Should there be free lunch to all K-12 students?

Parent Cafe
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<p>Yes, that is the piece we all grapple with when it comes to feeding kids. Even at home, most of us would not force our kids to eat things that make them gag. But that doesn’t mean we substitute healthy food with junk. People may disagree with me, but I think it is okay for kids to sometimes go hungry if they refuse to eat what is offered them. If they are hungry enough, they will eat what is available. Supposedly, it can take up to 55 tries before a child learns to like a food (supposedly someone actually figured that out).</p>

<p>I agree with your spaghetti/chicken with rice/pb&j options. Those were my kids’ favorites at home. (Even when served with whole grain pasta, brown rice and whole grain bread :))</p>

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I think there should be, maybe, one choice of last resort like PB&J for kids who won’t eat anything else on a given day. But otherwise it would be great to have a couple of healthy things to try. I have been a vegetarian since I was a little girl, so I would have gone hungry every day rather than eat meat. I used to bring the same lunch every day: mayonnaise on rye bread, a thermos of water, a small bag of cut up veggies and either an applel or an orange.</p>

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<p>PB&J is fine nutritionally with the right bread and the right peanut butter and with dropping the J. I often have a peanut butter sandwhich with unsalted and no-sugar-added peanut butter. Good protein, 12 or 13 grams of fiber and not very many calories.</p>

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<p>quantmech

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<p>If there ever was before, this is a time to leave labels and prejudice behind and be receptive to all viewpoints. We have enormous economic and educational problems, and need to open our minds up wide to solve them. </p>

<p>You do want to at least hear and read about other ideas, right? Especially when the ones you’ve held onto aren’t working? You can always reject them, but you do want to at least be informed?</p>

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Me too. I actually like peanut butter with wheat germ sprinkled on because I like the texture.</p>

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<p>If more nutritious school meals can be provided without too much of an increase in cost, why don’t we do that? Maybe Michelle Obama could take that up as an issue, specifically.</p>

<p>To spideygirl: I support the “marketplace of ideas.” Still, I think that people should know the sources, because that lets them know about a possible slant behind the ideas that are being proposed. For instance, if I saw a group of “facts” being suggested by Glenn Beck, I’d want to dig deeper, pretty quickly. If I saw a group of “facts” being suggested by a committee from the National Academy of Sciences, I would not be in as big a rush to check them out (while recognizing that there might still be some lingering sources of bias). Another example: This comes from Stanford vs. this comes from Stanford’s Hoover Institute.</p>

<p>The salary listed by the Mackinac Center as the “median” for Detroit Public School teachers is a little over $2000 above the maximum salary for Detroit Public School teachers listed by the Detroit Free Press. I don’t know about the specific time frames, and the 10% salary reduction might have occurred in the interim, but a median above the maximum is going to draw my attention. Also, the Mackinac Center neglected to mention that the maximum salary in Troy, which is not too many miles from Detroit, is about $14,000 higher. Troy is a much better school district, and a much more favorable environment in which to teach.</p>

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<p>“We do carbs in the 20% - 30% range. You might think of low-carb as in
the under 10% range as in Atkins induction.”</p>

<p>@BCEagle: Ah. My mistake :). Nice job man.</p>

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<p>I think that better nutrition can actually cost less. Perhaps it costs more in the beginning as you try to identify better nutrition and buy it regardless of cost but you later find less expensive sources of the stuff.</p>

<p>Providing water over chocolate milk has to be cheaper, right?</p>

<p>Maybe you could teach home economics in some schools with the students baking bread or cooking the meals. One of the local high-schools in the area runs a restaurant in the school with the students doing the work - people from outside the school can come in and use it.</p>

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<p>Two of the high schools in my area have culinary arts programs, which means that the students cook and other students can eat the food. I understand it’s quite good. But it’s not available for younger kids.</p>

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<p>Our district is one of the Colorado districts that started on a healthy food change a couple of years ago. Even in a relatively upper middle class district, it isn’t a smooth process, and the jury is out.</p>

<p>Good:

  • They went to bulk milk dispensers, and can now serve organic milk on an all-you-want basis for less than it cost them to supply the individual cartons of milk. No flavored milk. They do have to wash glasses, but that is now built into the process.
  • There is fresh fruit at every lunch, and a salad bar in every school. (This is a good and a bad-- because they have to do nutritional analysis and advertise the specific fruit in advance, sometimes well in advance, the fruit isn’t always what you’d choose, and isn’t necessarily as ripe as I’d like. They still don’t do much with stone fruits and soft fruits (like grapes) because of price and perishability. I’m not hugely optimistic about the ability of kids to follow reasonable hygiene precautions near the salad bar.)
  • Some of the foods are pretty good, and the kids like them and eat them.
  • Breakfast foods have substantially improved, and actually look like food a reasonable family might serve.
  • Past meals that might have included milk, orange juice, waffle sticks, syrup, pork sausage, and tater tots are gone. (I kid you not – this was precisely one of the meals I saw a few years ago.)
    -They’ve made a big push on kitchen hygiene and pantry control, which I gather was not up to snuff.</p>

<p>Bad

  • Kids complain that the food isn’t seasoned enough, and is dry. This is particularly a problem with things like the burritos and the brown rice. They need to really work on this.
  • They prepare all the food at central kitchens and then deliver for reheating to schools, which I think is lowering the quality of the food.
  • For some reason, they’re not doing much with foods high school students would eat, like protein-rich salads, burritos with some spice kick, hearty soups or chili, decent subs, baked sweet potatoes,…-- the entire menu seems to be oriented towards what a first grader might like, both in terms of food choice and seasoning.
  • The eliminated a la carte offerings, which has pushed the majority of kids off campus for hs lunch. The adults aren’t thrilled either. Not sure why some reasonable sandwiches couldn’t be served.
    -They required that no food products be sold during any times the cafeteria is open, which eliminated the student-run coffee cart that was a huge hit with students and staff.
  • They’re still losing money on the whole deal, and are having to fund-raise heavily to support the healthy food initiative. </p>

<p>I’m not so happy with the my-way-or-the-highway approach, especially as it concerns a la carte items. I see a pretty big difference between eliminating soda, chips and cookies, and providing some healthy alternative choices like soups, sandwiches, fruit, prepack protein salads, and burritos.</p>

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<p>When I was a kid I packed a variation of the following mozzarella string cheese (not conveniently packaged like nowadays), some granola type crunchy snack - either trail mix or something like it, a low fat yogurt (froze them the night before), peanut butter and banana sandwich and some kind of fruit. Usually a banana or some seasonal fruit. If we had leftovers from the night before, I would pack it in Tupperware and eat it cold at lunchtime. I packed my own lunches since grade school.</p>

<p>My kids did basically the same while they were young, but they loved turkey sandwiches on whole wheat.</p>

<p>Probably too much sugar, too much dairy and too many carbs. I lived on that stuff when I was a kid. </p>

<p>On rare occasions, I ate in the cafeteria. And it was usually a treat. It was back when they made food or prepared it on site with actual ovens and stovetops, not just the microwave or reheating pre-cooked food. </p>

<p>I usually bought milk at school. Or drank out of the water fountain. </p>

<p>Nowadays the kids are usually rushed through lunch and wolfing it down. At the local elementary school, it’s about eating quick and moving the next batch of kids through the lines and onto the playground.</p>

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<p>I wish I could respond QuantMech, but apparently I cannot. Sometimes I can, but quite often I can’t. It pretty much makes it impossible to express my views, which is obviously the intention.</p>

<p>SO sad. :(</p>

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<p>spideygirl, you are welcome to respond. However, the message that you posted from the Mackinac Center was vehemently anti-union. I don’t think that the unions are really to blame for the situation in Detroit, nor with the auto companies. The teachers’ union apparently accepted a 10% pay cut this year–where else is that matched?</p>

<p>In the history of the U.S., unions have played a critical role in protecting the rights of workers to safe working places, reasonable hours, the abolition of child labor, and fair employment practices. I have worked with people who roll their eyes when mentioning unions; and I recognize that there have been some very questionable union practices as unions gained power in the U.S. However, they have been weakening recently, and at the same time, at least some of their former members have been falling out of the middle class. It is popular Midwest-Republican politics to demonize unions. Misplaced ire, in my viewpoint.</p>

<p>Detroit Public School teachers might make a salary in the top 3-5% of the state (or they might have, prior to the reductions). I have the impression that teachers in Michigan are generally much better paid than those in some neighboring states–a situation that is not disconnected from union pay scales, in my view.</p>

<p>On the other hand, the teachers’ pay scale in my suburban school district, which is not one of the wealthiest in the state, is definitely higher than that in Detroit, and the teachers do not have to contend with the difficulties that face teachers in Detroit.</p>

<p>If you look at houses that are for sale in the neighborhood of Carstens Elementary in Detroit (just picked it because the New York Times covered it–don’t have any other knowledge of it), you will see that this is a very depressed area, economically.</p>

<p>spideygirl, if you don’t want to send money to Detroit, what is your suggestion for “fixing” it? Please keep in mind that unemployment in Michigan is generally running well above the national average. Also, please keep in mind that a fair fraction of the adults in Detroit are functionally illiterate.</p>

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<p>Incidentally, I think the mayor of Detroit at one point proposed to bulldoze houses down, and convert the land to green space. One problem is that there are families living in homes with a “scatter shot” distribution among vacant homes, and not all of them want to relocate. Even bulldozing the houses costs money.</p>

<p>(Not to deflect the thread, but spideygirl opposed sending money to Detroit, for this program to offer free lunches to students in schools with a high fraction of students who qualify for free or reduced lunches, and I thought this needed some reaction.)</p>

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<p>spideygirl, perhaps you misunderstood my intent. I did not mean that I would be unusually suspicious of anything you posted. I did mean that I am unusually suspicious of material emanating from the Mackinac Center. </p>

<p>There does seem to be a factual conflict with the New York Times article. In fact, when I re-checked the New York Times article, it appears that the maximum teachers’ salary in Troy is $24,000 a year above that in the Detroit Public Schools, rather than only $14,000 above it.</p>

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<p>Just occurred to me that maybe spideygirl is an analyst for the Mackinac Center? This would put me in a difficult logical bind. I am happy to read anything, to see whether it passes tests of logic and basis in data.</p>

<p>Why do you blame the unions for Detroit’s problems, spideygirl?</p>

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<p>Re: peanut butter sandwiches as school lunch.
Due to increasing numbers of students with serious nut allergies, all school breakfast and lunch options in our large urban district are completely nut-free. I’d expect this trend to be widespread.</p>

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<p>That’s a shame on peanut butter as it has a lot of advantages: easy storage, preparation, good nutrition, inexpensive. Almonds and pistachio nuts are staples for me. My wife buys large bags of raw almonds and bakes them in the toaster oven - cost is around $3/pound. My daughter is allergic to pistachio nuts so she has to be careful with them in the house.</p>

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<p>The unions are unquestionably to blame for the situation in Detroit, across the spectrum of professions. The unions and the democrats have destroyed the city, as they have destroyed Newark, and are trying their darndest to destroy New York.</p>

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<p><a href=“Opinion | When Schools Depend on Handouts - The New York Times”>Opinion | When Schools Depend on Handouts - The New York Times;

<p>EARLIER this month, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced that he and five other wealthy individuals had raised $1.5 million to reinstate the January Regents exams, which New York State had canceled because of budget cuts.</p>

<p><em>What party is Bloomberg? Democrat?</em> Guiliani, Crotch Bros? repugs, TPT</p>

<p>“As anti-union sentiment continues to spread, politicians may wrongly assume that education cutbacks mainly affect the salaries and benefits of teachers. In reality, it is the students who pay the dearest price. Some California districts have reduced the number of days in the school year; in Miami, 4,500 students will be deprived of after-school programs this year; Texas has cut pre-kindergarten programs for 100,000 children. The poor are, unsurprisingly, disproportionately affected: Pennsylvania’s education cuts amounted to $581 per student in the poorest 150 school districts, but only $214 per student in the wealthiest 150 districts.”*</p>