Today I Learned

And it's entirely preventable. We can afford to feed every single student every single day. It doesn't have to be a brown bag, sad little whitebread and cheese slice sandwich. It can be the same food everyone else eats. In fact, we spend more administering a for-profit food service payment system than we spend on the food. It would be cheaper to just give it away to everyone.

We know this because we did it during COVID. All of the schools closed, and the for-profit food providers were going to lose a lot of money. Sysco and Aramark and US Foods and Sodexo are all big donors to both parties, so we had to bail them out by buying the food. There wasn't a debate in congress, there wasn't any tax increase or funding shortfall. The money was just there because they wanted it.

Schools had more food than they knew what to do with. Food banks and public pantries were fully stocked, and school districts were begging parents to come take home some breakfasts and lunches.

It could really just be like that. No registers, no accounting, no shaming poor kids, no threatening demand letters, no lunch cards, no websites. Just feed children, because hungry children don't learn.

Why do people keep asking if we're okay? No, we are clearly not completely fine. We're neck-deep in an information war and who will be the ultimate victor is very much undecided.

Frankly, we probably would've activated NATO's Article 5 provision by now, except what good would it do when all of our allies are already under the same sort of attack?

Seriously though, people do not call for civil war in countries that are doing completely fine. That is not a sign of robust civic health.

From Texas. When I was in elementary school circa 2000, we had a running balance that our parents could contribute to via written checks.

My parents were going through a divorce back then, and in the pinging back and forth between my parents houses, it always gave me so much anxiety buying lunch at school. You wouldn't know if your account could cover what you picked up in the lunch line until you got to the cashier at the end. AND if it couldn't, they would literally take all of the food you put on your tray and give you a PB&J sandwich.

Having elementary school kids keep up with their balances was tough, and even when I did remember, if I were with my dad, he would refuse to give lunch money to my sister and me because "that's what child support is for."

It just sucked all around and made me feel like the smallest human on earth. And I know that this experience here was not unique to me.

Not only are we not OK, we need your help. Please issue sanctions until we stop funding genocides and torturing folks

No. We are not ok. About half of us have centered their lives around fuck you I got mine and let’s be cruel to everyone else.

In California, school lunch is paid by the state. It's awesome and solves this problem. All the kids get the same lunch for free. Some kids still bring their lunch, but it's rare.

america are you ok?

So you watched John Oliver last night?

Red states are not okay, because all they have left in their value system is cruelty toward people they see as not "pulling their weight," as if we still live in some resource-scarce era of yore where if you don't work, you don't eat (and even if you do work, eating is not guaranteed, better work harder!).

Blue states are increasingly providing lunches, and sometimes even breakfast, for all students free of charge. It used to be income-based (you'd get free or half-priced lunch based on your family's income), but even that system is getting ditched because of the associated stigma and the problem of some needy students falling between the cracks.

There are some states that feed kids as a matter of routine state budgeting. Those kids get a lunch paid for by taxpayers. A damn fine investment of tax dollars, if you ask me.

No. We are not OK. Thanks for asking.

I do remember lunch shaming happening to others in school. Kids are mean and don’t really understand class struggle.

It's OK, we're dealing with this by repealing our child labor laws, so kids can work at the meat processing plant instead of some immigrant. Two birds, one stone.

No we're not OK

I remember in grade school my district had a system where everyone who bought anything at the cafeteria went through an internal "type in your ID to the pin pad" system. Internally, the computer would decide whether the student was charged against their account or if it did a discount/free. This was how they dealt with that.

No. Not even close to OK. There are examples of light in the darkness, such as Tim Walz (Kamala Harris' running mate) who as the governor of Minnesota enacted a law to make school lunches free for all. Kids don't get to decide who they are born to, and hungry kids don't learn nearly as well as fed kids. Educated kids help our future, so it's an extremely high ROI.

Does it look like we're ok?

Ffs America. You can just provide a service, not everything has to turn a profit.

When has America ever been okay? It went from land of the free while enslaving people and restricting voting ability, to then freeing slaves but continuing to oppress entire groups to minimize their allowable impact on society, until they it became oppress people financially every way possible.

I pay thousands per year in school taxes and the vast majority goes to school administrators making 6 figures. We can't just toss more money at schools to fix this - we need legislation stating how the money is used. The money needs to go to the kids and teachers instead of clueless rich people.

The elementary school I taught at offered free lunches to all students. Still, parents who packed food for their kids would give them Flamin' Hot Cheetos and Takis and a huge can of Arizona Ice Tea daily. These students looked down on hot lunch kids. I remember seeing a student that had a lunchable everyday, but clearly their parent got it from a 7/11 or something because there was a price tag on it and it was for $5. There were also parents that dropped of fast food EVERY SINGLE DAY to their student. These were low income families too.

When lunch food is a status symbol, the system has failed you.

Americans getting pissed off at Europeans constantly making fun of them... And yet I'm still learning more ridiculous bullshit about that country.

Jesus christ, what a sad joke.

We are so not okay.

As a Canadian, I'm like:

You guys are getting food?

(School cafeterias with food service beyond selling terrible premade sandwiches for people who forgot their lunch are rare below college level and AFAIK what few exist all operate like a fast-food restaurant, where everyone pays for their meal then and there.)

Wait wait wait, waaaaaaait a fucking minute, this is done by the school itself, as in the bloody adults running the goddamn thing?

Holy hell