Presented for your consideration, The MY (Mine&Your) Plan.
Our national public education funding design is broke and broken. Our financially hemorrhaging K-12 schools clearly shows this to be true. If we can't find a solution to fund our public schools other than just solely with our meager tax dollars, things will remain the same. That's just a fact. Even when our high school graduates make it through 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.
The MY Plan would more than adequately fund all public, private, and charter K-12 schools.
MY would also pay 100% of all future college tuitions and all past tuition debts as well, no matter how old the debt, for all Americans.
No more loans.
Currently, that national tuition debt is 1.7 TRILLION dollars by the way. That’s trillion folks, not billion.
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To a group like ours that has formulated solutions for a living for the past 40 years, this is simply just an inept and outdated funding design, yet is quite repairable.
What is proposed is not a pipe dream. The Good Idee Group does not do wishful thinking. We solve problems at the highest level.
Stay with me here.
Do you have a personal life-crescendo?
Ever thought much about that?
Perhaps you would point to having been successful at making money, providing well for your family, or maybe knowing you were a really good parent as your crescendo.
Respectfully speaking, please challenge the GIG to what we say the crescendo of crescendos for all of us should be.
Our challenge to you is that if you choose to play any part in MY coming to fruition, then there is nothing you could possibly do to have lived a more fulfilling life, given what MY would do for each and every family, each and every child, across America.
A great post-grad education should not put children in a lifelong tuition debt at 17 years old. Public education should be of the highest quality in North Charleston S.C., just as it is in the #1 ranked state of Massachusetts.
My name is R.M. Johnson. You and I both live in the same world. We have passed through, and then watched our children pass through, our financially emaciated educational system. We live in too rich of a country for schools to still exist like those of Principal Henry Darby in North Charleston, S.C. in the story down below.
I have owned a chemicals company for over 40 years. I am a chemical formulations engineer. Done good at it too. But here, I am just a dad. I come to you now as a facilitator for a group called The Good Idee Group, The GIG. I volunteered to be a facilitator after I was brought in as a consultant to what I found to be the most interesting and ingenious of ideas that I do believe has ever been presented to me. If you believe that you have any recognition skills whatsoever, then I have to think that you too will recognize the same.
The MY Plan is a problem-solving design. MY paints the picture of a realistic concept that would perpetually generate the massive daily dollars needed to pay for everything from school meals to master’s degrees in the 99,200 public schools, the 29,700 private schools, the 6,000 colleges, and the over 1,000 and rapidly growing technical colleges across all of America, from coast-to-coast.
The true genius of the MY design though, is that while paying for all the costs of school resources and tuitions, MY will simultaneously free up significantly more spending dollars in each and every household in our country.
Sounds impossible right?
You are about to be introduced to creative problem-solving at its finest. I realize that's quite a statement, but the group that brings you The MY Plan for consideration has formulated solutions for corporations globally for their entire careers, and they are damn good at it. In fact, I’d say they don't miss. I would apologize for how that may come across, but this is not the time for self-abnegation. This is the time to come forward if you know you have the answer, lay it out there, and then welcome others to challenge it. Good luck with that, as our group has challenged the MY concept up one side and down the other internally for 15 years. Our consensus?
We know it will work. And it would not just “work.” It is surely to be so well received and demanded by everyone that it would quickly become our new normal across our land.
We here are tired of seeing children, especially those in low-income communities, struggle to get a fair and equal opportunity for an education.
A fair opportunity is not happening for those that need it most, and nothing on the horizon is changing that if there’s no huge new resource of dollars for education to be found. Equal opportunity is and always has been very much about money. Period.
So, our group decided to apply our problem-solving skills to our schools and communities to see if we could do for them what we have done for corporations across the globe.
Please don't misinterpret this presentation as written in unprofessional speech. We just realize that you can’t get people to read jack these days. So, since this is not a business proposal presentation, why put forth a boring read? This is you and I thinking together. I am talking to you here in the style as if you and I were old friends trying to figure something out.
So here we go ol’ buddy…
It’s 2025, yet many public schools in our nation still do not have even the most basic of classroom resources.
Don’t believe me?
Have you heard the story of Mr. Henry Darby, the high school principal in North Charleston, S.C.?
Meet Henry.
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.
Kindly speaking, Henry’s situation is beyond inept in our so-called 2025 AI, technologically advanced America, that we allow such a reality to still exists for Henry and for those he lives to serve.
In fact, it’s downright bullshit.
You and I, no matter our culture, should be highly offended and probably ashamed if we accept Henry’s fate as fact and do nothing to act when the solution, that is The MY Plan comes along. What MY offers would completely transform Henry’s kid’s present and future quality of life through educational opportunities 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.
The answer is here, but you and I have to be willing to slow down for just a second from our fast-paced lives, and allow 5 minutes to listen to the solution from the people that know.
Now, let’s get after it and discover The MY Plan together.
The good news is that last year alone, educational philanthropists donated 68 Billion to education. Why is that good news? Because donating 68 billion shows that there are those out there that are funding big dollars trying to help. They’re looking and willing to pay for an answer. We want to show them, and you, what a permanent solution looks like. Once we are all on the same page, we can then all come together as a group and discuss the most important part of MY, the implementation plan.
With your help, for the first time ever, we can actually “fix” the leak in this boat, as opposed to just constantly bailing water by seeking donation dollars from educational philanthropists just to keep this education boat afloat.
We have to stop standing there with our hand out waiting for philanthropic donations and “gifting” to co-fund education. Gifting will never pay for all that is needed and empowers no one but the wealthy giver.
With The MY Plan in place, your child’s future college tuition would be long paid off well before they even begin their freshman year of college. MY will accomplish this without any additional taxing of our family earnings and without borrowing any dollars from our government.
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?
Henry’s answer?
“Very few, I tell you. It’s as foreign to them as filet mignon!”
Exactly Henry. Exactly.
The TODAY show came and did a feature on Henry. They shook Henry’s hand, gave him a $50,000 token check from WM, then all headed back to the city. You think that $50K solved Henry’s funding problems?
Mr. Henry Darby
Things don’t have to be this way.
After 15 years of carefully dotting i’s and crossing t’s, the Good Idee Group comes to you now, simply as parents, just like you. We are here with a creative solution to help schools, from those as deprived as Henry’s, to schools not in such desperate need, yet still needing much more than current educational tax funding dollars can provide.
“If each of us possessed such a vision, to where we loved each other’s children with the same fervent love that we have for our own children, our resolve to help them all would be overpowering. That resolve would simply be invincible.”
What you are about to read is the solution that we can apply to that resolve. The genius of this very simple solution is that every aspect of it unites people of every financial class, of every political opinion, of every race, of every culture. There is nothing culturally or politically divisive about The MY Plan.
It seems people often have the attention span of a gnat these days though, when asked to read something.
So, keeping in mind the gnat thing, please find below then, what we believe to be the solution. This is our way out, but only if we all work together within something we call, The MY Plan.
“If you want to do something for me, do something for my child.” ~ Frances Naomi Vaughn
OK, so imagine if Wal-Mart and CostCo had a baby, but prettier. Imagine a store that is a blend of a mega grocery and a mega home goods store. Let’s say we call these MY (Mine&Your) Stores. Now imagine these type of stores coast-to-coast, in each community, just like WM, CC, and grocery stores are now.
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, (that the store owner normally puts into their pocket) 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, be it your child, or your community, or both.
Where does the money go 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 in order to 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. A % could go into the savings portion of your MY account to later be used to pay the future college tuition of your child. Each My Store, each parent, would then be generating and co-funding (along with our current tax dollars that now go towards each schools) the much needed $$’s lacking for all past, present, and future educational needs.
Who pays for all the MY Stores? My Stores would be funded by those educational mega-philanthropists, who we already can see would like to find a permanent solution, just like you and I would. Remember, those educational philanthropists are already donating 60 BILLION per year to education trying to help. They are looking for a solution!
MY Stores would soon become our ‘self-owned,’ ‘self-mega-funding’ behemoth.
Together, we would now own the lemonade stand.
Just imagine, a % to go toward paying off your past tuition debts, no matter how old the debt. A % could go toward teacher’s salaries, a % toward basic classroom resources like needed at Henry’s schools. Quality in-school mental health professionals, quality nutrition 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 they just earned from their purchase immediately at the register on their receipt. Those dollars would never be given back in cash dollars to any individual however. That money is put in each customer’s personal MEC card, MY Education Costs account. Those monies would then be paid out at specified times of need. 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 shopping at MY stores and putting all those profit dollars that are our families profits from our 26 years of family goods purchases, toward our daughter’s college education fund for all of those 26 years. 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 my daughter would have chosen 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. An individual could choose for those dollars to go toward many other educational needs 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, etc.
If MY ever becomes our new reality, all of us, even “the least of these” in our society, would be empowered as a “self-philanthropist.” 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? It takes away one’s self-pride. But they do not have a choice. It's easy to see then, why it's poor communities that have the lowest self-esteem.
MY is designed to change that. Think about it. We all have that one thing in common that we do. We all “spend.” And we all use that one single resource that we all possess. We all use “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 children.
MY empowers the parent. MY empowers the child. MY empowers the community.
But all three have to come together at the exact same time, or this permanent, perpetual change that is so needed, will never happen.
Is there any action that you can think of, that any of us could take, that would possibly be more self-empowering than the ‘self-philanthropy’ (and we love that word) of seeing our hard-earned $$’s circling back around to each person again, in order to properly fund the needs that have been lacking since forever in schools?
A MY Store in that community, would overrun Henry’s school with the funds his kids and their communities so desperately need; as it would all schools across America. Everyone would support it. Look at it, study it, try to envision it, then see if you can understand and envision the demand that would sensibly just be a naturally created excitement in all communities, for their own MY (Mine&Your) store.
If The MY Plan has gained your interest thus far, keep reading to find out everything we have discovered in the 15 years that we have been developing MY, while simultaneously trying to find that one legal, political, or educational guru that could give us a good reason why the MY concept will not work; and then trying to perfect MY, once we knew that it would.
