Apparently, Rep. Jack Kingston who's running for the Senate in Georgia supports making children perform janitorial work at the school in return for getting free lunches. Link. I'm not a fan of this, but it's not for the same reason the Left doesn't like it, which seems to be that welfare benefits should be given out without regard to any personal moral concern, especially one that could be construed as attaching shame to receiving the benefits. The reason I don't think this is smart is because the child isn't the real welfare recipient in the school lunch program. When I was developing my political views as a middle and high schooler, my dad used to tell me that when it comes to social welfare programs that claim to provide food, clothing, shelter, or health insurance to children, the child is just a political pawn to make the program's critics look like insensitive jerks and to divert attention from irresponsible parents. His rationale was that it's not the child's responsibility to provide himself with food, shelter, healthcare, or shelter. (After all, it's illegal young children to even make a serious effort to provide for himself by getting a job.) The responsibility to provide for the child lies both morally and legally with parents, so when the government claims it's doing something "for the children," all it's actually doing is assuming responsibilities the parent would normally have to assume. Therefore, they are the ones who really derive benefit from such welfare programs. I think my dad was (and still is) right. (Lest I develop an unhealthy sense of entitlement, he also taught that the entitlement is coupled with significant duties on the child to perform chores to maintain the home and the power of the parent to enforce those duties with discipline, including physical discipline, if necessary. However, that's the family's province, not the government's.) People can claim that making the kid work for the lunch, you're teaching him a lesson. That me be true, but the kid who's "paying for the lunch" isn't really anymore responsible (and therefore any less in need of a lesson) than the kid who's getting the lunch for free, because most likely, he isn't paying for his lunch either. Mom and Dad are, so if they want to make every kid mop the floor and scrub toilets, go for it. However, they shouldn't single out the free lunch kids and embarrass them for something that's not their fault or even a dereliction of their responsibilities. If you want to teach some responsibility, make the parents of the free lunch kids come into the school from time to time to clean the place. It doesn't have to be some onerous requirement that takes a lot of time - maybe just a few hours per month. The point is that they're the one's screwing up and in need of a lesson, not their kids.
mrD Of course your idea is fair and reasonable and therefore has zero chance of ever getting enacted. There was a city in either Wisc or Minn several years ago that tried to get people living in subsidized housing to clean up around their own complex. The libs went crazy, said it 'demeaned" the welfare recipient somehow and that idea died. The sad part is as long we require no accountability or responsibility all we are doing is creating this HUGE segment of takers who quickly feel 'entitled" Funny while your solution seems reasonable and I suspect many kids would feel like they are contributing others schools are giving free ( taxpayer paid ) meals to every student so the poor kids aren't stigmitized
Either have the program or do away with it, I dont really care. But, the idea of pointing out which kids have poor parents and forcing them to do extra manual labor in the school is ridiculous. Most kids wouldn't eat to avoid the shaming. "Alright poor kids, line up and get your mop buckets"
Deez is spot on but makes too much sense to ever be considered by politicians. I think you will find students going without lunch in order to avoid the shame of the custodial work.
I think it is a great idea. Too many kids these days fall for the bs that ours is a classless society; making the poorer kids work for their meals would point out the class bias in the system to the kids who did not have to work and, more importantly, stress their lower class status to the kids who did the work. Building up class resentments and humiliation would be a good way to prepare them for the work ahead and reconcile them, or most of them, to the second class status their parents have bestowed on them. If that is not a win/win situation, I don't know what is.
Why not make all the kids help with cleaning? The son of a good friend went to a small, very expensive liberal arts college. I don't know if they did this because some kids were there on a full scholarship or not, but every student had to work somewhere on campus so many hours per week. The son 's parents were paying big bucks for him to go there, but he worked at the pig farm. It certainly did not hurt him, although it was years before he would eat pork!
I 100% support all the students helping with basic cleaning. There are certain things they can't do because of liability issues though. It's their school and taking ownership of how it looks would probably help in a number of areas. I have discussed it with several principals in the past and most are reluctant to give up any instructional time. The best I have been able to do is "community service" for behavior problems.
I think it would be a great idea to have the children help with some basic chores in exchange for their lunch. I understand that their parents are the ones that are responsible. But it would still be a great life lesson for those children that nothing is for free even if it comes from the State.
Roger - I am know longer a parent in HISD, but every kid is forced to have a free breakfast. They served it in my kid's classroom. I would be in favor of a work program for all kids, but I would be even more for making the parents of free lunch kids work at the school. It is not the kid's fault they were dealt the cards, but a proactive approach to teaching them a better way along with helping them have a nutritional meal is a good start.
Agree that it is the parents who bear the financial responsibility (for their children's care and meals). The idea of school-wide cleanup and community service is a good one. There are still some martial arts schools (I've seen one in Virginia and am sure there are others) where, despite the fact every student (or his/her parents) pays monthly fees, everyone stays after sessions to help clean and tidy the place up.
utche: if the kids should work because they are getting subsidized lunches, shouldn't they all work, seeing as how they all have subsidized buildings and teachers? Why should the prosperous get to sit on their butts while the poor kids clean the toilets??
My daughter was an exchange student in Japan and campus cleanup was part of the school day -- a much longer school day than we have in the states. She thought it was cool. Many hands make light work. This guy is running in the Republican Primary and given the hostility to the non-working poor has extended to contempt for the working poor as well in Republican conversation, I think suggesting that we make children work for free lunches will prove good strategy. On these pages and elsewhere I read the working poor have not taken advantage of opportunities and if two people working hard at Wal-Mart or fast food places can't provide food, decent housing and health care for the children, it's pretty much their fault. Woe be it that prosperous, skilled, hard working folks should have taxes raised or pay more for burgers and groceries to provide a living wage to the "deserving poor" whom I will define as those who "deserve" to be poor.
Found this on the USDA website: How much reimbursement do schools get? Free breakfasts $1.20 Reduced-price breakfasts $0.90 Paid breakfasts $0.22 Looks like the kids that pay for breakfast owe some mop time too.
Again, no longer there but you made my point. HISD forced every kid to "have" a free lunch because they got paid more. They even moved the breakfast to classroom delivery to ensure participation. According to my kid, the majority of it was thrown away. Government at its best.
Schools do it in the classroom because most school cafeterias can only seat around 200 while the average school has well over 500 students. It also lets the kids that are not eating breakfast or finish early do something productive. It is wasteful and stupid in many ways. If you look at the most wasteful programs in schools, they are almost all federally funded. For example, you have to have a milkwith a school lunch. I have a student that is not allergic to milk but hates it. She brings juice from home each day but has to take a milk from the cafeteria or it will not be considered a complete meal and each item will be charged a la carte. She throws the milk away on the way to the table every day. The rules are written with good intentions of each child receiving a complete meal, but becomes wasteful like most one size fits all programs. It also turns cafeteria managers into paper pushing food nazis. What gets lost in the debate is that school breakfast and lunch programs are more corporate welfare than anything else. Companies like aramark bank on this stuff. Now, the govt has told them that they can take a free lunch applicants word for their income level then audit only 10% of applicants. The applicants literally just type a number into a box on a computer and hit enter with no documentation in 90% of the cases.
I agree with most of what you posted and no doubt you know more than me on anything related to public school. However, at least at our school, the only reason food was served in class was for the money. The cafeteria easily covered the kids in the program. Granted, this school was in an affluent part of Houston. A group of parents met with the Hattie White office and were told in no uncertain terms this was the reason.
Unintended consequences of a federal law?? Who would have thought?? There are children all over the world who desperately need that thrown-out milk. Madness.
ONLY if you use the rationale that giving " free meals " to all children eliminates the stigma does it make sense for us to spend taxpayer money for meals that parents had been and could be paying for. I did find that formerly for DISD a parent paid $2.93 for lunch. NOW all students get breakfast and lunch 'free" which means the taxpayer is paying it even for those whose parents paid it in the past. so which makes fiscal sense for a nation floundering under devt? To pay $.22 for meals that parents can pay 97-98% of the cost OR to force taxpayers to pay 100% of the costs? Where will the extra money come from ?
utche: poor people pay taxes too: part of their rent money goes to pay for them. As for my outlook, you will not have to wait forever for this to roll out as it has been standard operating procedure since public schools were first introduced. Everybody benefits when the populace as a whole gets better educated or educated even a little. And your argument about how the taxes for the schools are paid by the parents of the more prosperous, I am prosperous and don't have any kids in school and I pay the same property taxes as my next door neighbor who has three kids in school. I am not whining, even if the three prosperous kids get to eat the subsidized meals at the cafeteria. We all drive the highways, how about we make everybody give some time to pick up the trash on the right of way? It is not just the poor who get to drive on the roads. Your responses and others like them are symptomatic of the ingrained class bias in this society
I am all for providing nutrition to a kid who is going without. However, this is treating a symptom and not the disease. It starts and ends with the parents. Make them accountable. Also, I simply hate the waste. I watched kids get off the city bus in front of the McDonalds one block from the school. A large majority walked into McDonalds, bought breakfast or sugary drinks, then walked to the school making sure to throw down their trash on the street. They received free transportation to school, bought unhealthy junk food at McDonalds likely with SNAP money, then got more free food at school. Our country simply cannot sustain these policies.
Ha, fast food joints cannot take SNAP money. We can blame the poor all day for these programs, but it is corporate welfare that is driving this. McDonalds is a huge beneficiary of programs like SNAP. They post the phone number of the McResource hotline in their restaurants so that employees can call and get information about all types of public assistance programs. I read a report a while back that we spend about 7 billion a year on public assistance for fast food workers with 1.2 billion of that going to McDonalds. Rougly 50% of fast food employees get government assistance. Do away with these programs and the walmarts and fast food giants would be forced to pay higher wages. Companies like aramark, chartwells, and sodexo make a fortune off free lunches along with the big food processors. Follow the money and you can usually figure out what is driving this stuff.
