I’m all for healthy free lunches for poor kids. Is it really necessary to give free meals to all Palo Alto kids independent of financial status? https://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2022/06/19/palo-alto-uni...
Snark aside, the answer is: it's much simpler to manage a program that offers the same thing to everyone regardless of income than it is to manage a program that has to work out who deserves it. And offering it to all avoids stigma.
Why would a human being feel that feeding children is NOT their responsibility?
Clearly you have never had to be the "free lunch kid", or idealize your childhood independent of the cruelty of "different". You are extremely privileged.
The idea that we'd limit what kids we fund for meals, education, etc. is just gross and bifurcates any moralistic or democratic ideals.
The US has a serious problem with "bootstraps" and whatnot. Which really means, survival of the sh1tt1est.
If you feel that investing in the future of your community is BS, stop living in a community.
You don't have kids? Cool!
Meanwhile, you don't feel like you need to contribute to the future you wish you had secured for yourself without struggle? F*ck you. Your community is an investment in the continued existence of a people with similar DNA as yourself.
It is beyond my understanding to fathom how in 2022 we're all still trying to deal with false scarcity as some sort of reality.
There is MORE than enough for everyone, but we don't really care about that beyond a family or clan directive. That's a shame for any culture.
Perhaps we should ask the parents who are encouraged to not feed their own children because of the existence of these programs.
Let’s say there is a 22 to 1 student to teacher ratio. And 20 don’t need the free lunch but you give it to them anyways. Let’s say you’re spending $5 per meal per kid. That’s $100/day. 180 days per school year. $18k per class.
It could be higher, it could be lower. Certainly it’s enough to be out to good use.
Actually I’d rather they spend the money on teachers rather than lunches for kids whose parents can afford to pay for their own.
Universal “free lunch” is cheaper to manage, avoids filtering out children who needs it (but is filtered out due to administrative error or rigid rules), prevents children’s embarrassment, etc.
It's not about the kid in Palo Alto who doesn't need it, but gets it anyway.
It's about the kid who lives in poverty and should get it, but doesn't, because their family didn't properly submit forms A65, B39, and F12 proving their annual income meets the ever-changing requirements.
Giving a benefit to everyone is by far the simplest and most effective way to be sure no one falls through the bureaucratic cracks (though it's probably more accurate to call them gaping chasms than 'cracks').
[0] https://www.schooldigger.com/go/CA/schools/2961004596/school...
Also, giving every kid the same treatment is a good idea in general as it reinforces the idea that they should be treated equally.
Actually what it does is teach kids they should depend on the government for handouts - even if there families can easily afford to pay their own way. Not a message I would choose to send.
I went to a public school in Uruguay and we had a daily free meal (not really lunch, it was more of a snack, school ran 13 to 17 for me) and I never went to get mine, but I always had a couple of classmates who didn't get a square lunch at home and they went to get that.
My kid would always bring a lunch from home but often return with it uneaten, because when you pit healthy home cooked food against microwaved pizza and crackers, for a six year old, it’s no contest.
I’m still supportive of the program - if there are starving kids in our community, of course having free options is great, I just wish they’d managed to have a cook onsite so it wouldn’t be so factory-made and artificial.
Well, no. You always have the option to bring your lunch if you can afford it. So the government gets to decide what the lunches are for poor people who don't have another option. Take that for what it is, but shit lunch is better than no lunch, ask any hungry person.
Rather than embrace minimalism, the better question is if it is more efficient to run the program that way and often times, universal programs are indeed more efficient.