Pickerington Area Taxpayers Alliance

Response

Dear anonymous,

Thanks for stating the obvious in your first paragraph. So if the decision-makers suffer from narrow-minded tunnel vision, what recourse is there for the victims of it? Do we continue to exhibit the same traits at the polls until we see who blinks first?

I am glad someone thinks it is admirable to do a survey. However, the sector I work in was at one time responsible for surveys for over 80,000 employees world-wide. You first have to have confidence in the ones conducting a survey. When directed to conduct an employee satisfaction survey that we were told had to come back with over 90% of the employees so darned happy they could just bust, we were able to do so. You only ask questions and provide answers that could only reflect employee bliss. You have to have multiple choice Q&A. Then once you factor out all the people that check ?“extremely satisfied?” to every question and those that check ?“Extremely dissatisfied?” to each answer, your net result goes way down. Let me tell you something else, it isn?’t much of a problem to hand-select 400 people to survey in a pool of 25,000. Again ?– skew.

You must also have some survey experience behind you to provide the recommendations you do for the survey so either we can agree or agree to disagree on the validity of surveys when it comes to such an emotional issues as the schools.

Most of what you present has been answered time and time again with the people?’s vote, but hey, go ahead and ask again. We?’re only talking about a couple of hundred bucks in postage.

?”Then the key is get someone totally unbiased to read and explain the poll to the board.

Last but not least keep one?’s foot out of one?’s mouth?”


True, true, true, but are there any unbiased people involved? If the architect is paying for the media firm (which I promise will still come out our pockets), are they unbiased? Can they hire a surveyor that can remain unbiased? Past bias, can you even find anyone who doesn?’t have an emotional attachment to all this?

I?’ll take your last line to heart. My feel are still on the floor and I hope to keep them there.



By Central Dad

Sorry

Wrong gender, age, etc.

I was merely stating the facts about survey's, if you can't handle math and statistics then take a nap.

Survey's CAN be accurate IF performed properly - that is all I was trying to say.

I have no idea what the board is proposing or what their questions may look like. Given the past, I'm not optimistic about this survey either.

Exactly

Survey's and sample populations CAN be extremely accurate. In many instances (read politics) it's smoke and mirrors.

I have little faith in the independance of consultants performing surveys for the schools.

Hello, I'm with quick survey's inc and I'd like to ask you a few questions. If you choose not to answer or answer something other than the responses given we will chose the second option for you.

Question #1 - would you rather spend $35M or $65M on new schools.

Thank you for your time.

Voter feedback

Central Dad

The example of tunnel vision is Mr. Brink wanting and pushing for three schools when for the fourth time we have the 51% or so have said NO!. Clearly Mr. Brink is looking at the number of students and he sees that need. He needs to look up from his spread sheet. Also Mrs. Reade talking about FREE advice coming from the architect's consultant.

The levy campaign came very close this last time in getting their two elementary schools passed. Obviously they need to tweak the proposal just enough to get passage in November. Nearly doubling the dollar amount probably isn't what most voters had in mind. Even talking about it in public in their request will lose votes because people will read that in the paper and it will add to public image of the board not managing their money properly.

I have not looked closely at the voter precincts and where the schools lost in the last election. I do know they lost everywhere and it all sectors. Some in Pickerington, some in the Township and some in the Columbus Precincts. Within those precincts they will need to separate the different demographic sectors with the kind of questions they ask. They will need to poll those people that are highly likely to vote.

You can separate the demographics by the questions you ask like,'' do you have children in the Pickerington school system.? To find out if someone is retired ask if they work outside the city of Pickerington as an example. These two questions or some similar ones can place your respondent to being retired, empty nester and or if they have school age children. If a phone survey is done they should know the ages of those responders by the voter registration data because their ages are listed.

The problems with a phone survey is getting enough people to answer their phone and the other is to get them to answer truthfully because if someone calls you they know who you are.

The more reliable poll is mailable and detachable mailer. Something the responder sees that can NOT be traced to them or their home. Clearly the poll that is proposed is much different than a employee survey. I have also had those surveys and many do not bother to return them and it always seems to turn out grand for the Company. Clearly those rules don't count in a ballot issue. The board can't tweak the results of the election like a company can tweak the results of an employee survey.

Another example of tunnel vision is looking at the School Survey on theire web site. The only ones voting were those familar witht the schools mostly parents or students. You can tell that by the strong response they got from the ''How we doing?'' questions. If I were in charge I would work very hard to get those parents that gave 80% positive feedback to get closer to a 80% feedback on voting for the levy not the 55% they received.