Without paperwork, school lunch free in Boston
Source: Boston Globe
Boston public schools will begin serving free lunches to all students this school year even if families have the financial means to pay, school officials are expected to announce Tuesday.
The meal program, more than a year in the making, is part of an experimental federal initiative that aims to make it easier for students from low-income families to receive free meals by eliminating the need to fill out paperwork, including potentially invasive questions about income.
Cities such as Atlanta, Detroit, and Chicago have been or will be participating in the free-meal program. Starting next school year, the program will be open to any school district across the country with high concentrations of students from low-income families. The cost of the free meals will be covered by the federal government.
Every child has a right to healthy, nutritious meals in school, and when we saw a chance to offer these healthy meals at no cost to them, we jumped at the chance, said Mayor Thomas M. Menino in a prepared statement. This takes the burden of proof off our low-income families and allows all children, regardless of income, to know healthy meals are waiting for them at school every day.
Read more: http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/09/02/boston-public-schools-will-offer-free-lunches-all-students/2aaUy5sxJjIak9ndGDHxkJ/story.html
tazkcmo
(7,300 posts)my lunch card was white, signifying Free Lunch while the ones that paid had pink cards. I got sent home more than once for responding to some other kid ridiculing me for being poor.
Response to tazkcmo (Reply #10)
Cronus Protagonist This message was self-deleted by its author.
mountain grammy
(26,619 posts)this is a wonderful policy.
mahatmakanejeeves
(57,393 posts)I chip in every April 15.
jtuck004, in post #4 and, especially, #14, is right:
What is not age appropriate about telling a kid {his} parents, and everyone else's parents, work to provide that for them, instead of lying to them and telling them that it's free? Because it's not, you know. Even if they don't pay for it, their parents likely pay by working a soul-killing job at minimum wage, even 40 hours a week, and then the kid gets a reduced-price on their lunch.
It's not free at all, and it's intellectually lazy and dishonest to say so, and it doesn't show any respect for the kids to fear telling them that a lot of people are working very hard to get it for them.
As an aside, I wish this site's software would disply quote signs properly.
mountain grammy
(26,619 posts)by our federal tax system that we all pay into, and state and local taxes. Our "free public education" is hardly free, but the best investment we can make for the future of America. School meals should be part of the package.
That said, any and all involvement of parents is always welcomed.
Sheldon Cooper
(3,724 posts)I was lucky in that my kids didn't need a free or reduced lunch. If they were going to be given one anyway, I would have been happy to donate the equivalent money to the cause.
Hekate
(90,644 posts)... for all students. There were very few in my school that could not afford 25¢ a day in 1961-1965. Even in my family, the reason we didn't brown-bag it was because my mom realized that even she couldn't make lunch for that little.
In addition, every student in the school was sent for a day of cafeteria duty a couple of times a year. I know this is no longer a popular idea, but with all of us taking a turn serving lunches (not to mention peeling carrots, loading dishwashers, etc) the few kids who served every day for a free lunch did not stand out. It was just the way things were, like the district availing itself of government surplus.
I hope the Boston experiment works well, and I hope they are returning to the notion that lunch should be 1/3 of a growing kid's nutritional requirements.
jtuck004
(15,882 posts)with paperwork, this came up for me when my sister, who teaches at a school with nearly 90% of the meals delivered under full or partial subsidy, mentioned to me that when the teachers go through the line, they have to pay for their meals. The kids in line with her, watching her pay, asked her why, and she said "We have to pay for them".
They argued with her, told her no, the food is free, no one has to pay for it. She has had the hardest time trying to teach them otherwise, in a system that undercuts their learning the real reason they are able to eat. They have learned the wrong lesson, and may well learn a much harder one later on. This also fails to nourish public support for the policy, which may be felt (such as the food stamp cuts coming in November) when political power shifts. And it will.
The schools do them a dis-service by not being proud of our investment in the country, I think, by believing they are just a cost which is better swept under the rug. Instead they to adopt, and teach, the idea that they are valuable, and as such taxpayers, including their working parents, are paying for their food so they can learn, and not be distracted, or made unhealthy, by hunger.
As opposed to the story at the link, the Federal Government pays for nothing, it's the taxpayers who are paying the bill. Still the wrong message. That's where the "stigma" mentioned in the story comes from, people who think that it is giving something for free to people who, perhaps, they really think don't deserve it - else they would be proud to call it an investment and teach the kids the same thing. The stigma comes from our thinking it is a cost and not an investment.
spinbaby
(15,088 posts)Lunches for schoolchildren is one of the best uses of my tax dollars and I heartily approve.
jtuck004
(15,882 posts)stamps in November. Because most people heartily approve of children and families not missing meals too. And even though we pay more to private prisons to feed prisoners than we invest in a family for food, it is on the chopping block for cuts before years end, And that is because the conservatives have taught us to see it as a give away, as an expense, and not an investment in people.
And as budgets get cut, and the sequester continues, there will be more.
School lunches is one of the best ideas we ever had. But if we don't help people understand that it is an investment and not a stinkin' freebie, it will go the way that so many things have gone for about the past 30 or 40 years.
CreekDog
(46,192 posts)the moment you blame feeding children for cuts to the social safety net is when you've lost your mind.
or your morals.
making those kind of arguments is going to sour people towards you here.
jtuck004
(15,882 posts)Or perhaps you were jealous of Dr. Frankenstein, thought you would build a straw man? Either way...
The reason food stamps in November is because the people who think it is a good investment and valuable are doing such a piss-poor job of selling it, not because it is going to children. The reason we are not able to feed children better is the same. The other side constantly harps on giveaways, people who don't deserve "free" stuff, etc. The alternative is not to use their language and hope for the best, as is the case. The way to fight it is to find a new way to frame it that points out the value the people who don't need them get by investing in other people. But instead we see words like "free lunch" and they act as if people should just agree with them because they are so righteous. Totally incompetent way to campaign, and the results show in the lack of food in people's homes and schools. They do make lots of excuses and go after all the wrong people, but, sadly, people can't eat excuses.
Oh, and I haven't given a rat's ass what most people think, especially the high-horse riding self-righteous ones, in a long, long time, nor would I change my opinion based on such a weak reason. Then again, I'm not a politician or true believer with no principles looking for people to like me all the time either.
CreekDog
(46,192 posts)and that's the most charitable thing I can call you --hypocrite. the fact is, what you're doing is disruptive.
and you're not even posting it sincerely.
8. They are still there, but the banks, having been given mostly free money, and a free pass from the
Last edited Fri May 10, 2013, 12:29 AM USA/ET - Edit history (1)
administration for their ongoing criminal enterprise had the FHA buy up the largest portion of the underwater and non-paying mortgages over the past few years,(without even a discount, so the banks got even more - read some of Senator Elizabeth Warren's and other's writing, it's an eye-opener) getting it to a level where they can mange the numbers more effectively so as to keep values from dropping further. (Aided, of course, by the largest number of purchases being done by "investors" who actually want to be landlords - foreclosures are actually higher than they were a year ago, here) and keep it from affecting the market so badly. The majority of homeowners now who default can count on staying for a year to two years before being evicted. They even have a name for them - "strategic defaulters" - like Mi$$ RobMe and his "strategic taxpaying", but different. In his case he screws other people over and finds ways to hold onto his gains. In the homeowners case they were often screwed over by banks taking advantage of their position of trust, and are trying to find a way to survive.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=479757
you called it "free money" but according to your complaint in this thread, it's not free, and you are lying. why is it okay when you do it?
Also, if this is such a big concern for you...why never a single post about this complaint about the free and reduced school lunch program before. And it's a program that's existed for a long time.
jtuck004
(15,882 posts)incorrect. The bankers, however, are criminals, and being supported on the backs of others. They didn't invest anything, they stole much of what they have, and now they are being given free money, taken from taxpayers, and a free pass for the same behavior that has put others in prison..
As to your other point, today I noticed it.
It is a subsidized program, btw. Not free.
CreekDog
(46,192 posts)you're caught. that's that.
stop playing with us.
if you don't like the term "free lunch" for school lunches because someone else pays for them.
then you shouldn't be using the term "free money" for the bankers when someone else is paying for them.
but you got all up in arms TODAY ONLY over this instance and never before.
i don't like people playing games with me. i have a lot more tolerance for thoughts i disagree with, i have no tolerance for a thought put forward insincerely.
jtuck004
(15,882 posts)scat. go away.
The food isn't free, it is an investment in a better country and our people. And it's a bad strategy to call it free because that removes its value, which we can ill afford. Using the term carelessly teaches people the wrong thing, whether they are 10 or 100. So as you can see, that hasn't changed.
Hopefully your overbearing ego is satiated now, and you think you've accomplished something by comparing thieving bankers to hungry children and using the word free in a more or less complete sentence. Congratulations. I guess it means something to you that I didn't come out of the womb suggesting that the lie of free food be called by it's real name, subsidized meals. I just happened to see the article and commented on it. I have said something before, maybe not here, (you being a budding librarian probably have more interest in figuring that out than I do) but I didn't care enough about what you thought to clue you in. Perhaps on your planet IKnowItAllAndAmPerfect there is no beginning and no end, your beings just exist in a perpetual state of knowingness. Here on Earth, however, sometimes we work in fits and starts. Enjoy the journey.
Anyway, here's a clue for the apparently clueless. I'm not playing games with you. I actually don't give flying rat's ass what you think, because it means nothing to me. And based on what I have heard so far, I suspect it never will.
noiretextatique
(27,275 posts)if you think of food as something "optional" like an investment, i can understand why some people (teabillies and republicons) would be resentful. if you think of food as necessity, it is unnecessary to talk about "freebies" or investments. people have to eat to survive. let them explain why it would be better to let children starve vs. giving them food...that ought to win them friends and influence people democrats need to start framing the issues and stop allowing the rw to frame them.
jtuck004
(15,882 posts)exception to. Because it isn't. It comes out of the taxes their parents, and everyone else who consumes and/or gets paid anything, pay. It comes out of the labor used to grow and ship the food. Even the ones who only get government checks buy gas, groceries, tennis shoes, or cigarettes, or rent an apartment on which taxes are paid. And it is dishonest to call it that. But most people seem
Btw, Republicans LOVE investments. Ask any who have money - it's the stupid among us that don't get the whole investment is good thing. Investment is so special they pay less taxes on that than you do on your income, than most of us do, because "investment" is more valuable than people. Investment pays you back - people just want "free" stuff. People who believe they think "investments" are "optional" sound much more clueless than I think they would like to believe.
Oh, and they don't give a flying rat's ass whether the people survive or not, or perhaps you haven't been paying attention when they call them "useless eaters". And, frankly, they not only don't care what you think about that, they gather their friends around and reinforce the idea amongst themselves - they even brag about it on Faux and Limbaugh. So playing to their humanity is a lost cause, because, for the most part, they pretend to have no heart, and are damn proud of it.
But call it an investment, the smart ones, (and there are lots of smart ones, regardless of what their less than convincing opponents say) can understand that if they feed them there are less public bills for health care, there are new workers for their cheap-ass jobs, etc.
But I tire of this - most people seem content to live the lie.
noiretextatique
(27,275 posts)and start framing issues in ways that normal people understand...not rw assholes. personally, I think it is a waste of time to talk to teabilly types who are being manipulated and used by billionaires, like the Koch brothers. fuck them. I think a better idea is to try to reach reasonable people, some of whom might be republicans.
jtuck004
(15,882 posts)"Insensitive as it might sound, the idea of the Fed cutting its monthly bond purchases to a likely $60 billion from $85 billion is scarier to investors than the massive loss of life, exodus of two million refugees and escalating world tensions that the Syrian crisis has generated.
Speaks for itself."
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2013/09/midweek-pm-reads-3/
--------
The writers point is that the market, and kind of similarly the economy drops like a rock when the Fed hints that they may quit paying bankers $85 billion a month in taxpayer money to keep those who hold expensive real estate in the green, but the death and destruction going on in Syria, and the part we might play in exacerbating it doesn't even phase them.
Another insight I ran across once - a quote I read, supposedly from JD Rockefeller...
"The way to make money is to buy when blood is running in the streets."
People who think they are going to rise up and topple the tyrants don't understand - he, and people like him, just see the bloody mob as a buying opportunity.
One can't read or understand these people without realizing that caring for others is not even in their soul - they do everything for personal gain, and until we find a way to frame things so they feel it is in their best interest to do something, so they see that they get something out of it, we will never interest them in what we see as "necessity". If there were only a few, we could probably work around them, but, unfortunately, they have tens of millions of people who look up to and try to emulate them.
Those can be convinced, must be convinced, but appealing to their humanity is a lost cause. That's neither good nor bad, just a likely reality. Which leave us work to do, eh
Ash_F
(5,861 posts)azurnoir
(45,850 posts)in an article about the standardized testing in my area Mpls-St Paul and especially suburbs some teachers and school officials said flat out that they used participation in fre or reduced cost lunch programs as an earmark students as low achievers and potential troublemakers , the result is that kids start out with strikes against them
jtuck004
(15,882 posts)If, on the other hand, you tell someone you value them, and you, as well as their parents who are very likely working and not making enough, are investing in them for their sake and the sake of their country because we value them, there is no stigma.
But that's not what they are told, nor how it is discussed. Instead, it is approached as a cost, like a heating bill or too much soap in the bathroom, something that needs to be trimmed.
We create the stigma by posing this as a give away to the "less fortunate", which is exactly what the conservatives have taught everyone to think.
CreekDog
(46,192 posts)beating the idea to death.
if you can't stop yourself, what makes you think others will?
i hate when people don't read their own posts.
CreekDog
(46,192 posts)You're doing it wrong.
Creative approach though.
Nikia
(11,411 posts)In the same way that no car/old beat up one, cheap/worn clothes/shoes, and not having certain other things labels a child as poor. Most kids, at the elementary level anyway, aren't thinking about the potential cost to society. They are thinking about who is poor.
jtuck004
(15,882 posts)less money. They do not develop those behaviors as a result of birth. They don't learn it in their home, and most kids at kindergarten age or even 1st grade don't venture more than a few blocks from home, where most of the people are just like them.
It is the adults in their life who teach them to develop those behaviors. The kid doesn't learn it until they are exposed to those adults, somewhere outside of their home or immediate neighborhood, and the first great opportunity for that is...school.
Nikia
(11,411 posts)To both the kid receiving it and everyone else. It isn't necessarily about hate. It can be about difference. I think kids learn early on that it is better to be more well off financially, more attractive, smarter, and more athletic.
Having all children receive free lunch eliminates that "difference" that is recognized as negative early on.
As for my family, I am the sole earner in my household of 4 people. I have a professional job that requires a 4 year degree and experience, but I make a few thousand dollars under the yearly income requirements. In 4k, it is a partial day program but they gave us the income guidelines for free and reduced lunches. It was then, that I discovered that we were "poor". Next year, when my child goes full day and will eat lunch at school, I will choose not to apply for reduced lunches. I don't want him labeled as poor.
jtuck004
(15,882 posts)" I think kids learn early on"
And it's really more insidious than that. They don't just "learn", they are actively " taught" class, hate, racism, etc by the adults around them.
My point is that it is a very different thing to fully believe, and talk as if one thinks WE are re investing in someone (or many) because we believe in them, believe that ALL of us do better when we help each other, that we ALL need help from time to time (anyone who says otherwise is a liar, or perhaps a Republican. All the way up the ladder, including Bill Gates, who got a LOT of help by virtue of who he was born to, the schools he went to and dropped out of, etc), than it is to say "here is something free because YOU are needy" which is what the "free lunch" message seems to embody most of the time. It is subsidized, not free, and they should be damn proud that it exists, proud enough to call it what it is. Only the worst sort of panderer, most of whom don't realize what they are doing, try to do things FOR people, instead of WITH them.
We have this conversation constantly in our non-profit, and I have had shorter versions with a couple of kids at the school across the street over the years. They seem to appreciate it, hearing that a bunch of people thought enough of them to include them in the community. 'Course, I usually leave them questioning what else they might have been, or will be, told that they shouldn't take at face value...
I think grown ups ought to be adult enough to tell children the truth, and tell them how happy they are that we can do this, (not all teachers are, btw) instead of walking around touting "free" food (as the article did that prompted my post) as if they were handing out $1 bills to people on the street corner. Because that is near the beginning of when, and one of the ways, that kids -are taught- (actively) that there is something different, and less valuable, about them. I think the school mentioned in the article is on the right track, but the mgmt ought to reinforce why it is important instead of letting people call it something that it isn't. It's not a death sentence, and I think parents could re-explain it to them, explain that this is one of the ways people are taught to be controlled by others. But it would be a lot easier if, say, newspaper articles didn't perpetuate the problem.
As far as not applying, it's your choice, and I would not presume to know better. But that is a fair amount of money, and I have found that changing my behavior or opinions based on what other people are going to think does me not one damn bit of good, because they will just make shit up if they are are that kind of person (heck, one can read it in the answers to my post). And if they are going to do that anyway, you might as well hang onto your money, because if your life is anything like mine, you really could make better use of it elsewhere
Thanks, I appreciate the thoughtful reply.
adirondacker
(2,921 posts)due to the stereotype that came with it. I would just skip lunch rather than being jeered and ridiculed like other "less fortunates".
d_r
(6,907 posts)rather than brown bagging it, it costs $2.75. For teachers it is $3.50. If I go visit it is $4.25 for me. So, for a month it is over $50 per kid if they eat cafeteria meals. So if you have two kids that is over $100 a month, around a grand a school year. I don't begrudge any kid a free lunch, I'm all for it and proud of the investment. It is a wise investment. But I'm going to be selfish and say that I hope our district is one of those that gets this!
Gormy Cuss
(30,884 posts)Why aren't teachers armed with an explanation that is age-appropriate?
jtuck004
(15,882 posts)to provide that for them, instead of lying to them and telling them that it's free? Because it's not, you know. Even if they don't pay for it, their parents likely pay by working a soul-killing job at minimum wage, even 40 hours a week, and then the kid gets a reduced-price on their lunch.
It's not free at all, and it's intellectually lazy and dishonest to say so, and it doesn't show any respect for the kids to fear telling them that a lot of people are working very hard to get it for them.
Gormy Cuss
(30,884 posts)That's not the issue. It's that they don't understand the mechanism for making it free to them, that it's a social commitment to keep children healthy and not hungry, that it's paid for through taxes that are collected based on adults' abiity to pay. I'm not an educator and I could formulate a way to help them understand that, so why can't the teachers in that school do it? Are they prohibited from trying?
As far as telling a kid that her parents/guardians pay for it, that's not the case in the lowest income families who live on some combination of assistance payments. Sensitivity is needed to frame the explanation in a way that doesn't stigmatize those children. For those with working parents, saying that their parents are paying for it is confusing because in fact they aren't paying directly -- again, it needs to be an age appropriate explanation to avoid such confusion.
jtuck004
(15,882 posts)from crappy low-wage jobs while the corporations that provide the food are getting large subsidies to keep it cheap, subsidies that come from government money that might otherwise go to training for their parents to put together a better life or a job, or make their homes safer, or provide a better subsidy so every single penny they get doesn't go for corporate profits.
It's not free to them when they come home to an empty house because mom has to put in 10 hours for a 7 hour job because she has to ride the damn bus back and forth between their home and the greedy employer - think that's not a cost to the kids?
It's not even free when their parents aren't working at all (tanf is limited to 5 years now) - think there isn't a cost when the kid knows damn good and well that when he or she eats on Friday that will be the last meal until Monday at school, because there is not enough food in the house? That we talk about taking care of people but dad has no hope, mom has no hope, and the kid - where the hell is the kid supposed to learn hope?
The stigma is in the little brains of the adults that won't tell them the truth, much less acknowledge it to each other.
Why in the world would it be stigmatizing to tell the kid that we think they are so valuable that we gladly invest in them, pay the bill that SOMEONE has to pay for their food, that we think they are worth something? Instead we treat them like dirt, like they don't deserve to know what everyone is doing. That won't be "stigmatizing" unless the people around them, the teachers, the aides, and the parents look down on them, and that has NOTHING to do with the kid or the reason people feel like they have to lie to them, at all.
We start lying to them the minute they walk in the door, and continue lying to them as we keep the details of our bloody history from them, we lie to the older ones in class so we can teach them to be little flag wavers that can then be used as cannon fodder for the oil companies in their pursuit of profit. We tell them to work hard so they can go to college where a full half or more are going to graduate with enough debt to buy two brand new cars and not a chance in hell of getting a job that will pay them back for the next decade at a minimum, more than likely two, by which point their knowledge will be almost ancient.
WE are stigmatizing them by the very actions we are taking now...treating them as if they are simpletons that are not smart enough to deal with the truth. And doing them,and our future, a hell of a disservice in the process. And one day, when administrations change, we will be in the same sinking boat we are in now, like the holes previous administrations put in it, but slightly bigger.
We may just have to disagree about this one.
Gormy Cuss
(30,884 posts)Trust me, getting the free or reduced price was observed by others and was very much a reason that we were stigmatized by other students, by cafeteria workers, and unfortunately also by some teachers. My elementary and junior high schools' populations were majority eligible for reduced or free meals and we were STILL stigmatized. Those who tried to stigmatize us were fond of the "hard work" cudgel too. That's "treating them like dirt," not letting them think the food is free. By teenage years many of us just stop eating the hot lunches and usually just skipped lunch altogether. That's my anecdote but the formal research shows that this is common.
Diverting the funds away from school meal programs would not result in a net benefit to their families. All it would do is making it less likely that they would receive decent meals during the school day.
Again though, why is it these professional teachers can't explain in an age appropriate manner that this free meal comes to them via the social safety net? Unless the teachers are forbidden from doing so, the teachers should have the skills to educate these children about the meals program.
jtuck004
(15,882 posts)intelligent people seem to be incapable of using the facts in front of their face. Reminds me of a certain class of Republicans.
The reason people CAN stigmatize others is because otherwise intelligent people teach them that it is free, a handout. Then when the kids grow up to be Republicans, they remember people getting "free" stuff that "costs" them and try to stop it. If instead, we teach that it is an "investment" in our country, in our people, one that we get a better return on than almost anything else, that whole load of garbage about "stigmatization" goes out the window. When's the last time you ever heard anyone point at someone and say "Ha, ha, you made an investment!".
On the other hand, when people use the word free, and refuse to acknowledge the costs, they provide ammunition to those who would use it against others. I find it kind of humorous that people who think they are smart can't figure this out.
Someone has figured this out. Just recently this government changed it's accounting of our Gross National Product to include the money spent on technology (even that which replaces workers) from "cost" to investment", which immediately raised our GNP. Nothing new was made, nothing new was sold, but "poof", suddenly we had done better than we had the month before. They thought it so important that they went back and adjusted all the previous years for decades and "poof", everyone looked richer. Now when they talk about it it's not something to cut, but something that is expected to get a return.
If it is important enough for government to recognize this for business, I don't see why children of families that are finding it increasingly difficult to survive in this sinking economy aren't just as important and deserving.
Gormy Cuss
(30,884 posts)The reason that others can stigmatize them is that Others.Think.It's.Not.Deserved. The children who think it's free aren't the problem, it's the children and adults who think it's a waste of their money who need the education.
Little Star
(17,055 posts)Marrah_G
(28,581 posts)Such a strange thing to get so angry about.
jtuck004
(15,882 posts)operate by the language they use. Then they spend their time pointing fingers and making excuses instead of correcting their own behaviour, and the kids and families suffer for their arrogance and stupidity. And that is because we let people who don't care whether a program lives or dies define the terms, which keeps people from seeing the value in what is being done.
But it really only matters at times like this coming November, when a family or kid won't have food for the weekend because of the coming food stamp cut, or one of those who won't get fed in a school because people fail to teach others about why they invest in their country.
I find it strange that people are so clueless about the effects their language has, but then, there was a reason Reagan was successful, and why the response was excuses.
CreekDog
(46,192 posts)what the hell is the matter with you?
and yes, the lunches are free or reduced *to* children. that is an accurate description of what's going on.
jtuck004
(15,882 posts)parrot a line, I think they should be treated just as they treat others.
CreekDog
(46,192 posts)you are failing miserably.
and as a liberal and progressive, just trying to create that wedge makes you pretty suspicious.
especially when you badmouth unions while trying to claim to be a socialist.
it's not clever when we see through it.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1024&pid=2981
Sheldon Cooper
(3,724 posts)And then all the little kids can gather 'round while you explain the real cost of their free lunch. That should go over well.
jtuck004
(15,882 posts)I wonder why 25% of them never finish. Wait, never mind, I know. It's someone else's fault.
Sheldon Cooper
(3,724 posts)We're talking 6-year olds for chrissake! By all means, give them an economics lecture - that'll work.
jtuck004
(15,882 posts)does a better job of proving mine. Or of just being ridiculous.
I just said don't lie to them. Because the food isn't free, it is an investment in them, because we value them.
All sorts of excuses, but they can't eat excuses when food stamps are taken away, eh? And as economics aren't improving, and thus there is more need for these programs than there has been in a long time, yet more pressure to cut "expenses", excuses won't help there either.
Interesting this isn't coming from the kids and families who won't eat. I bet they would prefer honesty to people who are afraid to be truthful with them, as if they have no respect for them.
Sheldon Cooper
(3,724 posts)But in this thread you are coming across as ridiculous because you seem to want to beat six-year olds over the head with it, instead of just letting them eat their mystery meat and then going outside for recess. They are NOT the target market for your message.
jtuck004
(15,882 posts)and unable to even respect the kids enough to tell them the truth. So I guess we all see things.
There is no reason they can't tell them it's not free, but that their parents (since many work for a living but don't make enough and THAT is why they are on subsidized meals) care for them enough to pay for the food.
They may not need to get into the fact that we get cheap food because we rely on undocumented workers to hump tomatoes in Floriday, or lose fingers and body parts in the meat cutting plants of the Midwest so we can eat cheap at Walmart, but there is every reason to tell them the truth and not lie to them about the investment in their future.
but ymmv
CreekDog
(46,192 posts)LanternWaste
(37,748 posts)To maintain consistency, you never refer to "Social Security" as such, yes?
(Insert distinction without a difference here...)
bobclark86
(1,415 posts)"Because I have a job that pays me enough money to buy my own lunch and you children don't?"
jtuck004
(15,882 posts)She could tell them that it has to be paid for, and that people, like their own parents (since a large number of these families have parents who work but aren't paid enough by business owners to live) or others love them enough to pay for it, so they need to work hard so they can help take care of others.
Kids can easily understand that.
bobclark86
(1,415 posts)you just have to know how to make it simple enough, but to be complete.
I also like this:
"I share my knowledge to teach you, and the school district pays me in money. You're paid in my knowledge to study and test. I can spend my money, but you have to save your knowledge until you can share it for money yourself."
CreekDog
(46,192 posts)with that DNA?
NealK
(1,864 posts)The market killed the Atlas Shrugged movie, don't you know?
NealK
(1,864 posts)jtuck004
(15,882 posts)of idiots. Now I see why he said that...
It's not free, and using those terms is intellectually lazy. The fact that it's one of our better investments, and something that could otherwise teach the kids are really good lesson about how important it is to see that EVERYONE does better seems to escape people whose goal seems to be fomenting ignorance and snark.
On the other hand, you suggest a new way to spell Moran. Thank you for that.
Oh yeah.
NealK
(1,864 posts)jtuck004
(15,882 posts)And enjoy the echo. <<-This is a hint, but I don't expect it will serve its purpose, and there will be more mud after this. I just won't see it
But of course! I'm on the same spot as them on the political spectrum. You on the other hand...
Gormy Cuss
(30,884 posts)has two principal goals: increasing participating in school lunch programs in school districts with high percentages of low income kids and reduction of the administrative costs by direct certification rather than individual applications.
Sunlei
(22,651 posts)States would suck out a lot of those funds for admin costs, deals with 'food vendors', deals with 'for profit' meal companies.
Now that every child gets a decent meal, there will be a huge savings on the chunk of a states Federal funds- states/school district, gave to the 'middlemen'.
Sunlei
(22,651 posts)meals on wheels can deliver from local public schools.
virgogal
(10,178 posts)feeding their kids and I don't know one person who starved to death.
This was in the 30s and 40s and no one had money in my neighborhood.
I attended the Boston public schools.
Gormy Cuss
(30,884 posts)That fact was part of the original argument in favor of a school lunch program.
Have you ever wondered why schools offer a school lunch program or when and why the school lunch program was created? Read this article for more information on the history of the school lunch program. You may be surprised.
President Harry S. Truman began the national school lunch program in 1946 as a measure of national security. He did so after reading a study that revealed many young men had been rejected from the World War II draft due to medical conditions caused by childhood malnutrition. Since that time more than 180 million lunches have been served to American children who attend either a public school or a non-profit private school.
http://www.educationbug.org/a/the-history-of-the-school-lunch-program.html
virgogal
(10,178 posts)Gormy Cuss
(30,884 posts)It's true that parents tried to keep their children fed, job or no job. The problem was adequate food to fuel those growing bodies and minds. To kids, having less food and less variety of food would seem normal if everyone around them had the same resources.
msanthrope
(37,549 posts)with vitamin deficiencies and bad skin and hair? There were a couple in every class.
Kids whose families got 'relief' or church baskets? Kids who ate out of the trash?
Those kids were there, even if you don't remember them.
virgogal
(10,178 posts)cars,no vacations,and often no phones or washing machines,but there was always food.
I also had a single mother so it was rough.
msanthrope
(37,549 posts)No families decimated by alcohol abuse or domestic abuse or both with the children were neglected and hungry.... in your Boston working class neighborhood during the Depression. Okay.
CreekDog
(46,192 posts)maybe we should talk about why you think the people you knew represented the entirety of the population in a time when malnourishment was astoundingly common, not only in the US, but in many parts of the world.
virgogal
(10,178 posts)the working class type of people.
In other words,if you had a job you fed your kids.
CreekDog
(46,192 posts)why didn't FDR solve the depression by making sure everyone knew you and had a job?
ForgoTheConsequence
(4,868 posts)Go ahead and spit it out.
Sheldon Cooper
(3,724 posts)I'm glad for you that you weren't hungry, but that doesn't mean that others weren't suffering. Holy shit I can't believe some of the stuff I read here.
Marrah_G
(28,581 posts)My grandmother would keep a pot on the stove to throw odds and ends into and have my mother bring it over to whatever family needed it that night. They were pretty poor and there were other's even worse off.
There were PLENTY of people in the 30s-40s in Boston that didn't have enough to eat.
Posteritatis
(18,807 posts)Response to alp227 (Original post)
bobclark86 This message was self-deleted by its author.
Gormy Cuss
(30,884 posts)Liberal_in_LA
(44,397 posts)feathateathn
(15 posts)Everyone has the right to nutritious food. It is shameful that anyone is allowed to profit from a necessity such as food.
Food should be provided to everyone for free. This should also apply to all other necessities- shelter, clothing, medical care, education
There are reasons Menino's been mayor almost as long as I've been alive, and this is just one of the small ones.
JI7
(89,247 posts)even kids from families who have money to provide may not have time or just may not care enough. kids could end up just bringing or buying junk food.
provide healthy meals for all kids. i don't think the cost is very much. just like public parks, clean sidewalks etc these things help toward a better society for everyone.
hunter
(38,310 posts)This is a new program?
In our local school district it's pretty obvious that the number of kids who qualify for free lunches greatly outnumbers the kids who can pay. It would cost too much to collect the money and do the accounting.
You're a kid, you show up, you get fed. Isn't that the way communities of adults ought to behave in ANY healthy community???
tabasco
(22,974 posts)FUCKING HATE IT. It's a rotten society we live in if we can't provide kids a free goddamn, nutritious lunch.
CrispyQ
(36,457 posts)Every child has a right to healthy, nutritious meals in school, and when we saw a chance to offer these healthy meals at no cost to them, we jumped at the chance, said Mayor Thomas M. Menino in a prepared statement. This takes the burden of proof off our low-income families and allows all children, regardless of income, to know healthy meals are waiting for them at school every day.
Bravo!!
How many free martini lunches do you think the crooked banksters have had on our dime?
freshwest
(53,661 posts)totodeinhere
(13,058 posts)to have their children eat sack lunches from home if they prefer. My sister gives her daughter a sack lunch because her school's lunches are not very nutritious and provide too much sugar and sodium.