My child is about to begin their freshman year of high school. I live in a big city, and most of the high schools here are s***. So they do “gifted” programs within each school for the students who actually give a damn. We decided to give one of these gifted programs a shot, and if we don’t like it, we will go to a private school instead. The program is like a school-within-a-school: separate hallway, teachers, schedule, etc…

Today was a mandatory orientation meeting for all freshman parents, both with students in the gifted program and the regular program.

The program lasted two hours, and THE ENTIRE TIME was spent explaining to parents how to get free s*** from the government. It was like a two-hour welfare lesson. They forced parents to fill out forms for free healthcare, free lunches, free tutoring, etc…
Except none of it’s free. My wife and I made enough last year that we paid about $70,000 in taxes. People like us are paying for all of that “free” stuff.

All of the stereotypes were out in force at this meeting: The black mother with five school-aged children, talking on her phone the whole time her kids ran wild, the Hispanic dayworker who had to have everything translated for him and still didn’t seem to get it, the young white woman who is clearly on drugs, with her mixed-race children in tow, etc…

No wonder things are so bad in this country, when this is who the government “reaches out” to. If, instead of giving my money to these people, the government gave it back to me, I could do something useful with it. I could make something meaningful, not just another welfare child.