme to appear to be in the middle.  This is usually done by adding a third component or choice which is even more extreme than the intended component.

Example:  You must make a choice between right and left.  The entity offering the choice wants to manipulate you to choose left, if possible.  The entity offering the choice adds another choice - far left.  If you are someone who usually picks the middle when given three choices, what have you been manipulated into choosing?

Now that you know a few things about what a survey should not be, here is what a survey should be, if you are going to have one.  You can then judge your survey process and see if it was done with bias or not.

The survey should be:

• Completely unbiased.
  
• Simple in understanding for the reader.
  
• Simple to analyze the results.
  
• Based on the entire voting population in the school district boundaries, not just families currently attending.
  
• Gets a high rate of return, no less than 75% of the total population.
  
• 75% approval should be sought. 75%_Return X 75%_Approval = 56%, a fairly reliable majority.
  
• All information from both sides of the issue should be presented to the population to be surveyed AFTER the study period by a committee or task force.
  
• Parents need some time to think about what they are considering before being surveyed. Asking them to make a decision (via a survey) too soon after being introduced to the concept is inappropriate.
  
• There should be only one question on the survey.
  
• The survey, raw data, and interpreted results should be freely available for all to see if they request to do so.
  

Some survey/ballots employ a pro/con statement to present the issue before voting (answering the survey).

1. If there is any kind of committee, it should not be stacked one way or the other like yours was.
   
2. The Pro/Con statement is just that. Pro/Con not Con/Pro. Since the pro side is the party proposing the change, the pros should be read first. The pro side should appear on the left side of the page or at the top, depending on the orientation decided on by the committee.
   
3. The pros should be clearly separated from the cons. The two should not be mixed or alternated in their positions on the page(s). This ensures a clear consistent message on both sides.
   
4. There should be only one question on the survey.
   
5. The question should be some form of approval or disapproval, yes/no, agree/disagree, not any form of a range.
   
6. The entire committee (there should be plenty of parents who are not district employees) must approve of the survey question. I think that we are all well aware of a simple fact regarding surveys: "He who frames the question frames the results."
   
7. The surveys should be controlled to avoid unauthorized duplication. Who got which survey should not be tracked!  This is done by printing a known number of ballots and mailing one to each home.
   
8. The survey must be completely anonymous. This can be accomplished by putting the address labels on them after they are printed and numbered, if they are numbered. Anonymity must be protected!
   
9. The survey must methodically cover everyone. They should be mailed to each home, for example.

Examples of good survey forms:

These characteristics are necessary to publish a survey which presents the issue fairly. 

Well Floyd County, this is where the rubber meets the road.  Does your school board represent you or do they represent the superintendent?  Do they value time proven teaching methods or do they value 30 year old unproven fads that give the appearance of "doing something" to improve schools?

I understand that the task force conducted only 6 meetings in a community of your size, and a large outcry against the proposal occurred at every community meeting they held.  How many of your board members attended these meetings?  Are they aware of the manipulation?

Respectfully,

Wes Walker
[email protected]