I take care of the bookkeeping in my own business and in my household. The reason may shock some of you. My wife is extremely tight with money, not ridiculously so, mind you, but let's just say that she has never made an impulse buy in her life. She's the one who taught me to be more careful at spending, but it's just not in my nature as it is in her. Let me illustrate.
When my wife's maternal grandmother fell deathly ill, the family needed to rush to Nashville from Tampa. My wife's dad didn't have any cash on hand, so my wife lent him $500 to take the family up there. You see, this was back when there were no ATMs. My wife was only 13 at the time, and the money was part of her stash of $1,600 earned from babysitting.
She is not, however, a ridiculous miser. When we do need to buy something, it has to really good quality or even the best. "You get what you pay for." The point is; I don't have to worry about her spending any money. I keep track of all the spending because I need to be constantly reminded of the necessity of staying on budget. If you don't monitor carefully where your money is going, you can get into trouble. Which explains a lot about that inane disaster called government (public) education,
which sucks billions of dollars into a black hole that does not really educate anybody to an acceptable level.
It's a perception problem. The vast majority of Americans think of "public" education as being free. Nothing could be further from the truth. Most all of this country uses ad valorem property taxes to pay for the government schools. You don't have children? Too bad. By choice or fate, you still pay for those skools. Retired? Already raised your kids? You keep on paying. Think you don't pay because you rent? Hah! What landlord would be foolish enough not to pass all taxes and other expenses on to the tenant?
But it's that perception problem. People cherish things they have to work hard for. They treat with contempt those things they perceive as cheap. This is why parents who sacrifice to spend money on private school demand excellence out of the teachers and effort from their own children.
It's bad enough that they have to pay to educate other people's children, but then they pay extra to make sure that their kids actually learn enough to succeed. And please spare me that idiotic mantra of, "but there are some good public schools." Nonsense. The only people who buy that crap are those who have never had their child in a private school to find out how much their child really doesn't know. Such people just look at the grades on the report card and that's where all concern stops. They don't actually ask probing questions to see if their child actually knows anything of value. They don't look at homework or tests to see if their standards are being met by the school.
Grades don't even reflect an objective way of measuring student performance. Most schools don't use A, B, C, D, or F anymore. There is a hodge-podge of different letter codes, but more importantly, there is no definitive percentage scale. It used to be that an A could only be earned for a percentage score above 96%. A "B" required between 79 - 95%. Getting a C meant you scored 70 - 80%. "D" meant you only understood 60 - 69% of the subject. Anything below that meant you just didn't know enough to get anything but an F, and an F meant you Failed.
Oooh, but that's so judgmental. We don't want to use words like "failed" or "failure" with our precious children. That might hurt their self esteem.
Hogwash. It worked for millennia. Political fashion has the cart before the horse. Self-esteem doesn't come before accomplishment. Self-esteem is the result of accomplishment.
I used to help my wife grade papers from the government school she taught in for 14 years. Third graders couldn't spell three and four letter words, use punctuation or syntax. Her frustration was constant and grating, and it wore on her nerves. One exchange she had with an inner-city, bussed in child illustrates the cause of the problem. While watching a couple of F-16's fly over the playground, the little boy said, "Man I wanna do that!"
"You can if you want to."
"Huh?"
"You can become a pilot and fly for the Air Force. But, you have to learn and get good grades. You're smart enough that if you would just apply yourself and take school seriously, there would be no limit to what you could do."
His face went from excited to dull and doubtful. "Nah, I ain't actin' white." And he walked away.
Now my wife works in a private school. The tuition is about half of the government school cost. The papers I see now show children who have been reading since the age of 4 or 5. With one or two exceptions, they can all compose meaningful paragraphs and use large and complex words. It is absolutely amazing to see the contrast.
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