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Posted on 07/08/2010 6:50:44 PM PDT by Kieri
The federal government could soon be paying for lunch for entire communities of children under a new plan in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Christina A. Samuels of Education Week reports that the Improving Nutrition for America’s Children Act of 2010 would allow schools in high-poverty areas to be covered under a “community eligibility” option that allows free meals to all students without the traditional paperwork to determine eligibility.
That would mean free meals for an extra 20 percent of students in Grand Rapids, where eight of 10 students already meet income levels to qualify for free or reduced-price meals. The districts provides students who are eligible for reduced-price lunches to get them at no cost, using money from a surplus in the lunch program’s account.
But Samuels said there are more far-reaching effects, including establishing nutritional standards for foods served outside the cafeteria, such as in vending machines.
Right now, districts are reimbursed at $2.68 per meal for lunches served for free, and districts can provide the food for less through buying groups and other plans, stockpiling money that can used for renovating kitchens and other food-related expenses.
The bill proposes increasing the rate by 6 cents per meal, and lawmakers project the plan will cost $8 billion over 10 years.
Federal leaders would like to add a million students to the daily lunch list during the next five years, according to a statement by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, posted on his department’s website.
“The health of our nation – of our economy, our communities, and our national security – depends on the health of our children. We will not succeed if our children are not learning as they should because they are hungry, and cannot achieve their dreams because they are unhealthy,” he wrote.
Vilsack also wants more money for cafeteria equipment as well as creating a credentialing program for food service directors.
Samuels reports that there were 31.3 million subsidized meals served daily in 2009.
Anytime you expand the government’s role there are likely to be concerns.
People might ask whether it’s part of a school district’s mission to feed each and every student who walks through their doors, especially as the federal government expands the program to serve more children breakfast and in the summer.
And once a government program starts, it’s difficult to remove or keep it from expanding. Once meals are offered to entire communities, will that entitlement eventually expand to neighboring areas — and will the money always be there?
Some could argue that creating national standards for vending machines also assumes that local districts either don’t have such rules in place or are incapable of creating them on their own.
Grand Rapids leaders this summer are evaluating their school lunch plan to give students more healthy choices after top administrators were unhappy with the amount of vegetables in daily lunch servings compared to what suburban students were offered.
E-mail Dave Murray: dmurray@grpress.com and follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/ReporterDMurray
Words fail me.
Seems like it would be a lot cheaper to teach a lot of parents how to use a stove.
More indoctrination into reliance on Big Brother. Talk about a Free Lunch.
Might as well teach them young about how to suck of the taxpayer tit !!!!!!!!!
Doing away with paperwork most directly would benefit the children of illegal aliens.
Doing away with paperwork most directly would benefit the children of illegal aliens.
they get breakfast too
and here in the summer (Indiana) they get lunch even when school is out
Covered under “Parental Responsibility 101.” Not a government responsibility.
‘Free Lunch’ is such a fine philosophy to teach our children. /sarc
There they go again, spending our money for votes.
Spending money that we don’t have...yes we can
Grand Rapids is relatively well-off in the grand scheme of things in Michigan.
This the same Jack Squat government that could not and/or would not extend school vouchers for children living in poverty to go to better schools and obtain better educations?
Here’s a thought: We have some serious frakin idiots in our Federal government and each and every one of their idiotic arses need to be removed, ASAP, by force, if necessary. =.=
High poverty areas will soon be the entire USA thanks to the Fuhrer and his cohorts in Congress.
32% of all kids in Indiana public schools are free lunchers.
In the upscale suburb my daughter teaches in, the number is still a bit over 10%.
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