Our schools. Our communities.
Yes, there is a solution.
America's student loan debtwas $1.77 trillion in 2023.
Lack of gov’t or personal $$ for tuition is the problem.
17 million kids go home to food-challenged homes. Lack of family $$ is the problem
More teachers quit the teaching field in 2019 than any year previously. That record was broken in 2021…and in 2022, and again in 2023. There are no more tax $$ to pay teachers what they deserve.
Quality, in-school, mental health care offered by professional mental health specialists for young, developing, anxiety ridden, often troubled young minds is completely unaffordable; yet suicide is the 2nd leading cause of death of school aged kids.
20 1st graders, 6 teachers murdered at Sandy Hook by a very troubled former student who (if in-school psychological help was affordable) could have been easily red-flagged years before, had mental help been in place.
Those 20 children should be graduating, right now, in 2024.
Our political and racial divides…unprecedented, yet with all of our differences, it seems like we are just waiting for something universal to come together on and help one another. But, what could that even possibly be that we have not thought of?
“If you want to do something for me, do something for my child.” ~Frances Naomi Vaughn
Currently, well-meaning educational philanthropists across our great country are unselfishly donating billions of their dollars to schools and community non-profits, trying to help them keep their heads above water.
For sure, these gifted dollars absolutely do good and are crucial, given our current condition; but there are not enough gifting, or charity dollars, to end these problems and provide the dollars our schools and communities need for all of our children. It’s just that simple. But the money that can end most of these ills is there. Keep following me here…
Please do not miss this next statement.
Charities exist because the problems they serve exist. Mass gifting to educational and community charities, as well intended and desperately needed as we all know that it is, is not “eliminating” the reason that each of these charities exist. It's like bailing water out of a sinking boat. It helps, but the boat is still sinking. We say, why keep bailing water? Why not fix the leak? In other words, eliminate the need for the charity. Make sense?
What you are about to read fixes that leak. If the elimination of a problem is not the ultimate goal, then that, is inept thinking.
May I show you inept? Ok, meet Henry.
Have you heard the story of Mr. Henry Darby, the high school principal in North Charleston S.C.? Henry is no Spring chicken; yet after school, he also works the graveyard shift at his local Walmart from 10p.m til’ 7a.m. for some extra money. So with no sleep, Henry heads straight to his school when he gets off work. Henry then rations out his Walmart income to his students and the community where 90% of his students live under the poverty line. Henry also spreads his meager Walmart check 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 our education system is hemorrhaging on all fronts.
As sad as that is, that’s where we are, and that’s bullshit.
It’s time for a better idea.
Denzel Washington recently said, “Small minds discuss gossip…good minds discuss events…but great minds?…Great minds discuss big ideas…so where are these great minds and great ideas in our country?”
Our group that proposes the following, is The Good Idee Group. We have been quietly developing the MY, Mine&Your Plan for the past 15 years. Why for so long though? Because we knew what we were proposing. We understand the scale of it all; and so we wanted to make sure we had thought of everything, checked all the boxes, before finally coming forward.
So then, who is The Good Idee Group that we think we could address a problem so enormous, so seemingly overwhelming?
comes here now, not as problem-solvers for corporate America as is our 9-5 job; but simply as a growing group of parents, students, teachers, community folks, and like you, just tired of it all really. We ask for nothing in return. Here, we have just simply applied that same science of business problem-solving thinking to our educational and community dilemmas to see if we could find an actual solution.
We did.
“Problem solving is everything. 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 ours.” ~ Elon Musk. …“but we cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” ~ Albert Einstein
The MSS Plan trades-in our current inept education and community system of “funding them both exclusively solely from our tax dollars,” for an ingenious design of maximizing a funding resource that we have simply overlooked all this time. Those overlooked dollars…are massive. All we wish to do now is to get this idea seen and trusted into the right hands. That entity can then take this plan and turn it everyone’s new reality. You, are a vital link in this chain to get this idea to that entity.
Let’s not fool ourselves. This IS a financial hole that we are in, and it IS about money; but it is not all about money. Schools need serious dollars to keep them safe and to purchase the most basic of classroom essentials. Trillion dollar tuition debts require big, big dollars if elimination of all past and future tuitions is to ever be a reality.
We intend to show you that these dollars do exist but that govt. tax dollars… ain’t them. Additionally needed tax dollars DO NOT EXIST. There has never been, nor will there ever be enough tax dollars that we could ever afford to be “taken” from our checks, for the Trillions that, realistically, it will cost to permanently eliminate these multitude of debts and funding needs that are upon us.
Proposed now, is what is sure to be a mass supported entity that will perpetually generate the dollars needed for all educational and community needs. It would co-fund along with, but now require even less of the tax dollars currently taken from our paychecks that fund our education system in America. In requiring less tax dollars, this means putting more money back into your family’s pockets. The funds generated by this new entity would pay off all past student loan debts. These funds would provide all schools with the most basic of resources often purchased by the teachers out of their pockets these days. Professional in-school mental health care and quality nutrition would be easily afforded, even at the poorest of schools.
So sit back, take your time, enjoy a good read, and let’s see if your switch is flipped, and if the light comes on.
They say that people often have the attention span if a gnat these days though, and that you can’t get someone to read anything that is more than a few sentences long.
So, keeping in mind the gnat thing, here is the solution.
Let’s start here.
Picture this:
2 stores sit side by side.
The store on the left is a Walmart. The store on the right, a Costco.
Walmart earned $13,510,000,000 in net income (that is profit after all expenses) for the year ended January 31, 2021 selling goods and foods to our families. The WM fortune is currently estimated at 191 BILLION dollars.
At the Costco on the right, in 2019 alone, Costco generated sales of close to 150 billion dollars and rising because, there again, we chose to shop there so that is who got our money. It was our choice.
Most Americans shop in a WM or a Costco type store or grocery store, resulting, as you just read, in huge profits for the store owners. Remember, this is mine and your hard-earned money…and we spend those dollars wherever we choose to spend them. It’s our choice. That choice is what freedom and democracy is all about. That’s cool, and that’s a good thing.
But watch this.
Now imagine that a new store that sells these same type goods as WM and CCo opens up right beside them. Let’s say we call this new store MY School Store…Mine and Your school store.
The difference between the 3 stores?
Not much at first glance. All 3 offer us the same items for our families. BUT, in the MY School Store, here is the difference. Normally when you make any type of purchase in a store, the store owners make a nice little profit of 20%-40% of each item you purchase. In a MY School Store though, 100% of the store PROFIT from every single purchase that you make, 100%, would go toward whatever education cost or funding that you choose because now, Me and You are the store owners of MY School Stores. The philanthropists simply build these stores, hand them over to the communities that shop in them, and all of that profit goes right back to our schools, our communities. It’s good for the philanthropists…it’s good for us. Your profit dollars could be then put toward any public or private education need or debt of your choice. That’s right, you decide.
For example, you might want a percentage of your purchases to be put toward your child’s public, charter or private school needs such as tuition, classroom resources, lunch and mental health programs…and hey, how about putting a percentage toward better teacher pay. You could put a portion toward your child’s current or future college tuition costs, or pay off your personal past student loans. You could also choose to invest some of your store profit dollars back into proven community programs across America. All dollars would be for education and community funding ONLY. This would never be a “cash-back-to-you” program though. These dollars can ONLY go to pay for your educational needs, or the local school needs of your choice. And these dollars…would be massive dollars nationwide. Massive.
Here is an example of how it might look.
OK, so I was married in 1988. My daughter graduated HS 26 years later in 2014. So had My School Stores existed when I got married in 1988, my wife and I could have been shopping in MSS’s for 26 years by the time my daughter graduated HS. That means, for 26 years, we could have been putting those dollars, that were store profits from our 26 years of family goods purchases, toward her education fund for all those years before she even began college in 2014. 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 MSS account that we had been putting those dollars into as MSS shoppers for 26 years 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. That is money normally paid out of a parents pocket…and hard to afford. What if my daughter would have chosen not to go to college; or what if someone has grown or no children? First, those dollars could never be cashed in. I can’t envision there ever to be a cash-back option in any scenario with MSS funds. Those dollars would remain as educational dollars. An individual could choose for those dollars to go toward several things though. 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, the in-school mental health programs schools could now afford. How about choosing to put some of your profit dollars toward school lunch or after school meals for kids who go home to the 17 million food challenged challenged homes across America?
If MSS ever becomes our new reality, all of us, even “the least of these”, would be empowered as a “self-philanthropist.” We would all be improving our own personal lives and finances while simultaneously improving our children's and our communities.
“As philanthropists, the most powerful legacy we can create is one that keeps on giving…through our children.” ~Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen
This would also be, indirectly, putting huge savings back in you and your family’s pocket since much of the dollars you used to pay out-of-pocket for things like tuition, would now be paid with the dollars you have accumulated from your years of MSS purchases. Think about that.
MSS is an ingenious “kill 20 birds with 1 stone” design.
And as one person asked… “Once in-place, couldn’t MSS funding possibly lower our property taxes since so much of our educational system is currently funded through our property taxes?”
That is an interesting thought.
The myriad of possibilities is exciting. Every person shopping in a MSS would have full transparency to all profits made on each of their receipts. After all, you are now the store owner.
For this to work, honesty and integrity of the MSS program would have to be designed and set up in such a way as to the MSS entity dollars being unquestionably accountable. Full transparency of all MSS operating expenses and profits must be accessible to everyone. After all, you own it.
We’ve got to realize our COMBINED power folks. We have never realized that or had a tangible vision of something that we could work toward together for all of our children’s education and equality, united, as a nation. We allow our differences to divide us; and that is a choice we make voluntarily. MSS would be that one entity that would allow us to have our individual, political, religious, and cultural beliefs, while still bringing us together to take all of our children up to a higher level of education and LIFE success. MSS would also allow all families to have more free money since MSS profit dollars would now pay for what used to be large out of pocket educational expenses. So the two biggest concerns we have in life, our kids and our money, would both be in much better shape if My School Stores become our new reality.
The very definition of IRONY? Allow me to blow your mind…Imagine passing an immigrant mother with 4-5 kids in tow on a MSS isle. That immigrant family, with 5 kids, naturally spends much more on food purchases than those families with 1 or 2 kids. Therefore, though they may work hard and only make 30K per year, and are possible on govt. assistance dollars as many are, that family of 5 kids spends more on food and essential goods than the family with fewer children. That means, in a MSS scenario, more of “profit” dollars would be coming from that family and going back into schools compared to that of a family with a more comfortable income that has only 1 or 2 kids. “Yeah but their govt. assistance dollars came from my hard earned taxed income and was given to them!” you say? OK, that’s true; but that is our reality. At least those dollars from their spending that were “your dollars” are now going back into “your” child’s school and benefit your child as well. So, it is like you getting some of that money back. Think about it.
The family in a child’s household and in their community are the biggest influence, since birth, on the children in those communities. That is a powerful, powerful mental hold. The dollars THEY spend that then go back into THEIR own community is what will bring about true empowerment for them. Only until we understand the gray matter of how to reach out to them will we have a chance of then turning the underprivileged into education believers. For anyone trying to help by gifting, what one has to understand is this…“How an offering is perceived , by those you are trying to help, is in equal proportion to how it will be received by them.”
As you can see by the annual WM and Costco profit numbers, it is far and away enough additional dollars to end this nightmare of too few tax dollars to go around. I think we can all agree these are all problems in desperate need of a solution yet can also agree that our tax dollars simply can not even come close to paying for the debts that resources cost that are needed from one end of the country to the other.
Here’s how the creation of My School Stores would be funded in order to become a reality:
It’s a very simple design actually…
Now imagine philanthropists doing one of two things: One, a philanthropist or group of them, could build My School Stores all across America. That would take some time. Or the more preferable option two, these philanthropists could more readily buy an existing retail home and food goods chain, that we already shop in, and convert them instantly to MY School Stores. In the latter scenario, mass funding would commence immediately. In a MSS, we would all simply be purchasing these same goods for our families just like we buy right now, except in a MSS, those philanthropist dollars would now be perpetually generating even more dollars each and every day as opposed to a one time gift from the philanthropist that is soon consumed by the need. Now imagine that the philanthropists would then give these stores back to us, so that we parents, teachers and students are the actual owners. Each community then, can democratically decide where best to invest these profit dollars school by school, community by community, since the needs are different in different places.
That’s right. Together we would now own the lemonade stand.
Differing cultures are often influenced to believe that there are just too many cultural and educational differences between it’s people to have enough in common to willingly want to help each other overcome shared adversities. But I’m telling you that the two biggest things of concern in our lives, our children and our money, are the two common denominators that we would all eagerly come together to support if we believed there actually was a way, a new idea, that we could all get excited about that would be sure to protect and provide our children with brighter futures.
There is.
Mr. Henry Darby
Henry walks the walk by donating his 2nd job’s income to his poor students and teachers. But how sad our reality also, that this is what we have come to.
Are you OK with this?… You good?
https://www.counton2.com/news/local-news/today-show-anchor-honors-north-charleston-principal-for-his-efforts-to-give-back/
Imagine the feeling of empowerment one might now feel seeing the endless resources and opportunities that are now in their child’s school and communities that did not use to be there. They themselves are now actively involved in bringing about true change simply by spending their money for their family in a MSS and then seeing that their money is what bought those new resources. They have become their own child’s and their own community’s philanthropist. Empowerment is a big word that is thrown around loosely these days; but we believe what you just read above to be the very definition of true empowerment.
After letting all of this sink in, my question to you simply is…
Where do you think everyone would spend their dollars now?
And once we see what those billions that we spend as Americans are now doing for our children and our communities, could you ever even imagine going back to when you made consumer goods purchases yet received nothing back in return?
We also say, “Don’t be intimidated by big ideas. They happen all the time. Big ideas all start as a simple thought in just one person’s mind. That thought then evolves into a tangible thing we can see and touch and before you know it that idea becomes just a natural part of our consciousness. i.e...the cell phone…. Facebook… Amazon… Microsoft… Wal-Mart. Most of these are now realities occurring just within the last 25+ years.”
We think there is an answer and that MSS is it. Our group simply wants to point the way with this idea and then let the philanthropists do the rest. Understand that this is not a money making opportunity for anyone. As the initiators of this proposal, we know that our group’s resource, our gift, is showing others how to MAXIMIZE THEIR RESOURCES. That is what the whole MSS concept is about. It’s about getting 20 birds with 1 stone…not just 2. That’s the type creative thinking that we used to create this proposal.
So as you can see, the MSS concept is aimed at bringing two entities together, the philanthropists and the people, in order to stop putting a band-aid on, and to instead permanently solve some huge issues that we, as a country, have been dealing with since, well, forever really. We say to the education philanthropists to consider this….
“Philanthropist investing their dollars in this way would be creating an entity that takes their dollars and maximizes them by creating a perpetual funding entity instead of just a one time gift to this or that charity. By doing this, you also then will make philanthropists out of even the least of these. You would be creating “givers” in mass. Think about that. This would allow everyone to feel the “power and joy of philanthropy” that a philanthropist feels when they give. THAT is true empowerment. Philanthropits, you build these stores for all of us, and we will come. Deal?”
The way people get so excited and passionate for their political candidate, one might think that special messiah-politician just may finally come along one day and have the answer to it all. That will never happen. The solution is definitely not a political solution, and never has been.
Hard to imagine My School Stores all across America? Sound crazy? Unrealistic pie-in-the-sky? Pie-in-the-sky is someone thinking that eventually something will happen without a plan of action, as if we will all just somehow have a collective kumbaya moment where all cultures will miraculously finally get on the same page and start thinking and doing alike. No…the reality is that we are who we are. Our individual thinking, our opinions, are too deeply engrained. That is the beauty of the MSS concept. We believe that we have found that elusive, one and only ”thing” which allows us to have our differences while still bringing us together as a collective in which, when we both support this proposed idea, the end result will be…. I save your child…and you save mine. Maybe then when we all get on that same plane we will begin to listen, learn and appreciate our different cultures.
We also challenge philanthropists to this… “You now have, not just the financial resources, but with the MSS plan in place, you also now possess that “thing” that has been so elusive, that tool that has been missing, that can eradicate and rectify these elusive ills which you have been searching for an answer to. What’s more is that you also now have the opportunity to empower every parent, non-parent, every child, with the ability to fund their own children’s high school and college education at the quality level that they deserve and that we now know we can afford by having these “profit for education and community” stores become the new reality of our society. We believe they would instantly become the new norm across America. THIS, is how we all can come together as one in order to fund all schools with the many resources so desperately needed, while at the same time quieting the cultural and political division that we see dividing us today.”
Now do you get it, and do you have even an inkling of the kind of money we are taking about here?
Sometimes the answer has always been right there, right in front of us…and sometimes the answer really is just that simple.
