Free Meals for all Detroit Schoolchildren in Fall
Tuesday, 16 Aug 2011
DETROIT – All Detroit Public Schools students from kindergarten through 12th grade will get free breakfast, lunch and snacks starting this fall under a federal pilot program, the district announced Tuesday.
Of course, the meaning of the word ‘free’ has changed over the years. Now ‘free’ just means that somebody else is paying for it.
By the way, as we have noted before, this "federal pilot program’ is a payoff to the SEIU, whose ‘food service workers’ staff and administer these cafeterias. These are the same people who now have schools feeding kids dinner and also during the summer months when school is closed.
That amounts to a lot of money for the members of the SEIU. A cut of which will find its way back to the DNC’s coffers, via union dues.
Michigan’s largest public school district said the program’s goal is to "ensure all children receive healthy meals, regardless of income."
Most Detroit schoolchildren also meet income rules for free lunches.
Michigan, Illinois and Kentucky will participate in the U.S. Department of Agriculture pilot program during the upcoming school year. Districts in Michigan can participate if at least 40 percent of their students are entitled to public assistance.
Apparently, this means that any school where 40% or more of the kids get ‘free’ meals, all of the kids will get ‘free’ meals. Isn’t that great? And isn’t it wonderful that money grows on trees?
"One of the primary goals of this program is to eliminate the stigma that students feel when they get a free lunch, as opposed to paying cash," said Mark Schrupp, the district’s chief operating officer. "Some students would skip important meals to avoid being identified as low-income. Now, all students will walk through a lunch line and not have to pay. Low-income students will not be easily identifiable and will be less likely to skip meals."
We believe this might have been the case in some parts of the country, once upon a time. But not now, and not in places like Detroit, where even this article notes that the kids getting free meals are already in the majority.
Besides, if the idea is to prevent the poor from being stigmatized, why do it in areas where those kids make up a near majority or more of the population? They seem to have things exactly backwards.
The district said it still encourages parents to fill out family income surveys because funding for tutoring, after-school programs, extra teachers’ aids, classroom technology and other services are still linked to income.
Of course they do. The district wants to keep the gravy train from the federal, state, county and city going.
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