We need universal breakfast.

Submitted by NotAPundit on Thu, 10/08/2009 - 08:37
We need universal breakfast. Parents are having children they can't afford to feed, not feeding their children even when they receive WIC vouchers and food stamps to buy the food for them, and feeding them food that the government didn't pick out. This must stop. Philly.com reports that only 54,000 of the 165,000 students in the Philadelphia school district are eating government-prepared breakfasts at school. Community groups are so upset by this that they have pressured the state to make the number of students eating government-prepared breakfasts at each school part of the metrics used to evaluate those schools' principals' performance.
"Making principals accountable for breakfast is critical," said Jim Weill, president of the Food Research and Action Center, a Washington nonprofit that works to eradicate hunger.
Yes, your child's principal should be in charge of whether he/she is being fed, not you. After all, parents can't be trusted with important choices like feeding their children, choosing health insurance, or prioritizing the costs of food and medical care over expensive mobile phone plans and entertainment products. Note that if you feed your child a breakfast (probably more healthy than the preservative-filled mass-produced garbage served at my son's school), your child does not count as having eaten breakfast. Only the government-controlled breakfast counts.
...the Pennsylvania Department of Education ruled that if students throughout the state eat breakfast in their first class with a teacher present, it will be counted as instructional time.
Yes, in its move to steal from parents the most basic of their choices -- how to feed their children -- the Pennsylvania Department of Education is willing to cut out instructional time to have the teachers feed your children. If you don't want the state choosing your child's food, you are out of luck -- you can't just not bring them to the morning cafeteria time, you have to make them miss class. So much for a "free and appropriate public education". If this keeps up, I may be sold on school vouchers some day.
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Comments

Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 10/08/2009 - 22:36.
#1
I have been teaching elementary education for 31 years. Twenty-nine of those years have been in the public school system. I believe we should be placing more responsibility back on the families, not the schools. Although our federal lunch and breakfast programs are a wonderful help for those in need, people should not be coerced into making their children eat breakfast at school. An administrator's job should not depend on it. What's wrong with making breakfast part of your morning routine at home, preparing food for your own children, eating this meal as a family, discussing how you'll spend your day and then sending your child off to face his/her day with a full tummy?
Submitted by NotAPundit on Thu, 10/08/2009 - 13:03.
#2
Member since:
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Since someone asked, I'd just like to clarify... this news is not about the federal free lunch program, which is used across the country to offer free lunches and breakfasts to economically disadvantaged students. The news is that after Philadelphia schools began offering free breakfasts to every student, some political forces became upset that most families didn't want them. So, they tasked school principals (who should be concentrating on fostering academic achievement) with raising the number of government-provided breakfasts consumed. This is being used as part of principals' performance ratings, giving them a vested interest in pressuring or even requiring students to eat the food the government is providing, though many clearly don't want it. Already, the school system is trying dirty tricks like moving breakfast time from before school in the cafeteria to during class, so families find it harder not to participate, even though it requires sacrificing some instructional time. This is not about offering food to the hungry. If it were, everyone would be satisfied that the government-sponsored breakfasts are there for no cost to any child who wants them. This is about the government pressuring 111,000 children to eat food other than what their parents have chosen for them.
Submitted by Anonymous on Fri, 10/16/2009 - 10:14.
#3
Here in Finland, every kid in primary and secondary education is entitled to free lunch in public schools. Even the richest. Everybody eats the standard meals. We have had this system since 1948 and see nothing is wrong in that. The food is good and special diets are available if one presents a doctor's order. Too bad we don't have free breakfasts yet. But I think most people can manage making it on their own :P