Posted by
Playful Walrus on Tuesday, December 22, 2009 7:40:00 PM
People are upset that more kids aren't eating taxpayer-furnished breakfasts at government schools. No - really. According to this LATimes.com blog entry by Mary MacVean, over a million "low-income" children in California who are getting taxpayer-furnished lunches aren't also taking taxpayer-furnished breakfast. Something called the "Food Research and Action Center" provided the information, of course. Fortunately, the LATimes.com readers who responded were overwhelmingly sensible about the matter (see some of that below).
California ranked 33rd in low-income-student participation in the School Breakfast Program for 2008-09, the same ranking it received a year earlier. In terms of the number of schools that offer breakfast, California’s ranking fell from 35th to 40th, the Washington-based group said.
So what?
In 2008-09, 8.8 million children took part in the breakfast program on an average day; the lunch program served 18.9 million children.
I'm sure that’s a nationwide figure.
"The program is seriously underutilized," center president James Weill said Monday.
Maybe these kids don't need it.
Children have consistently increased their participation since the early 1990s, but "it's not across the board, and it's not fast enough," Weill said.
Not fast enough? They're not becoming dependent on hand-outs fast enough?
"We really think of the School Breakfast Program as a modest miracle of good public policy," he said.
No, the miracle would be teaching the families to be self-sufficient.
The program, which began as a pilot project in 1966 and became permanent in 1975, helps alleviate hunger, improves student achievement and reduces levels of absenteeism, the group said.
Interesting. So all the kids just starved to death before 1975?
One way to improve participation is to "fit the program to the actual lives of children in schools," Weill said.
Again, why not spend that effort helping the families?
"When you serve breakfast only in the cafeteria, 30 to 40 to 50 minutes before school starts, too many kids don’t get there on their school bus or public transportation or they understandably want” to be with their friends rather than in the cafeteria, he said.
Well, yeah. You forgot to add in their public housing. It can't be that the kids are having breakfast at home or elsewhere, or bringing it with them, you see.
In addition to nutrition and hunger issues, the lack of participation in the breakfast program represented a lost opportunity to bring in more federal dollars - because the federal government reimburses the state for meals eaten under the programs, advocates said.
Uhm, does anyone see the problem here? Those dollars are supposed to cover the cost of the program. Lower participation means less money is needed. Shouldn't that mean a loss of dollars? Is the concern here feeding children or grabbing taxpayer money? This is like when government schools fret about enrollment/attendance, because having fewer students means less money. If you have fewer people participation, you need less money!
I have a "solution". Offer housing and dinner on-campus. That way, the kids will be sure to be there for breakfast, where they can take one bite of the sweetest thing on the menu and through the rest of the food away, like so many of them do with the lunch.
The reader comments were interesting. Here are some.
"Mike" wrote December 11, 2009 at 01:53 PM:
I Feel for these kids being a parent of two kids, but the parents of these children should be the one feeding their own children, not the tax payers.
"good for taxpayers" wrote December 11, 2009 at 01:57 PM:
Seriously? Good, I'm glad. They're probably all overweight anyway.
"Dirty Politic" wrote December 11, 2009 at 01:58 PM:
I totally agree that we should expand the program. The government should raise the kids for the low income family so that the welfare money the parents receive can be dedicated on drugs and drinks for the parent.
"KK" wrote December 11, 2009 at 02:10 PM:
Are people milking the system by under reporting their income? That's an awful lot of children in that category but you just don't see the wide spread poverty anywhere.
"blm" wrote December 11, 2009 at 02:16 PM:
Did it occur to any of these people that perhaps the children were getting breakfast at home, even if they do qualify for the program? Perhaps we should add dinner, that way the parents can abdicate more responsibility for their children.
"Ferret" wrote December 11, 2009 at 03:21 PM:
I remember a brief period of time when I was a child, (many, many moons ago). Right after my father passed, and it was just my mother raising my little sister and I, we "qualified" for free lunches. I remember quite clearly that I would rather have gone hungry than to live with the embarrassment and the social stigma of being a "welfare" case...When my mother found out that the method by which my sister and I were getting "free lunches" was through the use of little green "coupons" we were to hand over to the cashier in the cafeteria, she was absolutely mortified. She went out and got a second job that week, so that "her kids" wouldn't ever have to use those disgusting little green "I'm a poor kid" coupons again.
The writer goes on...
Our State is flat busted, broke. Is it so surprising that we don't have enough money in the Public School system to pay for breakfast and lunch? Not to sound cold-hearted, but we DO have welfare programs, along with Food Stamps and WIC vouchers, to cover this very real, and very serious, problem. Our schools are for educating our children, not for feeding them.
"Jim Q. Citizen" wrote December 11, 2009 at 03:56 PM:
Have you seen these kids and their mom's? They're so obese they have trouble walking! Maybe a little less free chow is in order. These are the same "poor kids" who have plenty of cash to stuff themselves at Micky D's after school. Has this state gone absolutely insane?
"nothing's free" wrote December 11, 2009 at 09:23 PM:
I worked at an LAUSD school for many years. Even though these families look poor on paper, many aren't poor at all. Anyone care to look into how many of them own their own homes? It's true, they collect Welfare...as well as food stamps, Healthy families "free" medical insurance, and many other "free" goodies, including breakfast and lunch (when they feel like partaking of it)...they drive pretty nice cars (uninsured), and their spouses make low wages (nothing the rest of us could live on without assistance), under the table, or with stolen SS #'s (hence, they look poor on paper - no wages, or very little...Those illegal wages, combined with all the freebies make for a pretty good life, and you'd be surprised at how much money gets sent back to their home countries, rather then cycled back into our dwindling economy.
There were a couple of eugenics/let-them-starve comments, and some "don't have kids you can't afford" rants, but mostly comments were from fed-up taxpayers who see that it is the moral obligation of parents to provide for their children before spending money on nonessentials.
Then came this comment rebuking the others, from "David" December 15, 2009 at 05:50 PM:
The cruelty and selfishness expressed by these comments is incredible. My tax dollars are wasted on wars, prisons, over-paid law enforcement, etc. So let's just call it a push.
Here's the difference, David. National defense and law enforcement have been mandated by our Constitution from the beginning as basic functions of our government. Nowhere does the Constitution permit the federal government to take money from someone in one state and use it to pay for breakfast for people in another state. Want a meal paid for by taxpayers? Join the military.
It is cruelty to encourage people to be dependent on taxpayers. It is cruelty to use the force of government to pry money away from those who are working, but struggling, to pay for wasteful programs catering to others.