{"id":1312007,"date":"2023-11-03T05:53:59","date_gmt":"2023-11-03T05:53:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/?p=302980"},"modified":"2023-11-03T05:53:59","modified_gmt":"2023-11-03T05:53:59","slug":"school-lunches-should-be-free","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2023\/11\/03\/school-lunches-should-be-free\/","title":{"rendered":"School Lunches Should be Free"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Photograph Source: DPLA – Public Domain<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

During the pandemic, the government embarked on a beautiful experiment: expanding public programs to stave off poverty. One critical component was ensuring that public school students had\u00a0free lunches<\/a>\u00a0regardless of family income.<\/p>\n

During the 2020-2021 school year,\u00a098 percent of all school lunches were free to students<\/a>. All of a sudden, public schools were allowed to treat the idea of feeding students to be as essential as educating them.<\/p>\n

These pandemic-era programs \u2014 which also included a monthly Child Tax Credit, a pause in student loan repayments, and expansions of SNAP and Medicaid \u2014 not only kept people from falling into deep poverty but actually led to a\u00a0record reduction in poverty<\/a>\u00a0levels.<\/p>\n

But as those\u00a0programs expire<\/a>, poverty is\u00a0rising again<\/a>. And with an end to federally funded free school lunches, kids living in the\u00a0world\u2019s richest nation<\/a>\u00a0will go hungry again.<\/p>\n

When the temporary free lunch program that fed 50 million students\u00a0ended<\/a>\u00a0in June 2022, participation in school meal programs plummeted and income-based qualifications for free meals resumed.\u00a0Public school meal debt<\/a>\u00a0has ballooned to $262 million per year, with an estimated 30.4 million students unable to pay for their meals.<\/p>\n

Shameful stories abound.<\/p>\n

For example,\u00a0Donovan Elementary School<\/a>\u00a0in Lebanon, Ohio, announced \u201cIce Cream Friday<\/a>,\u201d a fun activity that expressly excluded students with debt. \u201cIf a student has a negative balance they will not be able to purchase an ice cream even if they bring their $1,\u201d the school said. \u201cStudents are only allowed to purchase [one] ice cream and are not permitted to buy an ice cream for a friend.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cJust give the kids ice cream!!!\u201d one person\u00a0replied to the school on Facebook.<\/a>\u00a0\u201cThe part that kids can\u2019t buy ice cream for their friends is disgusting.\u201d<\/p>\n

At a district in\u00a0Philadelphia<\/a>, sixth through 12th graders in debt will no longer be fed at school. Among the impacted parents is a single mother of three who cannot pay off her kids\u2019 $400 lunch debt. In\u00a0North Carolina<\/a>, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School District has nearly $500,000 in unpaid school lunch debts.<\/p>\n

Even in school districts where meals are free for low-income families, there is a deep stigma when kids are singled out. There are horror stories of \u201clunch shaming<\/a>,\u201d such as kids forgoing meals in order to not be outed as too poor to pay out-of-pocket.<\/p>\n

Additionally, according to one\u00a0analysis<\/a>, many kids \u201care part of families who earn too much to be considered for free or reduced lunch, but also earn too little to afford regular school meals.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is outrageous. We ensure taxpayer-funded public classrooms and teacher salaries as well as roads, parks, libraries, firefighters, paramedics, and more. None of these have income or work-based requirements. They\u2019re free at the point of use for everyone.<\/p>\n

But we draw the line at school lunches?<\/p>\n

Republicans say they would cut federal funding for school lunches altogether, declaring it a\u00a0priority for 2024<\/a>. In this dystopian worldview, kids don\u2019t have an unconditional right to food. But some Democratic-run states actually learned from the federal government\u2019s pandemic experiment.<\/p>\n

California\u2019s Department of Education this year\u00a0boasted<\/a>\u00a0about being \u201cthe first state to implement a statewide Universal Meals Program for school children.\u201d Colorado, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, and Vermont have\u00a0implemented similar programs<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018School lunch debt\u2019 is a term so absurd that it shouldn\u2019t even exist,\u201d\u00a0declared<\/a>\u00a0Senator John Fetterman (D-PA). Fetterman\u2019s\u00a0federal School Lunch Debt Cancelation Act<\/a>\u00a0would direct the Department of Agriculture to pay off all school meal debts.<\/p>\n

But it isn\u2019t enough to pay off the debt once. Modeled on California\u2019s approach, Rep. Ilhan Omar\u2019s (D-MN)\u00a0Universal School Meals Program Act<\/a>\u00a0would permanently offer free meals for all kids with no income restriction.<\/p>\n

I asked my 16-year-old son, who attends a public school in California, how he would respond if kids at his school were required to pay for meals. \u201cThat would be pretty dumb,\u201d he said. He\u2019s right. It\u2019s that simple.<\/p>\n

The post School Lunches Should be Free<\/a> appeared first on CounterPunch.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

During the pandemic, the government embarked on a beautiful experiment: expanding public programs to stave off poverty. One critical component was ensuring that public school students had\u00a0free lunches\u00a0regardless of family income. During the 2020-2021 school year,\u00a098 percent of all school lunches were free to students. All of a sudden, public schools were allowed to treat More<\/a><\/p>\n

The post School Lunches Should be Free<\/a> appeared first on CounterPunch.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":340,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1312007"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/340"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1312007"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1312007\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1312118,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1312007\/revisions\/1312118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1312007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1312007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1312007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}