<p>We need to look for cost savings in ALL areas. I am tired of hearing “oh this or that are such a small part of the budget” It all adds up. We could eliminate Viagra as covered drug for Federal and State employee insurance policies. Milwaukee schools dropped the coverage in 2008 and it resulted in an annual savings of $786,000. That ought to buy a few lunches. I’m just sayin’…</p>
<p>Here is a link to a New York Times article on Carstens Elementary School in Detroit, originally slated for closing, and (I think) staying open after all:
<a href=“For Detroit Schools, Hope for the Hopeless - The New York Times”>For Detroit Schools, Hope for the Hopeless - The New York Times;
<p>You can go to Google maps, get the names of some streets surrounding Carstens Elementary, and then try Googling “Homes for Sale” on that street in Detroit. You’ll find houses that can be purchased for less than the cost of one month at an Ivy.</p>
<p>Anybody who isn’t deaf, dumb and blind is very aware of the economy in Detroit, and it has been that way for years. No citations are needed to prove it.</p>
<p>Viagra over feeding children? You TPT should all hide yourselves in shame.</p>
<p>Regarding free lunches, a lot of our values come from what we experience as children. When in middle school, I knew a guy that was on free lunches. His dad owned a vcr, and the kid described to me how it was broken and they needed to get it fixed.</p>
<p>We didn’t own a vcr at the time…I asked my dad why not, and he explained to me that it’s important to save money and a vcr wasn’t necessary. So the kid on free lunches got a vcr, while my family, not on free lunches, didn’t get a vcr.</p>
<p>As an adult today, I work 65-70 hours a week, and do engineering consulting on the side. When I see other some other parents who are less willing to work than me and want free lunches from the government, it is frustrating.</p>
<p>There are families in need and those situations free lunches are probably a good idea. In other words, what I’m really trying to say is that when parents are working hard, or have experienced a medical disability or some other hardship out of their control, I have a lot of sympathy and support the program. For the families who just aren’t as interested in working and choose to have a whole bunch of kids, I’m not real interested in supporting the program. And I think we all know there are both kinds on the free/reduced lunch program.</p>
<p>There was quite a bit of discussion about the teacher that punched a student a few months ago. I saw the cell-phone video and was shocked by how large many of the students were. A look at the demographics for the county/district shows median household income of $32,572. I think that most would agree that this isn’t a wealthy school district.</p>
<p>It is probably quite challenging dealing with the polar problems of obesity and hunger through the school system in a systematic way - one where you have to treat all students in a similar manner. It would be much easier if you could identify those that are obese and work with them individually (this is done in Singapore), and provide food for those that need it.</p>
<p>* Regarding free lunches, a lot of our values come from what we experience as children. When in middle school, I knew a guy that was on free lunches. His dad owned a vcr, and the kid described to me how it was broken and they needed to get it fixed.</p>
<p>We didn’t own a vcr at the time…I asked my dad why not, and he explained to me that it’s important to save money and a vcr wasn’t necessary. So the kid on free lunches got a vcr, while my family, not on free lunches, didn’t get a vcr.</p>
<p>*</p>
<p>I wish I could find that article from the principal who wrote that he was shocked how many “free meal” kids had cell phones. And this was at a time when having cell phones was a more expensive luxury. It’s also not unusual to find big screen TVs in low-income homes.</p>
<p>“Regarding free lunches, a lot of our values come from what we experience as children.”#146</p>
<p>I think I would argue that a lot of our values come from what WE ARE TAUGHT as a kid. I am sure that there are altruism studies to back that up, but I speak from my own experience. Later life time experiences may or may not influence those values.</p>
<p>“I wish I could find that article from the principal who wrote that he was shocked how many “free meal” kids had cell phones. And this was at a time when having cell phones was a more expensive luxury. It’s also not unusual to find big screen TVs in low-income homes.”#148mom2collegekids</p>
<p>So what? You can walk into a thrift shop and buy those things for pennies. However, I understand most kids today have cell phones for safety reasons. Should kids be denied food because their parents want them to be safe.</p>
<p>Better yet, let’s start a “buy the needy children a cell phone” program. Keep them safe, too.</p>
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<p>Speaking from personal experience, I do think that there is value in
struggling while you are young. Most of the well-off people that I
know didn’t grow up with a silver spoon (though some did).</p>
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<p>I sometimes shop in thrift shops and the electronics sections usually
have outdated junk that may or may not be functional. The big expense
with television is the Cable TV bill.</p>
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<p>Our kids got prepaid phones in their mid-teens because we needed to
schedule transportation to and from college. These cost $8.33/month
with AT&T. There may be cheaper plans out there. I understand the
issue of safety though many generations clearly got by without them.
The question is: are these just used for safety or for sending text
messages during class?</p>
<p>OK BC. All the children with bad parents should go hungry. It will teach them amazing life lessons. </p>
<p>There really are altruism studies. You should try reading them.</p>
<p>A straw man is a component of an argument and is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent’s position.[1] To “attack a straw man” is to create the illusion of having refuted a proposition by replacing it with a superficially similar yet unequivalent proposition (the “straw man”), and refuting it, without ever having actually refuted the original position.[1][2]</p>
<p>
We actually have that in New York. Which always struck me as strange since the mayor has chosen the “no cell phones in schools” hill on which to fight and die.</p>
<p>The government controls the food stamps, why can’t they put more controls on what items are allowable foods. I realize that there are some current restrictions, but why not cut out foods high in sugar carbs, processed white pasta/bread, etc. </p>
<p>I had two unsettling experiences at the grocery store this past month. 1) there were two women in line ahead of me. All the groceries went on one food stamp card and then other other women opened up her purse and paid the first lady in cash. (cashier tells me that this happens quite often) My next stop was to pay my cable bill (in same strip mall). Well the lady who took the cash was there paying her bill and it was about 3 times the amount of my BASIC cable. </p>
<p>2) At the same grocery store I was listening to guy ahead of discuss his passion for WWW wrestling. The person he was talking to commented on how expensive the tickets were and he said that he works part time only to pay for his wrestling habit. The trick he says is to only work enough hours so you don’t loose your welfare and food stamp funds.</p>
<p>Then I read yesterday about the water bottle scam…In some states, you are required to pay a deposit on water bottles and get a refund when you return them. Some recipients are buying the water, dumping the bottles out in the parking lot and collecting the $2.40 cash refund. </p>
<p>These are the type of things that ruin it for those who are truly in need. I think it is time we have some sort of a tip line.</p>
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Are you kidding me? Then what should people eat? It may come as a surprise to you, but people in poorer neighborhoods don’t have a lot of transportation or shopping options. So if those restrictions were instituted in a place where healthy options don’t exist, then you’re created a situation in which people actually do go hungry. And shouldn’t dignity and personal choice come into play at all? None of those things are unhealthy in moderation.</p>
<p>As far as pasta, I am a small, healthy, fit woman and I eat traditional pasta. Whole wheat/whole grain pasta is a disgusting abomination that no one should be forced to eat. White bread and pasta are enriched with important nutrients and can be a good part of a sensible diet. Poor people don’t have to eat swill.</p>
<p>The deposit in California for water bottles is the same you would get back. Why would anyone buy water and dump it out without using it? Where is the benefit? How are they ahead?</p>
<p>Before opining, I suggest y’all take a look at Jamie Oliver’s tv series about serving so-called food in Los Angeles Unified. (The Slop on the Big Brother reality tv show looks more edible.)</p>
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<p>I think that it would be hard to get the average person to eat the
good stuff after having used the bad stuff for all of their lives.
The sugar/starch/processed stuff also has effects on the brain that
seem addictive.</p>
<p>Getting educated on nutrition and fitness takes effort and time and
many may want to know why they are bothering to do extra for something
that doesn’t have an immediate benefit.</p>
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<p>My assumption is that the water is purchased with EBTs so that it is
free to the buyer. They then get the cash from the deposits that they
can use without restriction.</p>
<p>Administrative systems and processes can be abused.</p>
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<p>One of the big problems with white bread, pasta and even the whole
grain stuff is in getting too many carbs which can result in weight
gain. The white stuff is more problemmatical in that it pushes out
foods that contain fiber. You can always take a supplement to get
enough fiber but you can just get it through foods too.</p>
<p>Many of us on the diet/exercise/weight loss threads have made radical
changes to our diets to improve health. For the most part, you can’t
force people to make these kinds of changes (many have tried with
spouses and others). The individual has to make the choice to eat
well.</p>
<p>I eat well. I am a vegetarian of decades standing and take nutrition very seriously. A large part of eating well is knowing how to use foods in moderation and to refrain from depriving yourself. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a lean meat or vegetable sandwich on enriched white bread from time to time. And if a person has pasta with olive oil, vegetables, fish, whatever and chooses to have a reasonable portion of real pasta for the flavor, then it’s still a healthy mean. Whole wheat/whole grain pasta is not an improvement.</p>
<p>“Are the parents responsible for nothing?”</p>
<p>Of course they’re responsible, but we’re discussing school policy, which doesn’t control parents. The kids have the parents they have. We don’t have wiser families waiting to take in the tens of thousands of under-parented minority children in Detroit. You proposed teaching the children better values as a solution to the problem that children may be deterred by stigma. Well, that would be great, but we as voters aren’t in a position to do that. But we may be in a position to minimize the power of stigma in other ways, like by making free meals a standard part of the school day.</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.”</p>
<p>It may be difficult for you to believe, but it is true. Starving people will usually eat regardless, but we’re talking about food insecurity here, not starvation. LOTS of people will skip meals rather than face humiliation. (Heck, I’ve done it when there was someone I didn’t want to face in the cafeteria.) I view children skipping meals as a big problem, even if they aren’t getting close to starvation. If you want to accomplish anything for any of the children during the school day, all the kids have to eat…even if most of them are eating, the hungry ones will disrupt the learning of the others.</p>
<p>Buying bottled water with food stamps is ridiculous anyway. </p>
<p>It seems to me that with the bar code system, it would be easy to program stores’ computers to allow certain nutritional purchases with food stamps and reject others. Foods high in sugar and fats could be excluded. </p>
<p>Here in California, EBT can even be used at fast food places. So we pay for the poor to eat unhealthily, then we pay for the illnesses they get from obesity. Makes no sense.</p>
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<p>Things are a little different if you have to lose a lot of weight.
The carbs can be addictive and add a ton of calories. Look around your
typical mall or shopping center. About 1/3rd of the US is obese now
with projects of 1/2 by 2030. Getting those that are obese to merely
being overweight or normal would take a considerable effort. Little
distractions are okay. Big ones that get you hooked are not.</p>
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<p>That’s purely a preference thing and it’s illogical to be dogmatic
on preferences.</p>