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

Parent Cafe
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<p>parent1986, not everyone who disagrees with you is ignorant or lacking in compassion.</p>

<p>I don’t support free meals for all because it is simply too expensive. Far better to teach students to be compassionate of others than to fleece taxpayers for such a silly reason as preventing some possible embarrassment. We all have things that we could be embarrassed about and have to learn to deal on our own as part of growing up. There is a limit to how many tax dollars are available, and as unemployment stays high, there is less of other people’s money to spend.</p>

<p>There are choices to be made. Unless “the state” is preparing to take custody of all low-income kids, a line has to be drawn somewhere. In my area, breakfast and lunch are provided all year round for those who qualify. Which is appropriate. We must make sure children are fed, but we don’t have to take money from other important things to protect them from a little embarrassment.</p>

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<p>Level the playing field in all ways possible for everyone. If we can do it for our children we can do it for everyones children.</p>

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<p>My kids used to go to a private school (they are older now) in which there was a dietician to design the menus, but parents actually did the cooking and serving. My husband was the “soup dad” for years. It worked out very well and the food was good and nutritious. I really wonder if centralization is better or if it’s just easier.</p>

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You can level the playing field, but you can’t guarantee an identical outcome.</p>

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<p>And the programs need to be accountable. I am sure most of the students in urban Detroit qualify and thus should receive food, I am not convinced about my area. When I see people buy $150,000 plus homes, put in pools, decks and have their yards landscape but still qualify for free lunches, I get irritated. If it only happened once in a while, I might ignore it but I have seen it time and again. Some people are masters at avoiding their share. School districts can’t afford to hunt these people down, so it is often allowed to slide.</p>

<p>So please don’t think I don’t have any compassion. I just want the truly poor to be the ones served as money is a limited resource.</p>

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<p>I hate to see waste, both of food and taxpayer dollars. I don’t think that because 40% qualify for FRL, that this automatically means the other 60% are “just over the line”. I think that’s a big leap of reasoning.</p>

<p>I also get agitated when people say, “It doesn’t cost, it’s a <em>grant</em>.” Ug. Do these dollars come from the “grant” tree? Grants usually come from taxpayer funded sources.</p>

<p>Of course I want so see poor children fed, but parents need to take personal responsibility too. Yes, I get angry over them choosing to buy cigs/beer instead of feeding their children. I live in a low-tobacco tax, high use state and 2 packs a day are ~$75+ a week. That’s plenty of lunch. There is some point at which the rest of us shouldn’t have to pay to enable their behavior. I’m afraid we’re becoming too much of a nanny state. It can’t go on forever; the pool of “payers” is dwindling every day. Resources are finite.</p>

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<p>^^^</p>

<p>I too get annoyed to see smoking parents having their kids on free lunch. That’s why I have no problem adding more taxes to cigarettes…let the smokers who literally have “money to burn” help pay for hungry kids.</p>

<p>And, there is something wrong with how they identify those who get free lunch. I can remember a girl in HS who got free lunch…I was shocked. Her dad had a very good job and they owned a nice home…smacked of some sneaky goings on.</p>

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<p>Interesting. In grade school, the only time I felt embarrassed was when I forgot to bring payment for our lunch and was not allowed to eat with my friends. Now that was embarrassing. In high school, no one except the kids getting subsidized lunch ate on campus. We had an open campus for lunch so everyone ate at the line of fast food restaurants a block away. So not healthy. However, the reason we didn’t eat at the cafeteria was partly so we woulnd’t be identified as a free lunch. So it really depends on how they operate the program I suppose.</p>

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<p>Oh gosh - really this is another program since the old one will be so much bigger. More bureaucrats needed to to oversee this new monolith. More employees at the school and district level to staff it. Expensive studies to predict how well it will do, how to run it, how to…whatever. Yum - even more kids eating high fat, high sodium, low taste, and low nutrition lunches. That means the government gets to grow even more, and our taxes will go up accordingly.</p>

<p>The school lunch thing is already running well enough, and if kids want to eat breakfast without having to bring it into the classroom, arrive earlier. Eat more at lunch and forgo the afternoon snack if it is embarrassing. Putting every kid, needy or not, on the same program just so some kids won’t be embarrassed? Dear God, you just can’t make this stuff up. </p>

<p>No matter who you are, rich, poor, or in between, in life you have to buck up at some point. I am all for free breakfast, lunch, and an afternoon snack for kids in need, and I am happy to pay for it. However, I am not moved to turn the world of school lunches upside down financially so that a few kids can delay grasping a correct version of reality. There is no shame in needing a meal at school when you are a kid. One of my parents was one of those kids. You do what you can to eliminate embarrassment, and then you just have to deal with whatever is left. Let’s stop projecting on the majority, and allow the few who might be embarrassed to manage those feelings. If after all this you still want to pay for a free lunch for every school child, needy or not, please do it with your own money and don’t spend mine.</p>

<p>Lest you think I am a cruel person because I do not want a gigantic new program created so that a fraction of kids getting free lunches can avoid some embarrassment, I assure you I’d be happy to spend my share elsewhere. There are kids in this world who are getting no food for days, so if you want to pick my pocket for another one of your ideas please send my money there.</p>

<p>Think smaller government, people. Less programs. Smaller programs. Trust me, your future selves, and your children and grandchildren, will thank you.</p>

<p>The problem with spending other people’s money is that eventually it runs out. If you read the papers or watch the news, you’ll get the fact that we have arrived at that point.</p>

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<p>There is nothing that certain groups hate more than people who can take care of themselves.</p>

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<p>Just think, when our parents (mine are in their 80’s) went to school, no one bought a lunch. Everyone brought one. Maybe we should go back to that.</p>

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<p>Everyone brought one? No, poor kids went hungry back in the day. Some still do, but we’re doing better on that score than we were 80 years ago.</p>

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<p>My family probably would have qualified for free lunch if they had it back then. There were a few years when food on the table for dinner was iffy and my mother considered contacting social services to find someone else to take care of us.</p>

<p>I had my second job around 14 and made enough there to buy some calories. I got other jobs which paid more (my sisters all got jobs too) and then my mother seemed to bring in more income (don’t recall if it was raises or working multiple jobs).</p>

<p>I don’t particularly remember wondering what happened in other families - sometimes there just wasn’t food and you went hungry. It provided us with some motivation to get jobs though.</p>

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<p>No one wants a truly poor child to go hungry…ever. </p>

<p>However, there’s nothing wrong with being annoyed that a “hot breakfast/hot lunch” program provides a more expensive/complicated meal system than what a middle class kid is getting from home (cereal for breakfast/cold sandwich for lunch). </p>

<p>This is no different than the crazy stuff Calif does…giving free UC tuition to those who earn under $80k (with one child in school), while the family that earns $90k and has two in school has to commute to the local CC because they can’t afford to pay $26k in tuition for their 2 kids to commute to the nearby UC.</p>

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<p>Twenty bucks says there are full time employees/agencies at the school district level, state level, US Dept of Ed and US Dept of Agriculture who oversee the free lunch programs. Cut out the middle men, fund the free lunches and put the rest of the money directly into the classrooms. </p>

<p>No one wants to deny free lunch to kids who need it. We are simply OUT of money and non essentials MUST be cut. </p>

<p>If anyone should be outraged by this free lunch for all program, it should be the parents living in the poorest school districts who have been pleading for better education opportunities for their local schools.</p>

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<p><a href=“School Districts Rediscover Value of From-Scratch Meals - The New York Times”>School Districts Rediscover Value of From-Scratch Meals - The New York Times;

<p>Pretty shocking responses from some, however since it has been passed it doesn’t matter what you think - I didn’t notice what the other two states are. This is a pilot program that is going to be expanded. There seems to be a big focus on the UNDESERVING getting something for free. These are low income schools getting the food, not the wealthy. Because some posters went hungry as a child, it is OK for children today to go hungry.</p>

<p>If anybody read closely, one of the goals of the programs will be to improve the quality of the food. It has been done in Berkeley and other places, see above link.</p>

<p>Children who are malnourished end up costing society more money in the long run with chronic diseases. Same with those pregnant moms that people don’t want to support.</p>

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<p>One more step towards socialism
My husband who grew up in Sweden had that as a child / student…now they</p>

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<p>Bizarre interpretation is bizarre.</p>

<p>Strawman much?</p>

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<p>ad hominem much?</p>

<p>Anyway, concerning socialism, you betcha, esp. when those huge gov’t contracts worldwide are concerned.</p>

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<p>An ad hominem (Latin: “to the man”), short for argumentum ad hominem, is an attempt to negate the truth of a claim by pointing out a negative characteristic or belief of the person advocating it.[1] The ad hominem is normally described as a logical fallacy,[2][3][4] but it is not always fallacious; in some instances, questions of personal conduct, character, motives, etc., are legitimate and relevant to the issue.[5]</p>

<p>If you want to claim that certain posters said something, you bear the burden of proof in showing that. Waving your hands is insufficient.</p>