You can't cut something that almost doesn't exist. Compared to the average American meal, school lunches do not provide any filling value. I played sports year round at my high school and was hungry again by 3:00 but couldn't get more food till about 7:00. This is coming from a kid who weighed 135 pounds my entire senior year.

I love being RIGHT - I mean CORRECT.... :-)

This is the wrong time to serve gourmet meals to kids in school when all they can afford at home is peanut butter and jelly. . .

Actually, it IS probably the only good meal they get for the whole day....

My kid packs because it would cost us $40/month for school lunch every day, plus he is a picky eater. He gets to buy one day a week, an offering he likes. Next year I'll have two kids to pay for that once a week school lunch. We're not poor enough to qualify for reduced lunches but are too poor to pay for lunch every day. Now they're offering breakfast at school, as if we could afford that, too.

Von Fisch wrote "We're not poor enough to qualify for reduced lunches"

Should school budgets be part of basic welfare? The poor consume the most alcohol, cigarettes and other vices, including paying premiums on cashing paychecks. I can't say I blame them for dosing away their meager realities, but why should the rest of society subsidize these vices? School lunch subsidies have noble intentions but send the message to parents that even taking the time, effort and money to feed your kids isn't a parental responsibility. Don't even bother thinking about if your kids have been fed. Someone else will take care of that for you.

This isn't a matter of serving gourmet meals or taking over parental duties. This is a matter of educating children as to proper nutrition and giving them a good start in life by not putting junk food in their bellies. Yes, by all means, let's keep doing what we're doing and continue to fuel rampant obesity. We'll just pay for their diabetes and other obesity-related issues down the road. Not to mention that feeding them nutritious food might make them feel and study better and perhaps produce better test scores. This is a short sighted short-term saving strategy that will cost us big in the future.

I remember way back when I was in school. There was a line for the standard school "lunch," and then there was another line for the buffet. Standard lunches were terrible, and the buffet was the way to go. We would eat, and then be let loose on the black top playground for an hour to work off the food we ate. I needed that high fat high calorie diet in order to not be any skinnier than I was. The way to fight fat is by making kids get out and move around. The more we sit in front of our play stations and X boxes, the fatter we get. I'm sure it isn't the only problem we have, but putting down the controller, and going outside to play tag, or chase each other with water guns will likely cut down on some of that excess fat our kids have these days.

While the idea is laudable, the execution thereof will be impossible. Even if the cost involved was a non-issue, they are forgettting that an even larger portion of lunch will now find its way into the garbage pail. One year of my daughter going to a public school in a relatively nice neighborhood showed me that we are largely not dealing with families that eat healthy, balanced meals with milk and whole grains at home. Many were hamburger helper, mac'n'cheese, and fried fish nuggets families. Take this to poor neighborhood schools and the majority of the children see a five dollar tombstone pizza with a sugary carbonated drink on the dinner table if they are lucky. We all agree that children need healthy, balanced meals to grow to their optimal best. But the administration is forgetting that children who come from families that don't eat vegetables save for the occasional ear of corn (if that), won't happily eat a plate full of grains and dark green leafy vegetables at school. You can't expect to educate children about the benefits of eating healthy when the parents don't. For inner city families its often next to impossible to eat healthy as their little corner stores don't even carry healthy foods!

Let's say you convince little Brad from fifth grade that veggies and whole grains are good for him and yummy. He then comes home to his mother who just got done working two jobs and insists that he doesn't want hamburger helper today but should eat a balanced meal comprising of whole grains, leafy greens and a lean piece of chicken, followed by a delicious orange for desert. Little Brad will be lucky to go bed with a bowl of fruitloops.

14 cents a meal is a problem when $300 million for abortions is ok? I guess you have to write something don't you? If Congress would get a brain they wouldn't have such difficult decisions.

So why does increasing spending in US schools results in lower student performance? Schools should stick to education and leave the basics such as food, shelter, clothing and homework enforcement to parents.

" Is their anything as ignorant and selfish as a conservative?"

A poor parent that doesn't bother to turn off the TV , put away the booze, or put out the cigarette to pay attention to their children.

Vincent,

It's nice that you care about society's future so much.

Unfortunately, I don't think parents that don't feed their kids at home will all of a sudden start packing lunches if schools stopped a free/reduced lunch program. It is a sad fact. As a teacher, I do think that providing some basics is just part of the job and part of the educational system. I worked at an after-school center that focused primarily on under privileged children, and we fed them dinner, because some of their parents just don't care. I think if schools stopped serving breakfast and lunches and if places like the after-school program did not exist, we would have a starvation crisis on our hands.

I actually like this idea, unfortunately, where I live we have snow from October till April. But it could certainly be implemented in the southern states. All I know is this proposal by the politicians is a joke. 7 billion dollars over 5 years is not a huge amount of money compared to what our government spends on other trivial things. Over the same 5 years, we will spend almost 500 million dollars paying the salaries of the 535 members of both houses of congress to come up with these crazy laws.

Great idea. . . .

From your mouth (or fingers) to the School Boards ears !

L Goodman,

I think that's a great idea. If students couldn't participate due to summer break, maybe 4-H programs or Boy and Girl Scouts could, as fundraisers. The school could pay below-market prices for the produce, thereby saving the schools money, while raising money for worthy organizations.

I don't remember my lunches in school being so healthy, as in whole grain and no preservatives. I'm sure it's been that same way for decades, but it was always a balanced meal. Most kids, including me, always threw out the vegetables. No one was there to make us eat them.

But obesity was rare. I think a lot of the problem is kids' lack of activity. Parents are too afraid to let their kids play outside or ride their bike down the street or even walk to school because of Mr. Child Predator. Kids are doing sedentary activities: computer, video games, TV, not to mention homework, which sometimes can take up an entire afternoon.

Think about what we ate back then, heck most kids were eating white bread and drinking Kool-aid, (my mother being one of the few that gave us wheat). But we weren't overweight. We were too busy running around to be overweight.

I agree about the lack of activity. But the diet wasn't so great, even though obesity was less common. I remember reading, can't remember where, that autopsies done on soldiers in Viet Nam showed signs of athersclerosis, even among 19-year-olds. They weren't fat, but they were already heading for heart problems.

Von Fisch wrote " Parents are too afraid to let their kids play outside or ride their bike down the street or even walk to school because of Mr. Child Predator. "

Mr Child Predator is *in* the Internet. They couldn't find him in the 1960-1990's. Now, they're sure he or she is in a chat room or on facebook.

The ranks of elementary school teachers are predominately female, andt hey prefer the compliance of female students. Proper physical exercise is adjusted for the female students, but it is inadequate for male students. Gone are competitive physical fitness tests and, in many states, dodgeball. This evil game has been banned because it favors the nature of boys.

So, what happened to recess and gym class? Even in my time, elective weightlifting classes involved all of the boys lifting weights, and all of the girls standing around chatting with many empty machine and plate slots. How did the girls get a passing grade for no effort?

Trust Vincent to turn a discussion about school lunches into a "Oh, pity the poor boys" rant.

Sorry Sandy, but its true. Gym classes now a days are nothing like they should be. Football is touch, dodgeball has no head shots and we used foam balls that wouldn't even fly. There was no weight lifting, no long distance running (a mile isn't that far).

My kid's elementary school has a garden, and it's good as a teaching tool, but to be able to use it as a source of meals for the 1500 students that eat breakfast and lunch everyday would be cost prohibitive. I can't see how the size of "garden" (more like a farm) they would need and the amount of water they would use would help. Even with things like water barrels to collect rain water, there is still a big water expense to farming. Not to mention that we are in a drought right now (7" below for the year).

I love the idea of teaching gardens in schools, but I don't think it's practical.

I agree gym classes aren't what they should be, but I don't think they ever really were. What I don't see is discrimination against male students - and certainly when I was in school, athletic facilities were much better for male athletes than for females. Only in the last few years have I seen newspaper coverage for softball equal that for baseball. Boys and girls who didn't dress out for gym failed equally when I was in school.

Football should be touch for gym class - there isn't time to teach proper tackling technique, and even football players trained in tackling and taking hits are injured, sometimes severely. Just as in gymnastics, noone should expect to learn in a 50-minute period how to do backflips and perform on the balance beam - true gymnasts have much more time to perfect those skills, and still get hurt. Do tackles and head shots in dodge ball mean more calories are burned? No.

mom2jank,

I doubt elementary schoolers could do the work, but high schoolers could. The school wouldn't have to own the property for the garden. It could belong to the parents of some of the participating students, and need not be all in the same place, either. It would be difficult or impossible to do this in urban areas, but many rural areas could pull it off. 4-H groups and high school vo-ag students often do agricultural work through the summer, some for school credit, and this would be a great learning experience for them.

Our county has a volunteer farm that feeds a lot of indigent people and provides produce for the local abused women and children's shelter. It is planted, cultivated, and harvested entirely by volunteers, many of them teenagers, and is planted on land owned by the county. Local farmers volunteer to use their equipment when needed, if a piece of equipment is needed that the county doesn't have.

The schools could offset the costs of irrigation, if it is needed. They still would be getting produce for less than market price, because they wouldn't be paying for labor, or at least not as much as they currently are.

I don't think it would work everywhere, but in the areas where it could, I still think it would be a good idea. Even if they couldn't provide all of the produce needed for healthy meals, it would be a step in the right direction.

Jo wrote "My God people, sometimes you have to find the money. "

Is it easier to tax the parent than to ask them to bag a lunch? Do no students of today bring a lunch box to school?

Jo- I think that you would be surprised at how much it actually costs to feed them healthy foods. Think about the last time you were in the supermarket. How much did it cost for a frozen pizza(serves 4) versus the ingredients to a healthy meal? There is a large cost difference(in the billions of dollar range).

Vincent, do parents actually put healthy things in a box lunch though. Usually it involves a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, a fruit roll-up, some chocolate pudding and a pop.

Schools are failing in their primary mission of educating the young, so why should we tack on MORE responsibilities to an institution that is demonstrating its own incompetence on a daily basis?

Our government is getting entirely TOO involved in things it has NO business to decide. Parents are the ones responsible for ensuring their child is adequately fed, NOT the school or some overpaid bureaucrats in some distant city.

Schools are not up to standards, but the standards that the federal government set are ridiculous. They only want kids to learn reading and math, there are other subjects worth learning (science anybody?). Back on topic, while a kid is at school, the school has the responsibility of loco parentis, Latin for "in the place of a parent" or "instead of a parent;" which means that the school acts as and is responsible for making parental decisions while the child is at school. This includes the physical activity and nutrition needs. Some might say that the school shouldn't have this responsibility, and I would agree with many of these points, but that's an entirely different topic.

Nonsense. Great school lunches do nothing to deter average Joe and Jane from pounding a pint of Ben & Jerry's every night.

Vincent, have you even eaten a school lunch recently? Did you know that under old rules (as in previous to this new set you seem to hate so much) french fries were considered a vegetable (and more than 1 cup of vegetables are required to be a reimbursable meal) and pizza is an adequate breakfast food?

Would it be nicer if parents sent their kids to school with healthy, organic sack lunches? Yes!

Do you really think a mom who is below the poverty line can afford that? Do you want to blame the child for whatever sins you believe his/her parents committed to make them (gasp!) poor? I don't think you really do. Especially since this rule is rather toothless in the first place, most likely these kids will still have french fries and pizza available to them, via government handout, more than three times a week.

Talk about welfare fraud all you want but school lunches are a viable way to ease the suffering of poor children and if you want those kids to outperform their Chinese counterparts, you need to feed them well enough to learn.

Perhaps, and I would say most of those kids who actually rely on a school lunch as their main meal of the day are on free or reduced lunches.

There are quite a few low income kids whose only substantial meals of the day are the light breakfast and OK lunch they get at school.

That said, there were kids at my grandson's school who were middle or upper-middle class kids who were in the same situation. Their parents just didn't bother to feed them at home. Talking to these kids about what their parents fed them at home just made my heart ache.

what is wrong with this country are a bunch of people that think it is the GOVERNMENTS responsibility to raise their kids.

Provide healthy food, thats a great idea. Just CHARGE the kids for it. Stop putting the responsibility of nourishing these kids on the backs of everyone else.

Reading comprehension! Free/reduced meals were not even mentioned in the article...and not everyone gets that.

I pay taxes...but where do they go? Not to serve healthy meals to my school age children-even though I pay for the meals as well. Instead, they take that taxpayer money that could be used to make this country a better place for my kids and they WASTE IT. Then they have the audacity to call healthy meals a "luxury"?

No...fancy military toys are a luxury...a healthy, well-balanced meal is a necessity.

Actually, if the government is going to forced to take on the role of paying for a childs food, then clearly it is time to do away with the child tax credit.

What is the point of giving people a tax break for having a child if the other taxpayers are paying for the child to eat.

" that you feel justified upgrading to a 50 inch big screen television, while there are young children in this country without healthy, nutritious meals?"

Are you talking about the drinking, cigarettes, cell phones, cable TV, etc. that are put before basics? With other people's taxes provided food for the children of the poor, why should these parents bother with any parental responsiblities? Free school food programs are a strong message to parents that essentials are not the responsibility of the parent.

Vincent-

Free school lunches are a message to the students that regardless of the choices that their parents made, they still have access to food and can outgrow the circumstances they were born in.

Its no more morally offensive than someone having a child then forcing the rest of society to pay for their upbringing. The rest of society didn't make the decision to have that child, the parents did. Either directly or indirectly through their choices and actions.

Bring on healthy food choices, but the bill needs to be sent home to the parents to pay for it. Stop piling on the taxpayers to pay for every bad decisions by others.

Right, because that will solve the problem. The problem isn't just with the students, it's with the parents.

Well, you can thank the No Child Left Behind initiative for that one. Cut everything out that doesn't relate to what is on the annual tests, including P.E. They're lucky to even get a lunch period.

Larry- I think that the Left wants balanced lunches offered at all schools. Schools cannot afford to do this without funding from the government(both state, local, and federal). The funding for this would be in the single digit billions of dollars. That number is a drop in the bucket compared to the trillions of dollars that we are in debt.

zieg - This very well may be a good program, what needs to be done now is to decide just what programs do get cut. Someone is going to have to take the hit. Every program has its constituency to defend its share of the pie, however the reality is that we simply do not have the money to just continue increasing the amounts we dole out every year.

"If everyone would just be satisfied with retrenching to the budget figures of say 2005, and then initiate budgetary controls that would kick in to maintain a reasonable fixed % of spending to our total GNP we probably would be able to grow ourselves out of debt.

However I have yet to see a liberal, and some Republicans who can resist increasing a programs budget every year by rote regardless of merit. Perhaps, and this is only a perhaps, this year will be different.

Is there a statesman out there who has what it takes to get this great nation on the right track ?

Ron Paul is the man to do it at the Federal Level. He's been explaining for decades that this endless spending is not only unsustainable, but Un-Constitutional. If we had leaders following the Constitution then the Government wouldn't be involved and people would be forced to solve these problems for themselves and as a community.