<p>Let’s stop the nonsensical bashing of both corporate America and small businesses. It might also be a good time to cease labeling it a “free lunch” when corporations and individuals are simply allowed to keep more of their own money (especially when the dollar figure they contribute to taxes is already the majority share of what is paid).</p>
<p>Corporate America also provides the jobs that allow working Americans to pay the income taxes that government types so love to spend. While spitting on the earners.</p>
<p>*Corporate America also provides the jobs that allow working Americans to pay the income taxes that government types so love to spend. While spitting on the earners. *</p>
<p>exactly! Gov’t jobs are often just “jobs programs for adults” with little oversight to see how effective the jobs are.</p>
<p>“The question HERE is whether the non-poor should also be fed to spare the poor possible embarrassment.”</p>
<p>I don’t think it’s an easy question. Poor people may feel that their pride is the only thing they have left. It takes real guts for an adult who’s worked his whole life to go to a food pantry and admit he needs help feeding himself. You need real character to maintain your dignity in the midst of that humiliation. It’s a lot to ask of a 7-year-old, or (Heaven help her) a junior-high girl.</p>
<p>I’ve known plenty of rich kids who starved themselves, started smoking, acted up in class, or made other foolish decisions in an attempt to fit in at school. In fact, most of the rich kids I know have done some dumb things for that reason. I don’t expect poor children to make more sophisticated decisions than rich ones. They’re kids, they’re human, and as a group they have less guidance and fewer role models at home to help them. If the goal is to get some food into the poor kids, not just put it in front of them, it may be necessary to make some accommodations to their human nature.</p>
<p>
In a country where the choice becomes what important programs to cut, unfortunately, sometimes people will get their feelings hurt. The optimal solution isn’t to throw more money at the problem, it is to distribute to the needy in a sensitive and respectful manner. And to teach children that pride comes from within.</p>
<p>
Accommodations could be made other than providing food for the non-needy. Do you tell other people who are missing out on something vital that they have to go witout in order to spare the feelings of some kids?</p>
<p>I appreciated the opening remark of parent1986.</p>
<p>Many years ago, I volunteered in a Head Start program in the “Rust Belt.” The program included lunch for the pre-schoolers. In my view, at least, they reacted as if they needed it. </p>
<p>For the people who are critical of the Detroit schools providing lunch to all students in the schools where at least 40% have free lunches: Have you been in Detroit recently?</p>
<p>Obviously, it is desirable to offer food that is as healthy as possible! However, I think Bay goes to extremes in condemning the meal that was pictured as “disgusting.” I am not disgusted by it. BCEagle makes a good point about the calorie total for students who may not have (much) food outside of school. Such children exist in America.</p>
<p>In a country where the choice becomes what important programs to cut, unfortunately, sometimes people will get their feelings hurt.</p>
<p>.
Right
When money is no object, then there’s money to have all these options so that feelings aren’t possibly hurt. But, in this county, the gov’t budget can’t afford the luxuries of providing aid without some possible kind of “hurt feelings”</p>
<p>What next…Pell for everyone so no one has to feel embarrassed going into the FA office at college?</p>
<p>Since the embarrassment seems to be that a free breakfast kid who is late to school will have his breakfast delivered to him to the classroom, then perhaps that needs to be eliminated or ANY child can have breakfast delivered to the classroom. </p>
<p>Frankly, the only kids at risk for being embarrassed at the ones who go to a school where very few are on free meals. When you have half or more on free meals, then where’s the stigma?</p>
<p>I’m not worried about kids’ feelings being hurt. I’m worried about the kids going hungry. Just putting food in front of them doesn’t solve the problem of hunger if there are externalities like social stigma preventing them from eating it. It’s just a reality of human nature that we sometimes turn away from a practical solution if it makes us feel terrible. If we’re talking about adults, OK, I respect the point of view that they need to suck up their pride or live with the consequences. But these are children. They’re being asked to make a decision between pride and good nutrition. The idea that 8-year-olds should be responsible for making their own good decisions about nutrition is ridiculous to me.</p>
<p>I have no idea whether the proposed solution will actually work at getting more solid food into the poor kids. But if the people who teach the kids every day think that it might work, I believe it’s worth a try. It might mean we begin to get the full value of the investment in this program.</p>
<p>“to teach children that pride comes from within.”</p>
<p>I have immense respect for Detroit’s public school teachers, but I believe this kind of lesson is far beyond their capabilities.</p>
<p>I guess I don’t see why other kids would know if other students were getting free lunches. Our school scans the student’s id number and the computer debits the child’s account. If the student is on a free account, the computer rings up zero but no one sees this unless it is printed out. And most elementary ages kids could care less about how their fellow students are paying for lunch. It would be different in middle schools were kids become more socially aware but again the system we have eliminates anyone being identified to their peers.</p>
<p>Thanks, Hanna. I agree with you too.
I don’t know whether the Detroit public schools have computer systems at the lunch check outs to scan student ID’s or meal cards. They have other desperate needs.</p>
<p>If someone is truly hungry, will some perceived social stigma really keep them from eating? If the hunger is bad enough, I find that difficult to believe. Hunger is a basic need on the hierarchy chart; feelings are a ways on down…</p>
<p>The way our school does it, no one would know who was on free lunch. Maybe 10 years ago, and certainly when I was in school, it was easy to tell because some kids weren’t paying at the cash register. I guess I’m missing the stigma though, or think it is exaggerated. My kids, nor their friends, nor me and mine back in the day, ever cared who was, or was not, on free lunch. I second the comment above that if the majority were on FRL anyway, there would be even less possible stigma.</p>
<p>GE-I didn’t read the previous post, but GE paid no <em>current</em> taxes in that story that people love to cite. Why? Because they had Net Operating Loss Carryforwards to off-set the current year income–losses from a previous year. It is standard tax code, not some magical mumbo-jumbo they hocus-pocused.</p>
<p>If 40% of the students are eligible for free lunches, probably 80% or so are eligible for reduced-price lunches–maybe more. Additionally, it is estimated that about 25,000 school children will be affected by Michigan’s new lifetime welfare caps, for their parents. So no doubt some of those who used to manage will have difficulty in the near future. The majority of the affected students are probably in Detroit. While this program is being publicized based on the supposed “stigma of free lunch,” I don’t think that’s what the program is really about. It’s about providing food for children. The number of non-needy people who will get free lunches as a result is almost certainly extremely small.</p>
<p>All employees of the Detroit Public Schools took a 10% pay cut this year. There are principals asking parents to send in toilet paper and light bulbs, because the school budgets won’t cover the expense. In some schools, students cannot take textbooks home, because there are not enough to go around.</p>
<p>Hanna
</p>
<p>They have TWO things left which are priceless: dignity and opportunity. </p>
<p>If you really want to move me, let’s talk about kids in other countries who have NOTHING, and no hope of that ever changing.</p>
<p>The worst thing we can possibly do to poor people in this and future generations is to destroy their opportunity, but that is exactly what is happening.</p>
<p>Little Johnny may not want to eat the Velveeta macaroni and cheese/tater puff meal today, but tomorrow he will be in a state of absolute rage when there is no money to aid in his education and no job prospects.</p>
<p>Very few of the people connected with GM and Chrysler live in Detroit. Very few of the children of people who work for GM, Chrysler, or Ford attend the Detroit Public Schools. The short-hand of “Detroit” for “the American auto industry” is just short-hand.</p>
<p>
Are the parents responsible for nothing?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/23/us/23detroit.html[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/23/us/23detroit.html</a></p>
<p>So the decline of the auto industry slammed Detroit, the city, specifically. And throwing billions and billions of dollars at that industry to buttress it up did not help Detroit (the city) one bit. There is a 50% unemployment rate in Detroit right now. Probably the biggest reason for Detroit’s (the industry or the city) woes is unions.</p>
<p>[UAW</a> Divided As Workers Seek Payback In Contract Negotiations](<a href=“HuffPost - Breaking News, U.S. and World News | HuffPost”>UAW Divided As Workers Seek Payback In Contract Negotiations | HuffPost Impact)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>[Detroit</a> Public Schools, UAW, Living Wage [Mackinac Center]](<a href=“http://www.mackinac.org/10743]Detroit”>Detroit: The Triumph of Progressive Public Policy – Mackinac Center)</p>
<p>The last thing we need to do is send more money to Detroit.</p>
<p>*Are the parents responsible for nothing? *</p>
<p>I guess not with a “womb to tomb” mentality.</p>
<p>For those who are unfamiliar with it, the Mackinac Center is a right-wing think tank.</p>