7 ms·

Universal access to free school meals end this summer

29 points by serverlessmom 4y ago

parkingrift 4y ago
This is not an issue for the federal government to solve. States should set up their own systems as needed to solve their own unique needs. This is how the system of government is supposed to work in the US.
- sky-kedge0749 4y ago
  The federal program reimburses local schools who are able to adapt to local circumstances. https://www.fns.usda.gov/disaster/pandemic/cn-2021-22-waivers-and-flexibilities https://www.fns.usda.gov/disaster/pandemic/cn-2021-22-waiver... is a long list of associated waivers allowing local flexibility. What "unique needs" aren't being met here?
  - parkingrift 4y ago
    Yes thank you I know that the federal government was reimbursing local schools during the pandemic. That's the entire point of this article. However, education is at the state level, not the federal level. Individual states should fund their own school lunches as needed.
    - sky-kedge0749 4y ago
      The need for school lunches is one lunch per child per day. Is there some more specific local need that the existing program is interfering with, like buying food from local producers or providing culturally appropriate meals? Or are you just stating support for some general libertarian position?
      - parkingrift 4y ago
        I'm stating a literal fact that education is funded locally and it always has been. Always as in the entire history of the United States.
        sky-kedge0749 4y ago
        According to the article, millions of kids who are getting free food from the schools won't be after June. So going forward the "local funding" for some kids will be out-of-pocket from lower-middle-income parents, and for other kids "local funding" will be going hungry. I don't think this is how things should be but if you disagree, all right.
- drewbug01 4y ago
  I believe there should be guardrails to the idea of state-by-state experimentation; and that one of them should be “children should not go hungry.” It’s just the decent, moral thing to do. Such a guardrail is appropriate at the federal level.
  - parkingrift 4y ago
    The federal government isn't directly involved with local education. States should be in charge of this, as they always have been. We need not bloat the federal budget further. Individual states are more than capable of funding themselves, as they always have.
    - drewbug01 4y ago
      And yet, kids go hungry. This temporary expansion seriously improved the situation. Why go back to the status quo, of kids going hungry?
      - parkingrift 4y ago
        Why would any individual state choose to let their citizens go hungry?
        drewbug01 4y ago
        A great question. I don’t know why or how people can be so cruel. And yet: kids go hungry. It happens, and so we should not allow it. If individual states choose to allow kids to go hungry, then those states should not be allowed to make that choice. That’s why federal intervention is warranted. States don’t seem to be doing the right thing.
paxys 4y ago
Ridiculous that they are framing it as ending because of Ukraine. The richest country in the world can afford $10B to feed children on top of everything else. Maybe they should send a team to India to figure out how they manage to provide free hot lunch to 130+ million schoolchildren every day.
- yostrovs 4y ago
  Most of the kids at my school hated the school provided lunches and instead chose to bring things from home. Those were paid for by parents, and in our school you made that choice: pay for crappy food or pay for good food you like that was made by mom and dad.
  - usrn 4y ago
    The school provided lunches that I heard about from someone who graduated recently sounded pretty marginal. I think people in this thread might be overestimating what's being lost.
- tablespoon 4y ago
  > The richest country in the world can afford $10B to feed children on top of everything else. This article makes it really unclear what's actually changing, but it sounds like they may be going back to means-testing the "free and reduced price" lunch program. Looking at some other articles on the topic, this also means that the government will no longer grant "flexibility with nutrition standards," which sounds like it was something that permitted less nutritious meals to be served.
- serverlessmom 4y ago
  The richest country on earth AND the richest country in human history. And yet we have children without enough food.
- xwolfi 4y ago
  Nice that you speak of India! Don't they want to help a bit with Ukraine, that would end faster and we could go back to providing free lunches !
oefrha 4y ago
- eganist 4y ago
  > Sounds like BS. Food stamps are a thing, How easy is it to qualify (and stay qualified with all the paperwork and occasional random denials) for EBT? > and the alarming obesity rate among America’s poor tells me that hunger is not a problem now and haven’t been for decades. https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/12/23/785566796/malnutrition-hits-the-obese-as-well-as-the-underfed https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/12/23/7855667...
  - oefrha 4y ago
    “Hungry” has a pretty specific meaning, and being stuffed with bag snacks, soda and other junk food is not “hungry”. You may notice that the Lancet report linked to in your article talks about malnutrition, not hunger. The thing is healthy staples are fairly inexpensive and food stamp handouts can be spent on those instead of empty junk. But a lot of poor people can’t be bothered to prepare food. Don’t tell me how they all work 12 hours a day on multiple jobs and don’t have time — that’s just not true for most of them. Sure, there are structural problems, but you can’t blame every shitty outcome you observe on society. There’s a thing called free will, which some people conveniently don’t like to recognize when the result is poor.
    - Sir_Son_Son 4y ago
      This train of thought is maddening. The average poor person has such a volatile life it's amazing that the problem isn't worse. We as a society allow their conditions then tut tut them when they fail - like they were set up to. https://www.cbpp.org/research/poverty-and-inequality/most-workers-in-low-wage-labor-market-work-substantial-hours-in https://www.cbpp.org/research/poverty-and-inequality/most-wo...
    - sky-kedge0749 4y ago
      In this case we're talking about a program that directly feeds children who are, I hope we agree, the victims of and in no way responsible for any negligence due to "poor people [who] can't be bothered to prepare food." In fact the more we assume that "poor people" are lazy or whatever you want to say, the more vital free school lunches become.
Proven 4y ago
pkaye 4y ago
I believe California and Maine are starting universal school lunch program since this year.
senectus1 4y ago
I dont understand why you have schools feeding kids? its bizarre, the kids should either bring money to school for canteen or bring their own lunches to school like ours do.
- orwin 4y ago
  In my country, school lunch cost 60 euro per month, down to 0 depending on your family (so, whn i was younger, my mother was a nurse making 15k/yr on a 80% contract, alone with 3 children, it cost us 0€). One big advantage was the we only ate potatoes the evening, and had actual lunches the rest of the time (i'm partially joking, i remember one month after an issue with our car where we ate potatoes with butter for two weeks)
- RhysU 4y ago
  In a significant number of places in the US a significant number of children are dependent on free school lunches. The lunches provide nutritional stability that the child may not receive at home. So much so that some places give lunches away even when school is not in session. For example, in New York City: https://www.schools.nyc.gov/school-life/food/summer-meals https://www.schools.nyc.gov/school-life/food/summer-meals
- drewbug01 4y ago
  The reason is that there is a lot of food insecurity in the US. Kids regularly go hungry. There isn’t necessarily food to bring from home, nor money to pay for things purchased at school. My husband is a teacher and keeps snacks in his room for kids who didn’t get anything to eat that day.

29 points by serverlessmom 4y ago

This is not an issue for the federal government to solve. States should set up their own systems as needed to solve their own unique needs. This is how the system of government is supposed to work in the US.

sky-kedge0749 4y ago
The federal program reimburses local schools who are able to adapt to local circumstances. https://www.fns.usda.gov/disaster/pandemic/cn-2021-22-waivers-and-flexibilities https://www.fns.usda.gov/disaster/pandemic/cn-2021-22-waiver... is a long list of associated waivers allowing local flexibility. What "unique needs" aren't being met here?
- parkingrift 4y ago
  Yes thank you I know that the federal government was reimbursing local schools during the pandemic. That's the entire point of this article. However, education is at the state level, not the federal level. Individual states should fund their own school lunches as needed.
  - sky-kedge0749 4y ago
    The need for school lunches is one lunch per child per day. Is there some more specific local need that the existing program is interfering with, like buying food from local producers or providing culturally appropriate meals? Or are you just stating support for some general libertarian position?
    - parkingrift 4y ago
      I'm stating a literal fact that education is funded locally and it always has been. Always as in the entire history of the United States.
      - sky-kedge0749 4y ago
        According to the article, millions of kids who are getting free food from the schools won't be after June. So going forward the "local funding" for some kids will be out-of-pocket from lower-middle-income parents, and for other kids "local funding" will be going hungry. I don't think this is how things should be but if you disagree, all right.
drewbug01 4y ago
I believe there should be guardrails to the idea of state-by-state experimentation; and that one of them should be “children should not go hungry.” It’s just the decent, moral thing to do. Such a guardrail is appropriate at the federal level.
- parkingrift 4y ago
  The federal government isn't directly involved with local education. States should be in charge of this, as they always have been. We need not bloat the federal budget further. Individual states are more than capable of funding themselves, as they always have.
  - drewbug01 4y ago
    And yet, kids go hungry. This temporary expansion seriously improved the situation. Why go back to the status quo, of kids going hungry?
    - parkingrift 4y ago
      Why would any individual state choose to let their citizens go hungry?
      - drewbug01 4y ago
        A great question. I don’t know why or how people can be so cruel. And yet: kids go hungry. It happens, and so we should not allow it. If individual states choose to allow kids to go hungry, then those states should not be allowed to make that choice. That’s why federal intervention is warranted. States don’t seem to be doing the right thing.

paxys 4y ago

Ridiculous that they are framing it as ending because of Ukraine. The richest country in the world can afford $10B to feed children on top of everything else. Maybe they should send a team to India to figure out how they manage to provide free hot lunch to 130+ million schoolchildren every day.

yostrovs 4y ago
Most of the kids at my school hated the school provided lunches and instead chose to bring things from home. Those were paid for by parents, and in our school you made that choice: pay for crappy food or pay for good food you like that was made by mom and dad.
- usrn 4y ago
  The school provided lunches that I heard about from someone who graduated recently sounded pretty marginal. I think people in this thread might be overestimating what's being lost.
tablespoon 4y ago
> The richest country in the world can afford $10B to feed children on top of everything else. This article makes it really unclear what's actually changing, but it sounds like they may be going back to means-testing the "free and reduced price" lunch program. Looking at some other articles on the topic, this also means that the government will no longer grant "flexibility with nutrition standards," which sounds like it was something that permitted less nutritious meals to be served.
serverlessmom 4y ago
The richest country on earth AND the richest country in human history. And yet we have children without enough food.
xwolfi 4y ago
Nice that you speak of India! Don't they want to help a bit with Ukraine, that would end faster and we could go back to providing free lunches !

oefrha 4y ago

eganist 4y ago
> Sounds like BS. Food stamps are a thing, How easy is it to qualify (and stay qualified with all the paperwork and occasional random denials) for EBT? > and the alarming obesity rate among America’s poor tells me that hunger is not a problem now and haven’t been for decades. https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/12/23/785566796/malnutrition-hits-the-obese-as-well-as-the-underfed https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/12/23/7855667...
- oefrha 4y ago
  “Hungry” has a pretty specific meaning, and being stuffed with bag snacks, soda and other junk food is not “hungry”. You may notice that the Lancet report linked to in your article talks about malnutrition, not hunger. The thing is healthy staples are fairly inexpensive and food stamp handouts can be spent on those instead of empty junk. But a lot of poor people can’t be bothered to prepare food. Don’t tell me how they all work 12 hours a day on multiple jobs and don’t have time — that’s just not true for most of them. Sure, there are structural problems, but you can’t blame every shitty outcome you observe on society. There’s a thing called free will, which some people conveniently don’t like to recognize when the result is poor.
  - Sir_Son_Son 4y ago
    This train of thought is maddening. The average poor person has such a volatile life it's amazing that the problem isn't worse. We as a society allow their conditions then tut tut them when they fail - like they were set up to. https://www.cbpp.org/research/poverty-and-inequality/most-workers-in-low-wage-labor-market-work-substantial-hours-in https://www.cbpp.org/research/poverty-and-inequality/most-wo...
  - sky-kedge0749 4y ago
    In this case we're talking about a program that directly feeds children who are, I hope we agree, the victims of and in no way responsible for any negligence due to "poor people [who] can't be bothered to prepare food." In fact the more we assume that "poor people" are lazy or whatever you want to say, the more vital free school lunches become.

Proven 4y ago

pkaye 4y ago

I believe California and Maine are starting universal school lunch program since this year.

senectus1 4y ago

I dont understand why you have schools feeding kids? its bizarre, the kids should either bring money to school for canteen or bring their own lunches to school like ours do.

orwin 4y ago
In my country, school lunch cost 60 euro per month, down to 0 depending on your family (so, whn i was younger, my mother was a nurse making 15k/yr on a 80% contract, alone with 3 children, it cost us 0€). One big advantage was the we only ate potatoes the evening, and had actual lunches the rest of the time (i'm partially joking, i remember one month after an issue with our car where we ate potatoes with butter for two weeks)
RhysU 4y ago
In a significant number of places in the US a significant number of children are dependent on free school lunches. The lunches provide nutritional stability that the child may not receive at home. So much so that some places give lunches away even when school is not in session. For example, in New York City: https://www.schools.nyc.gov/school-life/food/summer-meals https://www.schools.nyc.gov/school-life/food/summer-meals
drewbug01 4y ago
The reason is that there is a lot of food insecurity in the US. Kids regularly go hungry. There isn’t necessarily food to bring from home, nor money to pay for things purchased at school. My husband is a teacher and keeps snacks in his room for kids who didn’t get anything to eat that day.