And it’s entirely preventable. We can afford to feed every single student every single day. It doesn’t have to be a brown bag, sad little whitebread and cheese slice sandwich. It can be the same food everyone else eats. In fact, we spend more administering a for-profit food service payment system than we spend on the food. It would be cheaper to just give it away to everyone.
We know this because we did it during COVID. All of the schools closed, and the for-profit food providers were going to lose a lot of money. Sysco and Aramark and US Foods and Sodexo are all big donors to both parties, so we had to bail them out by buying the food. There wasn’t a debate in congress, there wasn’t any tax increase or funding shortfall. The money was just there because they wanted it.
Schools had more food than they knew what to do with. Food banks and public pantries were fully stocked, and school districts were begging parents to come take home some breakfasts and lunches.
It could really just be like that. No registers, no accounting, no shaming poor kids, no threatening demand letters, no lunch cards, no websites. Just feed children, because hungry children don’t learn.
There wasn’t a debate in congress, there wasn’t any tax increase or funding shortfall. The money was just there because they wanted it.
And then states like Missouri refused the money because Republicans hate children.
It’s so much worse than that.
During Covid, the money just went straight to the corporations, and the food went to the schools. With schools back in session, the Conservatives in the federal government put restrictions on the funding, requiring documentstion and forms for all of the students participating in the program. They wanted to make it as onerous and invasive as possible. This administrative red tape disproportionately affected the more densely populated regions, and also gave the conservative states a reason to decline participation. Because if Republicans are going to be forced to help children, by God they’re going to use the statistics against their enemies.
This alone should be enough for a revolt
Sure. Except those on the Left won’t. Couple reasons:
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Can’t agree on a reason.
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Won’t agree on a where and when.
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Will disagree whether it’s worth it right now.
1 exploitation of capital.
2 right now, wherever you are.
3 yes it is.
the ones who disagree with it are probably the majority of liberals who perpetually think they can fix it in the next election. liberalism is not leftism though.
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I mean I hate children, but I still want them to have free food like eveyone else
Minnesota has free school lunch for all students. Thanks Walz…
I haven’t heard anything about Tim Walz that I didn’t like.
Isn’t he a Zionist?
Yeah, that says he’s a Zionist
Really? Ok. I don’t have a problem with what he said there. Palestinians have a right to live, the attacks in Gaza are unacceptable and should cease immediately, regardless of the horrible attacks on October 7th. I would go further and call it a genocide, but I can understand why a politician would avoid incendiary language during an election cycle.
Does that make me a Zionist, too?
Do you know what is the definition of a Zionist?
But how are you going to maintain an exploitable underclass, if you actually help poor people? Bet you didn’t think of that, huh? Checkmate leftists!
Please discard your “logic”, in favor of some vitriolic spew from an angry white man (or woman) that I heard on the radio / saw on the TV. /s
Just bc we can, doesn’t mean we should.
We should (no /s), but that doesn’t mean that we will.
Democracy requires the good faith of its voting citizenry, e.g. to edumacate themselves.
I’m going to be exceedingly gracious and assume that the one person who downvoted your comment (as of the time I’m typing this) accidentally hit the wrong button and didn’t realize it.
I have definitely done that. But I also think I might have a stalker who follows me around and downvotes comments. Especially when I post something stupid, they all come out of the woodwork.
But yes, I agree, I wouldn’t expect “feed children” to be a contentious suggestion.
Why do people keep asking if we’re okay? No, we are clearly not completely fine. We’re neck-deep in an information war and who will be the ultimate victor is very much undecided.
Frankly, we probably would’ve activated NATO’s Article 5 provision by now, except what good would it do when all of our allies are already under the same sort of attack?
Seriously though, people do not call for civil war in countries that are doing completely fine. That is not a sign of robust civic health.
From Texas. When I was in elementary school circa 2000, we had a running balance that our parents could contribute to via written checks.
My parents were going through a divorce back then, and in the pinging back and forth between my parents houses, it always gave me so much anxiety buying lunch at school. You wouldn’t know if your account could cover what you picked up in the lunch line until you got to the cashier at the end. AND if it couldn’t, they would literally take all of the food you put on your tray and give you a PB&J sandwich.
Having elementary school kids keep up with their balances was tough, and even when I did remember, if I were with my dad, he would refuse to give lunch money to my sister and me because “that’s what child support is for.”
It just sucked all around and made me feel like the smallest human on earth. And I know that this experience here was not unique to me.
Sounds like a real class act. I bet he still doesn’t know why he couldn’t make his marriage work.
Not only are we not OK, we need your help. Please issue sanctions until we stop funding genocides and torturing folks
No. We are not ok. About half of us have centered their lives around fuck you I got mine and let’s be cruel to everyone else.
I think the saddest part is that most of the people pushing these awful ideas did not get theirs. And instead of trying to do something constructive to help themselves and others, they are desperately fighting to make sure that no one else “gets theirs” either.
Well said. Sadly.
That ain’t unique to USA
In California, school lunch is paid by the state. It’s awesome and solves this problem. All the kids get the same lunch for free. Some kids still bring their lunch, but it’s rare.
In foster care we were part of the free lunch program. The first week in my first high school the lunch lady made it a point to call us all up first so EVERYONE knew who the ‘poors’ were. This was in one of the top 5 most expensive zipcodes in the U.S.
For the next four years I ate knowledge in the library for lunch.
Yeah, but what I’m saying is that’s not a thing anymore in California, they just have free lunch for all the kids, and you don’t need to be “a poor” to get it
Yes and that’s wonderful and everywhere should implement it.
But they won’t.
Because people are fundamentally assholes. Just California has a lower quotient due to higher education (though hollywood does skew that a bunch too)
Same in the uk
I went to secondary school at the turn of the millennium and I remember having to go to admin to get my dinner tickets on a Monday, which were worth £1.30, but there was never any shame in it because I don’t think too many kids knew the significance of it; in fact, my mate Danny would always want to buy them off me for £1.50 apiece. This other lad called Liam would sometimes lord it over me because his mum gave him £2 a day for his dinner, but by year 11 he was roundly known as a bit of a prick if I recall correctly, so I was even vindicated in the end.
My kids’ school did this a while back and even though I didn’t have any issues buying their lunches not having to manage their account was nice. And since they also got breakfast it was one less thing I had to do before getting them on the bus.
Yeah, they technically offer breakfast for our kids too, but I’d have to get them ready and to school like 30 minutes early. I don’t do mornings like that.
america are you ok?
So you watched John Oliver last night?
The part with the teacher who was tasked with telling all of the students that free lunches are over… Jesus Christ. She could see the worried faces and darting eyes of the kids who were depending on those meals.
No spoilers! I want to be surprised by the messed up topic
Link plz
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UCqtnr-pF8
Full Episode on the official channel. But it’s geoblocked in locations where it’s officially availible on paid sources. But you can watch it from France or the Czech Republic (just some examples I know of) with a VPN.
The main segment will be on the official channel (without geoblock) on thursday (I think).
Red states are not okay, because all they have left in their value system is cruelty toward people they see as not “pulling their weight,” as if we still live in some resource-scarce era of yore where if you don’t work, you don’t eat (and even if you do work, eating is not guaranteed, better work harder!).
Blue states are increasingly providing lunches, and sometimes even breakfast, for all students free of charge. It used to be income-based (you’d get free or half-priced lunch based on your family’s income), but even that system is getting ditched because of the associated stigma and the problem of some needy students falling between the cracks.
Minnesota and governor Tim Walz for the win.
Minnesota is probably the most famous example at the moment, but they’re far from alone!
https://www.nycfoodpolicy.org/states-with-universal-free-school-meals-so-far-update/
I’m so sad that Kamala stole our governor. He’s going to be really good for the country as a whole, but he was ours!
Do you think you will elect another Democrat?
don’t forget the red state genius idea of “why pay janitors when we can make the kids clean up each others’ puke? then they’ll think it’s great when they start getting paid $7/hr for manual labor at 14”
I taught last year in a district near Dallas, TX where 70% of students were on a free or reduced lunch plan. This year, I am teaching in a district near Portland, OR where breakfast and lunch is free for every student, as it should be.
There are some states that feed kids as a matter of routine state budgeting. Those kids get a lunch paid for by taxpayers. A damn fine investment of tax dollars, if you ask me.
My uncle: “AIN’T NO BROWN KID EVER GONNA EAT ON MY DIME DODGAMMIT!”
He and all his friends are voting, you should too.
Schools provide lunch to ANYONE who shows up needing lunch in my county.
Year round.
Adults can come, they can bring children not old enough to go to school and they can come alone.
They don’t sit in the cafeteria with the kids during the school year BUT they can pick up a free lunch from the kitchen.
Turns out feeding people costs less than hungry people (which is how they keep justifying it to the people who want to take it away) AND it’s the right thing to do.
It’s only the right thing to do if your interests do not include oppressing voters and hoarding wealth.
Here we parents have to pay. But parents that cannot afford it can contact the authorities and get government funds for that without their children (and their friends) to ever learn about that.
Tim Walz is governor of one of these states.
I agree feeding children is an unequivocally great use of tax dollars.
If people think schools feeding kids is a waste of tax dollars, imagine how much of a waste it is to try to teach hungry children.
No. We are not OK. Thanks for asking.
I do remember lunch shaming happening to others in school. Kids are mean and don’t really understand class struggle.
In England we had it with school jumpers, poor kids had a cheap jumper with the logo sewn on, everyone else had an official jumper.
I was one of the three or so “poor” kids in my year, and it was quite embarrassing. Wasn’t even poor, my mum was just extremely stingy and wouldn’t pay for the proper jumper…
Yeah I got it here in England for my budget school uniform, for requiring free achool.meals, for my shoes, for a dozen other signs of poverty…
I love that america tackles it’s own social issues and hate that Brits and other Europeans do nothing but snarky attacks on America as a way of denying our own issues and pretending america is uniquely bad.
They understand alright, they’re just often intent on perpetuating it.
They absolutely do not. There is a big difference before junior high and post high school. Humans do need to learn and children are running on instinct and feelings until they do. Its a process and takes more time for some than others. Some never learn.,
In elementary school in the early 80s I was called poor (which I was) because I had to bring a box lunch in an old beat up lunchbox my mom got from a yard sale for a nickel, and could not afford cafeteria lunches. All my food was home made and the kids made fun of everything I brought. It got so bad I used to get in trouble all the time so I always had lunch detention and had to eat with my teacher.
yeah. we had a big family and there was competition for normal looking brown bags which I was not good at so mine was in the wonder bread bag. I would not say we were poor. We were poor for the rich suburb we lived in but it was a big working class family and my parents, rightly, prioritized getting a house, even the worst house, in a good school district and getting it paid off.
We did not have indoor toilets until I was in 6th or 7th grade, and the indoor shower came a year or so later.
at home or school? in the 80’s?
Home and yes
Some sure, for others I got the impression it was a crabs in a bucket kind of situation.
It’s OK, we’re dealing with this by repealing our child labor laws, so kids can work at the meat processing plant instead of some immigrant. Two birds, one stone.
Brought to you by luxury lectern spender (at taxpayer’s expense!) and Weird 34 sycophant Gov. Sarah Sanders of Arkansas.
No we’re not OK
I remember in grade school my district had a system where everyone who bought anything at the cafeteria went through an internal “type in your ID to the pin pad” system. Internally, the computer would decide whether the student was charged against their account or if it did a discount/free. This was how they dealt with that.
No. Not even close to OK. There are examples of light in the darkness, such as Tim Walz (Kamala Harris’ running mate) who as the governor of Minnesota enacted a law to make school lunches free for all. Kids don’t get to decide who they are born to, and hungry kids don’t learn nearly as well as fed kids. Educated kids help our future, so it’s an extremely high ROI.
