More Census propagandizing in the schools: $13 billion kiddie campaign
I’ve noted the Obama administration’s use of children as Census p.r. staff before. (See Meet Obama’s newest Census collectors: Your kids!, Aug. 27, 2009).
Brace for even more aggressive tactics in the classroom — like this effort in Florida (hat tip – reader Susanne):
Ariel Civelek was just a baby in the last U.S. Census, but this time around, the 11-year-old can tell her family how important it is to be counted.
Civelek was among hundreds of students at Nova Blanche Forman Elementary School who got an earful and an eyeful about the national survey at a rally in the school cafeteria Wednesday.
Recognizing the power of getting the message out through the schools, the U.S. Census Bureau on Wednesday launched its 2010 Census in Schools program. The idea is for teachers to integrate census-related information into subjects like social studies and math.
“Any child is a good spokesperson,” said Renee Jefferson Copeland, chief of the program, who spoke to the fourth- and fifth-graders at the rally.
Part of a $13 billion national public information effort, the program is designed to reach 118,000 schools and about 56 million students. The goal is to improve response rates over the 2000 census, the last big national count.
At the kickoff Wednesday, students performed a skit in which they pretended to be a family uncertain about the census. During the skit, a child encourages his parents to open the door to a census worker, despite their apprehension. Beside a prop bowl of spaghetti, the worker helps the hesitant parents fill out the form.
It’s a scenario that could play out many times next spring when the forms arrive. Households can expect census forms in March and they should be returned by April. An army of census takers will follow up between April and July with those who do not return the forms in the mail.
Like Bill Ayers says: Education is the motor force of revolution.
***
Earlier today: The Census boondoggle: $340 million ad campaign
See what others have said
Note from Michelle: This section is for comments from michellemalkin.com's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that I agree with or endorse any particular comment just because I let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with my terms of use may lose his or her posting privilege.
Comments
You must be logged in to post a comment.
 |
High school fined $15,000 for… selling soda pop during lunch
May 19, 2012 01:29 PM by Doug Powers
101 Comments
1997 Fordham Law Review article: Elizabeth Warren was Harvard’s ‘first woman of color’
May 15, 2012 11:38 PM by Doug Powers
83 Comments
The latest green energy experiment to receive taxpayer dollars is…
April 25, 2012 03:28 PM by Doug Powers
36 Comments
Obama asks for an amen from students racking up loan debt
April 24, 2012 04:51 PM by Doug Powers
74 Comments
Environmental Protection Agency fines school bus contractor almost $500,000 for ‘excessive idling’
April 11, 2012 04:35 PM by Doug Powers
66 Comments
Michigan Dems Promote ‘Free College for All’ Plan
March 6, 2012 04:48 PM by Doug Powers
60 CommentsObama Invites Self to Deliver Commencement Address at Women’s College
March 4, 2012 02:53 PM by Doug Powers
79 Comments
Cincinnati-Area School Pays Kids to… Show Up to School
February 13, 2012 09:43 PM by Doug Powers
40 CommentsColumbia University to Offer ‘Occupy 101′ Course
January 2, 2012 11:15 AM by Doug Powers
75 Comments
Nice Deb
» The Organized Left Now Stalking RomneyNice Deb
» Uncovered Ad Shows Obama Appeared At 1996 Event Hosted By Democratic Socialists of AmericaNice Deb
» Uncovered Ad Shows Obama Appeared At 1996 Event Hosted By Democratic Socialists of AmericaNewsBusters.org
» Reuters's Freeland: 'Anorexic' Americans Think Tax Bite Too Heavy When In Fact It's Dangerously Thin
1. What are the names and ages of those living in your household?
2. How many slaves do your parents own?
3. How many guns do yo daddy got?
I got my name counted,
mmmm, mmmm, mmmm!
…and Obama was born.
The ACLU was unavailable for litigation.
Why does the census need promotion? Furthermore what sound minded adult listens to a kid and then changes course of actions based on what a child has said? Seriously.
Veretax said:
Ever hear of Global Warming and endangered polar bears?
I thought children voting in mock elections was the lowest it would go.
13 Billion!? Holy Crap! That’s a lot of money! But hey, what’s a billion here, a billion there?
If the census form was on the back of a $10 check, the response would be great.
To be fair all this Census bureau planning was done by the Bush Administration and authorized by the last Congress.
Like the draft, participation in the Census is involuntary and mandated by the constitution. I don’t see the harm in training our children to be responsible citizens.
11 years old, my my, that’s older than Obama acts.
Souds like the Obama Administration officials have been watching too many after school specials.
Does that include moving the census information to the White House?
Jangar,
I believe Veretax stipulated sound-minded…
Yeah, just ask Hitler. “Tomorrow belongs to me!”
I certainly hope that by March there will be complete information available as to which of the ten questions on the census forms must be answered under penalty of law. I will obey the law but will not go one question farther than what is required by the law. If question #1 is all that must be completed, then that is all they are going to get.
I heard on the radio yesterday that those not completing this mandatory form can expect to get contacted in person by a census worker. I seriously doubt these workers will get much beyond the cities and burbs. Sounds more like a threat to me.
Training children to be responsible citizens is the job of parents, not bureaucrats or teachers.
Teachers need to stick to teaching the children how to read, write, and put two and two together without it coming out to 5.
Bureaucrats need to stick to the bottom of whatever slime pit they crawled out of.
Look at it this way. It says you have to answer the questions, but it does not seem to stipulate how you must answer the questions. I am thinking of writting “prefer not to say” or something along those lines to any questions I believe to be unnecessary to the census.
I’ve seen many a sound-minded parent fold like a cheap suit for their kids.
$13 billion spread over 56 million students. Unless my math is wrong, that’s $232 per student.
Remember that the next time you see school bonds on your local ballot or the neighbor kid comes knocking on your door wanting to sell you overpriced junk as a school fund raiser. Oh, those poor, struggling public schools.
The children are aksed to play a little skit where they are asked:
Do your parents use CFL light bulbs?
How warm is it in your house?
Do your parents say bad things about our President?
Does daddy have guns in the house?
What news programs does the family watch?
Do mommy and daddy take you to church?
What do you eat in your house?
What books and magazines does mommy and daddy read?
….
….
….
….
Add to that…
How do mommy and daddy feel about homosexuals?
Has daddy ever touched you below the waist?
…
Good ones….
I am sure there are plenty more.
Do mommy or daddy ever get paid in cash for their work?
Who do mommy and daddy do things with when they are not working?
Reason #2042 why my child is in a private religious school.
The only good thing our president has accomplished so far is to thwart Mr. Bush’s plan to have Acorn conduct the census….oh, wait…..
And/or your local school board should not accept any Federal Funding.
Cut the strings.
When the government promotes something very hard, I smell a rat. It was never promoted like this before, in all the years I’ve been here.
absolutely…when it comes to race I’ll write in American or maybe the Indy 500 or Daytona. I’m sure we can come up with some other cute little answers to the others…all they need to know is how many reside at the residence…of course I’d love to see some citizenship questions but the illegals certainly wouldn’t answer those truthfully anyway…rumor has it hispanics may boycott the census…good less dim respresentation….
I’m confused. So are you saying that you don’t want accurate census data? How is wanting to have the most accurate data possible (and population counts are super important for considering reapportionment)
I get the cost thing, but how is this propaganda?
kwrrr; and i thought the last congress was controlled by democrats. yes bush was president, lame duck, but the census is done in congress, not the white house, until the obama new rules years.
The entire census will be an exercise in smoke and mirrors. The census process is destined to be subverted. Just google and you will see a flood of articles like the one below.
Bottom line: No matter what YOU answer, the results will be what the political operatives in the White House want to come out.
Information is power and Obama and Rahm intend to hoard it and manipulate it for their ends.
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=31351
I guess it is too early to refer to Renee Jefferson Copeland as Commissar. The Ministry of Truth is working on it. But this does remind of of the Youth Parades in Red Square praising Uncle Joe while Uncle Joe’s secret police were putting those youths parents in the gulag.
Pavlik Morozov who betrayed his father to the secret police NKVD could be model for this educator. “”Even Stalin, it was said, referred to the Boy Hero as “that little sneak”.”"
Flyoverman’s list is much more than a joke. There are those who ask such questions now- I imagine those people think there are good people.
If the only question asked was how many people live here…I would have no problem with it.
ALL other questions are highly intrusive and un-necessary to establish political districts.
Flyoverman
ACS is always sampled, but the Census number is just a raw count. I don’t see the problem here, outside of the cost.
# Name
# Sex
# Age and date of birth
# Hispanic origin
# Race
# Household relationship
# If you own or rent your home
How are these intrusive? Or are you referring to the ACS questions as being intrusive?
Taylork, the 2010 Census questions go WAY BEYOND what is needed for “reapportionment”. Can you “get it” NOW?
All these questions have been on the last two censuses, what’s the difference now?
Taylork, your position demonstrates lack of understanding of:
1. The constitutional limits on government as related to the conduct of the census.
2. Your constitutional right to privacy as a citizen.
Read more. Talk less.
You do not see the problem……
One more time……….
The “problem” is not in the data, not in the collection, but…… in the processing of the data.
The traditional Census process is to have non-partisan, Federal Civil Service career workers process the data in a dispationate manner.
I will answer any Census question, if I think the information is going to be treated and safeguarded in the manner secribed in the paragraph above.
In 2010 this is not going to happen. The data is going to be manipulated and them likely discarded in the same manner raw climate data was “modeled” by the corrupt Global Warmming scientists who convenitently disgarded the original data, so their modeled results could not be refuted.
The White House, the Congress, no one has any business interferring with the Census process. There is no justifiable reason to have political appointees in the middle of it. But they will be. It is in black and white for you to see.
If you are not alarmed by that, I would be most interested in understanding why not.
Until we have absolute certainty that the Census data is not going to be polticized for the party in power’s benefit then NO ONE should participate in the Census. Everyone whines about corruption. When are people simply going to stop enabling those who practice it?
Show me WITH FACTS that the Census is not going to be corrupted and distorted and I will participate. Until them I will not and in my opinion nor should anyone.
The constitutional requirement is that the Government know how many persons live at your house. Any information beyond that goes further than the constitution allows.
The census counts the number of citizens by location period. The American Servey (five year census) is not constitutional in any way.
Many people plan to simply give the number of people living at the residence in a letter submitted with the census paper work that will be left as is.
People are also planning to simply return the American Survey with no response.
The information being sought allows for more intrusive social engineering by big Government. It allows them to distribute your moeney as they see fit.
Read more. Talk less.
Take a deep breath..
The constitutional limits on government as related to the conduct of the census.
Race has been reported since the 3/5 compromise of 1787.
2. Your constitutional right to privacy as a citizen.
the only other questions are about gender and home-ownership status.
Everything else is optional ACS data that 95% of the population won’t fill out anyway.
Rather than start attacking me, why don’t you explain why you think a question about sex and housing status is a threat to privacy?
Show me with facts that the census IS going to be corrupted.
Fact: The census avoids the question of CITIZENSHIP status. Reapportionment made without regard to citizenship status is CORRUPT.
Think more. Talk less.
The White House is controlling the Director of the Census, not the Secretary of Commerce.
Not once in the history of this country has that occurred, nor is there any justification for it.
Aero-Did you ever play hockey? Your taglines “Read more-Talk less” and “Think more-Talk less” goes with my local announcer Knoxville Icebears saying “He shoots-He scores!!!” when the team scores a goal.
GSP
Fox News, February 12, 2009
Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, who will control the 2010 Census:
“If you think redistricting is always partisan and political which it is… it’s going to be on steroids this time.”
If you have to keep asking the question it is clear that no one on this blog can give you an answer that will be sufficient to overcome your inability to understand.
I hate to call you a troll but I believe you are.
I can’t help going back to the election and lamenting. I know it does no good. But at the point in time when we desparately, DESPERATELY needed to beat the socialist Obama, we had the absolute WORST candidate in history. I would have had a hard time with McCain as POTUS. His droning, condescending speeches put me to sleep, when they weren’t making me livid. But he still would have been better than this POSER. I just keep telling myself that the country needed to wake up and this certainly should do it. If not, we will lose the greatest country on the planet.
Remember Rolf in the “Sound of Music”? That will tell you all you need to know.
I agree, although the ACS was distributed under the aegis of the Census Bureau under the Dept. of Commerce, along with the threat of criminal prosecution/fines, and was absolutely intrusive.
To wit:
I agree, although the definition of hispanic is still a conundrum to me. I think all you have to have done is see a Speedy Gonzalez cartoon to qualify as hispanic. It is unclear why this is a legitimate designation, as it transcends race and seems to have been reduced to “do you speak Spanish?”.
I hate to call you a troll but I believe you are.
I’ve been posting on this site for years and generally agree with MM. So know, just because I think this is a silly issue doesn’t mean I’m a troll.
Further, aero, citing articles that are out of date, the Census will remain in the Dept. Of Commerce, shows that you need to take your own advice.
If you have to keep asking the question it is clear that no one on this blog can give you an answer that will be sufficient to overcome your inability to understand.
Yet the reverse question was given to me, which is why I responded in kind. You can’t prove it either way, which was my point.
Fact: The census avoids the question of CITIZENSHIP status. Reapportionment made without regard to citizenship status is CORRUPT.
then it’s always been corrupt because they have never asked this question.
If you are not a troll then why are you being obtuse?
Duh Won’s plan to transfer control of the 2010 census to White House staffers is where the problem lies.
It’s not about the questions they will ask, although they have no right to know more than has been asked in previous census data questions.
I still have yet to see a satisfactory answer as to how this is the case when even the 1790 census went beyond this.
It’s not about the questions they will ask, although they have no right to know more than has been asked in previous census data questions.
They’re not asking anything different, with the exception of clarification on Hispanic status.
Besides, I’m not the one citing data that’s no longer true. I’m just pointing out that this census is no different than any other census. And as Chap said, all censuses have gone beyond this constitutional provision that keeps being cited.
Just because I disagree with you doesn’t mean I’m a troll, and it’s sad that you resort to name calling rather than cite relevant facts or point out why you think this census violates your privacy whereas others did not.
Duh Won’s plan to transfer control of the 2010 census to White House staffers is where the problem lies.
And that didn’t end up happening, so how can that still be an issue?
Yes, and Van Jones no longer has anything to do with the Obama Administration……..
Even a cursory perusal of the Internet will confirm the continued meddling of the White House in the Census.
The evidence of corruption in this White House is massive. However, with this most important activity of government with the Democrats in control of everything and after observing the “process” of getting Healthcare to where it is, the appointees in the White House, the nature of the White House Chief of Staff, etc. etc. etc. you “assume” they will not take any advantage of their position.
There is no logical basis for your trusting opinion regarding the integrity of the Census. Again, I have no fear of any of my data being compromised. Whatever anyone cares to discover about me can be done. THAT IS NOT THE ISSUE.
However, there is every indication that when Rahm and his henchmen are done 2 + 2 = whatever they want it to equal.
How many lights are there?
It’s sad and disturbing to see the Census so politicized.
In my genealogy research, the census forms are invaluable, the more information the better. Every census has collected different information, from the number of slaves in the early census to “do you own a radio?” in 1930.
It was very exciting to me to see details of my ancestors lives – where they lived, how old they were, who were their neighbors, what they did for a living, when they emigrated, when they became naturalized, how long they were married, where their parents were from, the value of the worldly goods, etc.
It’s a shame that future generations won’t have access to the same information or have the same experiences of discovery.
WARNING!!
When returning the census questionnaire, DO NOT lick the envelope!
Out of curiosity, why?
Are you worried about DNA samples from saliva or something?
Are you going to handle it only with gloves on?
Sorry, just curious.
This is why we homeschool.
I’ve never filled out a Census form. Never received one and neither has my husband, who is in the military. Is this Census just being generally directed toward those who live in urban areas, are minorities, and are illegal aliens? Just asking out of curiosity.
Do you HAVE to fill out the Census form? Is it really any of the Federal government’s business who I am, where I live, and what I do for a living? How many children I have? It’s not like I’ll get any better representation out of it (a misnomer if there ever was one).
The real deal is that the Census counts (overly so) minorities and those who live in urban areas. That’s all that matters to D.C. and politicians. That way they can create another congressional seat out of thin air (or gerrymander it).
As Bill (the Terrorist whom Obama does NOT know) Ayers said “education is the motor force of revolution.”
Well he was right. That is why they are getting real scared because the American electorate is more educated than ever…thanks to Michelle malkin, Fox news & talk radio. And that is why The Left hate all of those three things/people. The more is known the less the average American identifies with the “Left”.
The revolution is coming and it is a conservative one – based on the founding principles of this country.
Were Washington, Jefferson & Lincoln to show up tomorrow at Capital Hill, Nancy Pelosi, Dingy Harry & Obummer would be calling them “right-wing extremists”. Well if they are than so am I…and I’m proud to be one!!
There is one and only one question relevant to the census: How many American citizens live at this residence?
Anything else about age and sex of the occupants, what level of education, how many bathrooms blah, blah, blah is none of their business and will be ignored on the census form I complete.
taylork –
After reading all your other responses after your first, it becomes obvious that you see no problem in answering many (if not all) of the questions on the census.
Guess what? No one on this forum is telling YOU not to answer them. If you want to, then have at it, sport.
Some of the rest of us have our own personal reasons for not being so forthcoming.