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Yesterday the teachers and administrators at my school were very upset.
They all received official letters from the Census Bureau. These letters informed them that they were required to go online and fill out official surveys; they were each given passwords, and were told that the surveys would take 60 minutes. (The administrators' surveys were much longer - 2-3 hours).
They looked at the questions and were outraged. The questions were VERY personal and private - everything from their own information to information about students and parents. The questions started out asking about their years of service, educational levels and classes, pay and benefit levels, etc - and then went on to ask things like if they or their students lived without electricity, where they got their water from, how they generally lived (house, trailer, in town, rural, etc), where else or if they, their family members, or students worked... really nosy stuff. Exceptionally nosy because we have a lot of teachers/ranchers out here, whose spouses work not only as ranchers but some part-time as caterers, builders, mechanics, welders, etc. as their skills and needs direct. Also exceptionally nosy because most of our students work - either on their families' ranches, or on neighboring ranches, or they drive to town to work at fast food and other places. We all know how everyone else lives out here - because there are so few people here, we all know who does what and why (even if we don't know how much they make).
At first these questions creeped them out, then the teachers got angry - it was no one's business how they lived or what money they made, if the FedGov wanted that latter info they had it thru the IRS every year, and they did not feel comfortable discussing their students at all. The administrators' questions were even more intense and personal - not just educational levels of the teachers and pay, but also board members' information, non-teaching staff names and pay and educational levels, number of students, how many students were LMI (Low to moderate income) in elementary and high school, etc.
Understand that the general publicly-available information is all reported every year to the State, to determine the census of the schools and eligibility for State aid, and is available to the Feds from the State if they so desired. But, instead of getting the info from the State, the Feds are requiring that individual teachers as well as the school admin resubmit it to the FedGov as well. This sudden interest in our very rural area, with veiled intimations of 'requirement' and consequences of non-compliance, are disturbing to say the least. If they are doing this everywhere in every school, doesn't it make you wonder - why?
That is way too much information and it is scary. Did the the letters arrive certified and have to be signed for? Now the government wants information based on heresy and not fact.
Then again..it could be about job creation and the upcoming election numbers
If the letter didn't require a signature to receive them, I would ignore it and pretend I didn't get one. Like you said..they already get a lot of that information. They don't "need" the rest.
The letters did not require a signature, but people identifying themselves as employees of the Census Bureau did call to speak to the teachers/admin to tell them about the surveys and give them their passwords... The callers were not local (of course we know everyone who worked locally for the Census a couplea years back!)
If you look at this website, there's a page for every town which tells information like percentage of the population who carpool, use gas heat, field of work, etc. I wondered how all that info is on this website. I guess the city and IRS etc all keep those statistics. So it looks the difference with them getting this from a school is that they have actual names of the students and personal info like they're trying to make a list of kooks or potential firebrands. There can be many reasons given to ask for this info so you never know. I don't think its anyone's business. Especially in such a rural area. What justification could there be. I casually talked to someone about smartmeters and they said, oh there are many reasons we could need them. But bottomline is they violate privacy and could be used to tax people more or control their consumption, which is why we have off the grid. We don't need smartmeters.
The little local parasites thought they were the kings and queens because they work for the government. But now the big shot parasites are letting them know they're trash.
The Constitution of the US requires a census ("count") of the citizenry every ten years. The purpose is to determine the number of Congressional Representatives and electoral votes for the District. There is no need to ask how many toilets are in the house, whether there is a refrigerator, how many times the residents have been married, what their educational level is, or how much they earn. Nor does it provide for a "census" more often than every 10 years.
The feds are trying to see how much information they can collect on all of us. No doubt some of it does determine the amount of federal aid to the district, but most of it is pure nosiness. If people continue to fill out these forms, whether paper or on-line, the gubmint figures the populace is docile and cooperative. If enough folks flat out refused to fill out anything but the number of persons living in the residence, they might get a clue.
Sadly, despite their fury over the questionnaire (which it really is -- not a "census"), these school officials chose to answer them. What we need is a group of patriots to stand up and tell the interrogators, "We filled out a Census Form in 2010, and that is all we are required to do." But very few have the jewels to do so. I suspect this has something to do with school funding (or other funding), which they are afraid to lose.
I guess the average American can still be bought by the gubmint.
Personally, if I received one of these, I'd wipe my *** with it. But that's just me. And if in so doing they wanted to burn me at the stake because I wouldn't tell them how many times I let a fart per day average, then so be it.
This may prove helpful: School Districts Data - Census Bureau
As long as school districts are accepting federal monies, they will be subjected to federal information gathering.
This may prove helpful: School Districts Data - Census Bureau
As long as school districts are accepting federal monies, they will be subjected to federal information gathering.
The teacher survey isn't part of the decennial census; it's another data-gathering survey that the Census does between the big one to keep itself in business, I suspect. The Census also does the American Community Survey, which is a monthly data collection survey with the same alleged penalties for noncompliance, although I've never heard of anyone actually being prosecuted for not cooperating.
I agree. Way too intrusive.
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