The Case For Universal Free Lunch - Full Frontal with Samantha Bee

[Rhiannon12866]

Turns out, feeding kids at school raises test scores and lowers behavior problems. It’s also, conveniently, the right thing to do. This is a digital exclusive.

[onecaliberal]

1. This is a huge deal.

I wish we could make it so now.

[raging moderate]

4. "Now it's only 30 minutes before I can eat my mayonnaise sandwich...."

"Now it's only 25 minutes before I can eat my mayonnaise sandwich...."
"Now it's only 20 minutes before I can eat my mayonnaise sandwich...."
"Now it's only 15 minutes before I can eat my mayonnaise sandwich...."
"Now it's only 10 minutes before I can eat my mayonnaise sandwich...."
"Now it's only 5 minutes before I can eat my mayonnaise sandwich...."
(Me, silently talking to myself at ages 9 - 16, during the entire class right before my lunch period, every day, trying to stay quiet and ignore my growling stomach. Meanwhile, the teacher would be droning on about something, but it was always hard to hear what she was saying. With only a few tablespoons of plain oatmeal for breakfast, I really had trouble concentrating at school during those years.)

My Chicago Public Schools did not offer free lunches during those years. When I later heard that they had started doing that, tears came to my eyes. I hugged myself and told myself, "See, somebody cared. It just took awhile to set it all up." Meanwhile, at 16, I could earn a little money, and my mother became a legal secretary and got paid a little more.

I had wonderful teachers and high school counselors, who did what they could to help, tutoring me in their free time, signing me up for counseling, and even finding me a little part scholarship once I had caught up academically. Liberal ideas were becoming more acceptable at that point, during the early 60's.

My three siblings all became obese once they reached adulthood. Luckily, my husband and I met some macrobiotic hippies and yoga instructors during our counterculture days, and we followed some of their suggestions, so I avoided that particular trap.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

3. A while back I saw or read something that

indicated that in the very early years of school lunches, they were free to all students. I remember being amazed and immediately wondered why they weren't still free to all students.

A personal story. When I was in fifth grade, the father of one of my classmates committed suicide. If I recall correctly, there were five children in the family. While the son in my class was out, my teacher convened a class meeting, telling us with brutal honesty the financial facts of the family, and asking us to be willing to contribute the money so that the kid in our class would have a meal ticket for the rest of the year. This would have been in 1958 or 1959. I believe a week's meal ticket then at that school was $1.25/week. I forget the details of how it played out, and thinking about it now, I suspect the teacher might well have made up any difference between what we contributed and what was needed. It was my first experience with helping someone who really needed help.

Only a few years later I was getting dental work through a Catholic charity, and I have never forgotten what they did for me. For a number of years when I pledged money to charity, I made sure it all went to that specific charity.

[Rhiannon12866]

5. I went to numerous schools in my life, private schools twice, the rest were public, we moved a few

Times for my father's job. Hot lunches were offered where I went to first grade in Albany, though I rarely got them because of an early incident where they tried to force me to eat peas. When we moved up North, there was no lunchroom, everyone brought lunches, but when we moved to Saratoga when I was in 4th grade, there was a big cafeteria and most kids bought lunches, including me. I remember very well that lunch then was a quarter - this was in the '60s - and everyone placed their quarters in the corner of their trays and the cashier lady would snatch them up when we walked by.

I guess that $3.50 isn't a lot due to inflation, but with overhead reducing this to only $1.25 for food, which sounds ridiculous. Fast food costs a lot more than that. I don't have a solution, but punishing kids whose families get behind in payments - or refusing them food at all - is definitely harmful to an entire generation.

In those early grades where lunches weren't provided, I remember that we had a "milk break" every morning and kids were supposed to take turns bringing a package of cookies. But, of course, the milk cost a few cents, too. This country owes it to the nation's kids to feed them. This needs to be a national priority.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

7. We must be pretty much the same age.

I was actually referring to the very beginnings of school lunches in the 1920s or 1930s.

When I was in Catholic school in kindergarten and first grade, we likewise had a milk break. I always got the chocolate milk. Kindergarten was half day, so no lunch. First grade, I recall going into the basement cafeteria. I always had a packed lunch, usually a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I think they sold a hot lunch, but I know I never got it. Have zero idea what it cost, but the cash amount would have been a lot for my parents.

We then moved to a small town some 10 or so miles north. School lunches were a quarter. This was a rural farming community in that part of northern New York State, and much of the food, I'm pretty sure, came from local farmers. Their children also attended that school, so they had a vested interest in making sure the food was good.

For what it's worth, I have a few meals I make in quantity and freeze. They tend to work out at two dollars or less, sometimes a lot less, per serving. But I'm not at all certain they'd be appropriate for children in schools. For one thing, I'm 73 and have a very small appetite. Growing children need a lot more food. I remember my son telling me that in his 7th grade year, a classmate who was in the process of growing up to be well over 6 feet tall, ate and ate and ate in the cafeteria at lunch time until he was finally told he had to leave. He was endlessly hungry because he was growing.

[Rhiannon12866]

9. You've got a few years on me, but I do remember lunches were a quarter when I was in 4th grade

And when I said "up North," this was also northern New York. I spend second, third and half of 4th grade in Ticonderoga, small town and the schools were pretty old, no lunchrooms there - we took our lunches to some classroom monitored by a teacher and ate them there. Seventh grade in Saratoga was the same, we ate in a dank room in the basement and I know that school was built in 1911 since they had a 100th year anniversary in 2011 - there are now offices there. If I have nightmares about any school, that's the one, it was pretty spooky.

And I definitely remember the "milk breaks" in Ticonderoga since the "milkman" who brought the milk daily had a daughter in my class so she got to see her Dad - and I was envious.

Kindergarten was my first private school (my grandmother had taught there) - and, like you, it was half a day. I was sick a lot during my first year so my parents decided it wasn't worth the tuition so I went to public school for first grade and then we moved up North. And we had a morning "break" at the private school, too - only I distinctly remember that it was a Graham Cracker and water!

I also remember hiding in the basement of that private school - those were the days when we had drills to prepare for a nuclear bomb. The whole class took refuge in the basement and were told to face the wall. I was 4. For a long time, growing up, if I heard a plane buzzing overhead, I panicked and ran inside since I knew it was the Russians...

[ThoughtCriminal]

6. I worked in a school district for 10 years

And one thing that was appalling was the huge amount of administrative resources used to determine eligibility for free/reduced lunches. In addition, there was the cost and time collecting lunch money, hiring cashiers, accounting systems, equipment, collections and a score of other things that I'm forgetting here.

I was pretty sure (but do not have data to confirm) that the cost savings from eliminating all that extra paperwork and time would probably pay the cost of just providing free lunches to all the kids.

And while we're at it - let's throw in breakfast too.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

8. I suspect you are absolutely right.

Some years back I had a temp job at a local elementary school. I recall going into the cafeteria to eat, and some teachers commenting that they didn't think they should have to pay for their meals. This was a low income school that (I think) gave free or reduced cost lunches to all of the students, and breakfast to a lot. I realized they were right.

Even in reasonably well off families, the stresses of getting kids off to school and parents off to work in the morning, means breakfast is problematic. Not at all like my childhood in the 1950s and '60s. Public schools should absolutely give free lunch to all students (and probably the teachers) and free breakfast to all is not a bad idea. I have zero idea what this would cost, would add to the yearly school budget, but (speaking as someone without children in the local schools) I am happy to pay for it. I suspect my yearly taxes for this would be less than $100, but if it's more, so be it. I had the benefit of previous people who paid for my education, and I can help pay for the education of the next generation.