April 7, 2008
Brand New High School Calamity: Certain Students Are Being Made Objects of Scorn!
Is this for real, or one of those ridiculous made-uppy New-York-Times-imagined-it problems? Apparently, the times reported a month ago that in SF, there are some low-income students who would rather starve than accept government-subsidized food. And now, at last, the SF Schools Blog offers a loooooong rebuttal with loads of context. Here's the gist: yeah, it's a problem, it's a problem everywhere, but we already knew about it and we're trying solve it. (The solution: switch to a debit-card system that makes method-of-payment less obvious. Cost to taxpayers: $1 million, though it'll allegedy "pay for itself.")
But wait. Seriously? Kids are STARVING themselves? We think this is probably more of a failure of the students' judgment than of school policy -- hey, teenagers make lots of bad decisions, and you can't always correct them. "I can't live your lives for you," our school counselor used to say, throwing up her hands in exasperation when she saw our latest piercing. If those low-income kids are such staunch conservatives that they lose their appetite at the thought of accepting a taxpayer handout, well, it's their funeral.
And also: debit cards? That's your solution? Don't you think the bullies will notice who's eating caviar and who's eating government cheese? And even if you made everyone eat exactly the same meal for lunch, don't you think they'd still find a way to figure out who the poor ones are? (Hint: look for sandals stamped with "Pick'n'Save.") Wouldn't it be a bit more useful to buy a bunch of new textbooks or clarinets or give some awesome teachers a raise?
Discuss.
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i know that i would take my packed lunch out of the wal mart plastic bag my mom packed it in before i got to school. and i wouldn't even consider using the lunch tickets that were specifically for us poor kids. hey, i was awkward enough without being picked on for being poor.
Pretty important to make sure kids eat. Two thumbs up for the new proposal.
Now that Charlton Heston is dead, it's good that others are stepping up to keep an eye on the school food supply.
The kicker with that story is the guy claiming credit for discovering the problem -- last year.
You can lead a horse to water...
If the debit cards make it less obvious who is getting free lunches, then I'm all for it, regardless of the cost. Kids are f**king mean, and love to pick on the financially disadvantaged kids. Anything that alleviates those kids' trouble is a-okay with me.
Well, yes, alleviating trouble is nice. But really? You think a million dollars' worth of suffering is going to be alleviated here?
I have to think that with a million dollars put into educational programs, we might be able to give them opportunities to make more money, instead of establishing an elaborate electronic pretend-I'm-not-poor game.
In the days before subsidized lunches, kids who paid for their lunch at school were considered the rich kids. My dad still feels scorn at those that don't bring their lunch with them.
That is a good point. I don't think I ever purchased a lunch in high school -- not ever, not even once. And we didn't even have debit cards!
In high school I either brought my lunch or ate off campus. In fact, senior year, my French teacher got so pissed off at those of who brought crazy bread from Little Caeser's back from lunch, she referred the entire class to the office. Nuns...
The real issue here is the kind of values SF parents are teaching their kids. Kids get the idea that poor people are human garbage from a multitude of sources (e.g., TV, glossy mags, Paris Hilton, etc.) However, ultimately it's up to parents to sit their whelps down and say, "Poor people are just like you and me only with less money and dimmer prospects. Why, when I was your age, some of my best friends were poor and they were as clean as can be. Instead of mocking the poor, you should be spending more time volunteering with the Junior League and helping these unfortunate, downtrodden creatures."
This tragedy is just more proof that SF's vaunted progressivism is a whole lolla hooey and as a city we're basically three times as shallow and materialistic as places like Wichita or Peoria could ever hope to be.
I'm teaching at a school that uses the "debit card" system, although their number is just their student ID. It's SO important, because kids eating lunch reduces behavioral problems, helps them to focus and do better, which is what we want anyways right? We actually also have breakfast for EVERY kid each morning during first period, which helps a lot too. It's worth it, every penny.
Now, we still don't see all of our kids eating all the time. Our food is decent, but anything you make in massive quantities that isn't gourmet will not be, well, gourmet. Some kids don't want to wait in line, or want to get in to that basketball game. So that's another challenge, but we at least have drastically reduced the identification of the "poor kids".
if school was about education, this wouldn't be a problem...
You know, I remember "poor" would occasionally get tossed around as an insult at school, but it was usually for more material issues (having the right brand of clothes and school supplies) than school lunches. People did make comments about the quality of the cafeteria food (especially when they decided milk was best delivered in the form of a breast implant) but I don't ever remember anyone (myself included) getting singled out for getting free lunch.
I went to Lawton for elementary/middle school, and Lowell for high school, so maybe the heavy Asian population was a factor? I dunno.
I'm sure it does happen, though, even if the NYT article is rather Chicken Little about the whole thing.
Whoa, there's 2 separate lines for those who pay and those who don't?! Of course they're going to be "not hungry," WTH?
When I went to school in the good old LAUSD there was some stigma attached with the free lunches, but it was the same line for everybody, and you had the option of buying booklets of tickets so it wasn't totally obvious who got them for free anyway. Personally, I could have gotten the free lunch easily but never considered it because it was crap (save for the tater tots, I'd eat those if someone didn't want them).
Anyway, it might cost $1 million for the initial set up, but once that's in place it wouldn't cost much for maintenance so I'm all for it - and get rid of the dual lines already, sheesh...
Kids...
if you can't feed 'em...
...don't have 'em.
Oh, and there weren't seperate menus either, everyone got the same crap.
maybe i went to a rare public school, but i was one of the "non" poor students in both elementary and middle school public schools in this city and i was usually the one who was picked on for anything under the sun, including the fact that i wasn't eating what everyone else was-the government funded lunches. where are these public schools where the majority of students arent eating school lunches? definitely not mine.
im with mattymatt and the angry young man. there are so many better ways to alleviate the economic discrepancies in this city. i would much rather see 1 million go to opening another after school program, or a boys and girls club, or a MILLION other things that could help!
1) If more kids took the free/reduced lunch, SFUSD would be getting more money from the feds. As it is, the district loses a ton of money from wasted food.
2) A lot of kids would rather not eat if they can't have their junk food.
3) Hungry kids = less learning. I used to be shocked at how many kids would complain of being hungry the period after lunch. I've never polled 'em but based on talking with my students, I'd say conservatively 50% don't eat lunch.
4) There are a lot more kids hungry because their families really ARE that poor in San Francisco than you may think. For a number of kids, the free breakfast and lunch they get at school truly are the only meals they can count on.
carney: "if school was about education, this wouldn't be a problem..."
enough said.
"I have to think that with a million dollars put into educational programs, we might be able to give them opportunities to make more money, instead of establishing an elaborate electronic pretend-I'm-not-poor game."
Yes, if a million would accomplish that. It wouldn't. The million for the debit card is a one-time set-up fee. You can't fund educational programs/after-school programs across the city for years on end with a million bucks.
It'd be nice if you could. It also would be nice if I had x-ray vision and the ability to fly.