This is going to be a good read.
In less that 1 minute of reading, you are going to discover that “thing,” that unthought of resource, that we as a nation, have all been waiting for some person, some group, to come up with, that could generate daily, the massive dollars needed to provide all the teaching, the learning, the nutritional, the mental and the physical health, and the school safety resources that are so desperately needed, yet unaffordable, in all K-12 schools and beyond.
It is beyond inept, in our so-called 2026 technologically advanced, AI Land of Plenty, that we allow schools like those of Principal Henry Darby below, to exist.
But what have any of us done, really, in our respective fields, that we might feel impressed with our own successes, when there are multitudes of children within our broke and broken American educational system that fall by the way-side because we have not been creative enough, unselfish enough, to not have solved that which so often predicts their failure?
Other than increasing our taxed dollars, there are no additional funds with which to purchase the resources that should be available to all students equally, no matter their community.
There are also no funds that can pay 100% of all future college tuitions. That’s a pipe dream. Right?
Nor are there funds available to eliminate the 1.7 TRILLION dollar national tuitional debt. Even bigger pipe dream…Right??
We are about to show you that the money, believe it or not, has been right there under our very noses all this time.
Introductorily, and in a nut shell to keep your attention, please find the MY (Mine&Your) Plan.
When families spend their hard-earned income dollars in stores like Wal-Mart, CostCo, grocery stores, etc., purchasing the essential consumable goods that our families use every day, a relationship exists. There is a seller, and there is a buyer. We all choose whichever stores we want to purchase our family goods. These stores and store owners then make massive dollars from the profit they keep, that is made on these purchases, and we receive a product(s). That is the relationsip.
That’s good. That's business, and that’s just how business works.
And business is all about profit-dollars.
OK then. Read these next three sentences slowly.
The MY Plan will show you how we can flip it, so that 100% of the profit-dollars from the consumable goods that all families purchase, could now be given back to each family when these purchases are made. These profit-dollars would be available to each family in the form of a “for educational expenses only” personal savings account. Each family can then apply these dollars from their personal saving account to the educational needs of their choice.
For example:
A family can use their dollars to help purchase the resources needed in their child’s K-12 school.
Families can save these dollars to fund their child’s future college tuition.
These funds can be used to pay off the parent’s or child’s past college tuition debts.
This only happens though, when we own the lemonade stand.
The MY Plan shows us, very simply actually, how we can do that. It’s not complicated.
Stay with me.
The financial and social opportunities in life for individuals and their families, (unless you are extremely lucky) come from a quality education, which should be equally available to all. In a MY scenario, a quality education is now equally available to all, because we all make these type of consumable purchases for our families. Therefore, all families, even those on the bottom of the economic ladder, would now be generating the dollars needed to fund their child’s future, as well as being able to pay-off any and all past educational debts.
This will blow your mind. A poorer family of five just naturally spends more money on milk, bread, eggs, and toilet paper than a wealthier family of three does. Right? So which family then, would have the most educational dollars regularly going back into their personal MY educational account, when these profit-dollars would now be owned by them?
Think about that.
Have you heard or seen the story of Mr. Henry Darby, the high school principal in North Charleston, S.C.?
No?
Meet Henry.
Mr. Henry Darby
Henry is no Spring chicken, yet after school, he also works the graveyard shift at his local Walmart from 10 p.m. until 7 a.m. for a little extra money. So, with no sleep, Henry heads straight to his school when he gets off work. Henry then rations out his meager Walmart income to his students and to his community, where 90% of his students live under the poverty line. Henry also tries to spread his little Walmart profit around to his teachers as well so that they can buy the most basic of classroom resources that they and many other teachers across the nation are paying for out of their own pockets these days because, as said, our education system is hemorrhaging on all fronts financially.
Does someone with Henry’s heart and willingness make you question your own? It does me.
Does that mean Henry cares more than I do?
That’s the question that really bothers me, and why I am here.
In fact, it’s just downright unacceptable bullshit.
You and I, no matter our culture, should be highly offended and probably ashamed if we accept Henry kid’s and his teacher’s fate as fact and do nothing to act, when the solution, that is The MY Plan, finally comes along. What MY offers would completely transform Henry’s kid’s present and future quality of life through educational opportunities that they will never have unless and until we make MY our new reality.
But guess what? MY will provide for mine and your children as well. No matter the income, race, or culture, MY profit-dollars return to the purchaser.
We can be the world leader in education again, like we used to be, if we all are willing to listen at this moment, and if each of us is willing to offer our individual resource. We all have one.
Your resource?
We need those that can help us gain the conversations that will get MY in front of those that can and want to make the MY vision happen. We know who they are. It is those that are already “gifting” billions of their personal dollars to education each year, trying to help. They have the will, they just do not have the solution. Our ability to reach these entities however, in order to freely “gift” them with the MY concept, so that they can take it and make it happen, is limited.
“I think it is possible for ordinary people to choose to be extraordinary by using creative problem solving. As a society, we are still waiting for that one big idea to come along, that will unite us all in such a way as to solve our national dilemma of erasing our national tuition debt, while simultaneously providing an equal opportunity and an affordable education for all our kids. Will such a grand, yet realistic idea, ever even be offered for consideration though, is the question. It is certainly not a political solution” ~ Elon Musk
Think what you may of Ol’ Elon, but he is spot on here, and has more $$ than the rest of us for a reason. The billions needed for educational resources will never be found with whomever we elect, in whatever office we elect them to. If radical transformation is to occur, it will most definitely be by creative problem-solving folks just like you and I.
** The Good Idee Group does not seek, nor will accept, financial contributions **
Our national educational funding system is broke, and it’s broken. All of our financially hemorrhaging K-12 schools nationwide, clearly shows this to be true.
Even when our nation’s high school graduates do make it through HS and head off to college, these young people will then immediately create a decades-long, anxiety-ridden, college tuition debt for themselves, and their young families.
Remember this fact. $68 billion was donated last year alone to education by well-meaning educational philanthropists. So, philanthropists will gladly help, IF, a solution ever comes along. But their money, even that $68B annually, is not nearly enough to touch all the needs of every K-12 school, and pay for all past and future college tuitions. There is a better way for philanthropists to invest their $$ toward education.
Philanthropic gifting, though so well intended, does not fix the problem. Gifting, is like bailing water out of a leaking boat. Gifting keeps the boat afloat, but it doesn’t fix the leak.
The MY Plan, fixes the leak.
Our conclusion is that there is only one possibility that even exists here. Another solution, to our knowledge, is not, nor has it ever even been offered by any person, or any group, for public consideration, as the way out of this educational quagmire. That fact alone, that there is only one possibile solution to even consider, should scare us all so much, that we would want to oh-so very, very, carefully examine and challenge this one solution that is offered up here.
In a little more detail of how a MY Store might would look, here we go.
We all spend the majority of our hard-earned dollars on consumable goods for our family’s basic needs. Combined, every year, we spend Trillions, with a “T,” for essential goods in Wal-Mart, CostCo, and grocery stores all across our country.
So, imagine if Wal-Mart and CostCo had a baby, but prettier than them both. Imagine an aesthetically stunning, welcoming environment, that you actually enjoyed being in and a part of. Picture this place as a blend of a mega grocery store and a mega home goods store. Let’s say we call these MY (Mine&Your) stores. Now envision these MY stores coast-to-coast, in each community, just like WM, CC, and grocery stores are now.
Here’s the difference.
Each MY store would be owned by each community that each store is located in. After each purchase that you as a consumer make, all of the “profit” from that purchase, (profit, being the dollars that a store owner normally puts in their pocket after all costs are paid) 100% of it, would go right back into your personal MY education account, so that you can then fund the education concerns of your choosing.
What exactly does the money go toward from there?
It’s your money. You choose. A % of those dollars could go right back into the school your child attends within your community. These dollars would co-fund that school’s financial needs not met by current tax dollar funding. If your child is in private school, you could choose a % of each purchase to fund that tuition as well. A % could go into the savings portion of your MY account to later be used to pay the future college tuition of your child, or pay for their’s or your past tuition debts. Each My store, each parent or person, would then be generating and co-funding the much needed dollars lacking for all past, present, and future educational needs.
Who pays for all the MY Stores?
Ideally, MY Stores would be funded by those educational mega-philanthropists, or perhaps by a single educational philanthropist (and there are several who could afford this) who are currently donating billions to education. Remember, educational philanthropists are already donating 68 BILLION per year to education.
If stores were newly constructed, philanthropists could fund construction of each MY store, though this route would take the most time to see multitudes of stores up and running nationwide. Ideally though, if a nationwide existing chain-store has gone out of business, OR if a national retail goods chain were to be bought out, philanthropist(s) could immediately step in, fund the revitalization of turning all those existing stores into MY (Mine&Your) stores, and MY would be our new reality, literally almost overnight.
MY Stores would soon become our self-owned, self-mega-funding behemoth.
Perpetually.
Permanently.
Together, we would now own the lemonade stand.
All of that 1.7 trillion we owe as a country to our government could now be deferred from being taken from our income. Instead, over time, it would be paid back using a % of the profit made from your MY purchases. A % could go toward increased teacher’s salaries, a % toward basic classroom resources, quality in-school mental health professionals, quality nutritious meals at lunch time, then a healthy nutritious meal before leaving school for those that go back to food-challenged homes. How about a % toward top-notch school safety measures?
In MY stores, everyone would clearly see the profit dollars from their purchases immediately at the register on their receipt. That money is then put in each customer’s personal MY Education account. Those monies would then be paid out, but never to the individual, at specified times that they are due. i.e When their child starts college, the account would then pay that college with whatever amount of tuition dollars have been saved and put towards the child’s tuition for however long they have been shopping in a MY Store.
Check this out.
I married in 1988. My daughter was born 8 years later. She graduated high school in 2014, 26 years after my wedding. So, had My Stores existed when I married in 1988, my wife and I could have been shopping in MY Stores for 26 years by the time my daughter graduated HS. 26 years! That means, for 26 years, we could have been putting all those profit dollars toward our daughter’s college education fund. Given the amount of money that we spend annually as a family at grocery stores/WM/Costco, her college education would have long been paid before her HS graduation. Once she graduated from HS and headed for college, our MY account would then pay out her tuition directly to the college. Those dollars could also be used to pay rent in the case of off campus housing and her living expenses while in college. That is money normally paid out of a parents pocket; and very hard to afford.
What if, for those 26 years, I had also put a percentage toward my daughter college fund on all purchases, and then she decided not to go to college; or what if someone shopping in a MY store has grown or no children? First, those dollars could never be cashed in, but it is still your educational dollars to decide where you would like to see it invested. An individual could choose for those dollars to go toward many other educational needs. They could be put back into whichever local schools that are deemed to need them the most, put toward proven, successful community programs, used to pay off their own past personal student loan debt, help pay off other’s past student loans, teacher salaries, etc.
Envision this if you will. If MY ever becomes our new reality, even “the least of these” in our society, would be empowered as “self-philanthropists.” What people do not often realize about the poor, is that the poor are not just sitting there anxiously waiting for us to give them something. Life, luck and good fortune has not smiled upon everyone. But even the poor, with their very limited income, want to help themselves and their own children. They don't want you to provide for their children. How would that make you feel if you couldn’t do that? It takes away one’s self-pride. But they often do not have a choice. It's easy to see then, why it's poor communities that have the least amount of hope, and who encourage their children the least toward the value of learning.
MY is designed to change that. Think about this fact. We all have that one thing in common that we do, even those with little money. We all “spend.” We all use that one single resource that we all possess, “money,” to provide the essentials of life for our families. Some just have much less than others. No matter the income level though, in a MY scenario, we would all be improving our own personal lives and finances while simultaneously improving other children's futures by bringing all those “essential spending dollars” full-circle, back to all schools, thus all children.
MY empowers the parent. MY empowers the child. MY empowers the community.
Me personally, I am a chemicals formulating engineer. I asked if I could volunteer to help facilitate The MY (Mine&Your) Plan after reading it. Quite simply, when I read it, I knew. I just knew.
"'That’s it! That missing resource that can pay for it all has been found.”
MY, checks all the boxes, and I humbly believed that I could present it clearly to you here. MY is totally non-divisive culturally, religiously, and politically. There is no hidden agenda. MY is all inclusive of everyone. It is, in short, the most creative, kill 20 birds with 1 stone problem solving concept that I have ever been asked to examine.
Latinos, then Blacks, are the two cultures most likely to not graduate high school. These kids, at a much higher rate than others, are then often left to simply fall by the wayside financially and emotionally in life.
Educationally, that's where we are as a country, and there's no denying it. To a group like ours, this is simply just an inept and outdated funding design, yet is quite repairable.
All can see that a fair opportunity is not happening for those that need it most, and nothing on the horizon is changing that if there is no huge new resource of dollars for education to be found. An equal opportunity to learn in our country is, and always has been, very much about money, as is clearly realized in Henry Darby’s story.
Find good, or create it. ~ The Good Idee Group
Many people falsely believe that kids like those at Henry’s school, because they are poor and minorities, receive a free college education. Guess what? They don't. So how many of Henry's kids then, who were born so destitute, can even fathom the concept of taking out a loan for a college education?
And as Henry asked, “How many of these kids do you think have someone in their family that can mentor them on the importance of a high school education, much less a college education?
And as Henry then answered….
“Very few, I tell you. It’s as foreign to them as filet mignon!”
Exactly Henry. Exactly.
“If you want to do something for me, do something for my child.” ~ Frances Naomi Vaughn
