Poor Line Up
Today's NY Times has a rather stunning article about Balboa High School in San Francisco. Apparently Balboa, like many schools across the country, has separate lines, even a separate room, for those students who qualify for free or federally subsidized lunches. The poor get their food from one line, the more fortunate from another. As a result, rather than look uncool, a lot of the poor kids choose to go hungry.
San Francisco school officials are looking at ways to encourage more poor students to accept government-financed meals, including the possibility of introducing cashless cafeterias where all students are offered the same food choices and use debit cards or punch in codes on a keypad so that all students check out at the cashier in the same manner.
Only 37 percent of eligible high school students citywide take advantage of the subsidized meal program. But the stigma of accepting a government lunch, while others are paying for food from a different menu, is not unique to San Francisco. It is a problem many school districts across the country have been quietly confronting with mixed results, education and school nutrition officials said. [Emphasis added]
It isn't hard to figure out why there is such a low participation in what is at root a wonderful program. The physical set-up of the programs puts a spotlight on the poorer kids. The effect is akin to forcing them to wear signs announcing their economic status. The solution is not having special guests (sports figures, for example) show up to eat in the free lunch line, it's to merge the two lines as suggested in the article so the poor are not segregated from the more affluent. So, why don't schools do that?
Well, it costs too much to change the set-up and to wire the cafeterias to accept electronic "payment." In California, which currently has another huge deficit, Governor Schwartzenegger has decided to give less money to schools rather than to raise taxes on anyone, especially the affluent. As a result, school districts are once again faced with having to make tough choices, like whether to rewire the cafeteria or to purchase updated textbooks.
And the kids? Well, they have to choose as well, although at that stage in their psycho-social development, it's not hard to understand why so many choose to go hungry.
There's something dreadfully wrong with this picture, but I guess people like Arnold Schwartzenegger either don't see it, or don't care.
Either/or, it's shameful.
San Francisco school officials are looking at ways to encourage more poor students to accept government-financed meals, including the possibility of introducing cashless cafeterias where all students are offered the same food choices and use debit cards or punch in codes on a keypad so that all students check out at the cashier in the same manner.
Only 37 percent of eligible high school students citywide take advantage of the subsidized meal program. But the stigma of accepting a government lunch, while others are paying for food from a different menu, is not unique to San Francisco. It is a problem many school districts across the country have been quietly confronting with mixed results, education and school nutrition officials said. [Emphasis added]
It isn't hard to figure out why there is such a low participation in what is at root a wonderful program. The physical set-up of the programs puts a spotlight on the poorer kids. The effect is akin to forcing them to wear signs announcing their economic status. The solution is not having special guests (sports figures, for example) show up to eat in the free lunch line, it's to merge the two lines as suggested in the article so the poor are not segregated from the more affluent. So, why don't schools do that?
Well, it costs too much to change the set-up and to wire the cafeterias to accept electronic "payment." In California, which currently has another huge deficit, Governor Schwartzenegger has decided to give less money to schools rather than to raise taxes on anyone, especially the affluent. As a result, school districts are once again faced with having to make tough choices, like whether to rewire the cafeteria or to purchase updated textbooks.
And the kids? Well, they have to choose as well, although at that stage in their psycho-social development, it's not hard to understand why so many choose to go hungry.
There's something dreadfully wrong with this picture, but I guess people like Arnold Schwartzenegger either don't see it, or don't care.
Either/or, it's shameful.
Labels: California
posted by Diane at 4:08 AM
3 Comments:
At my daughter's school in rural Indiana, they use a meal card system. If this backwards burg can make sure poorer students are not shamed, why can't progressive SF do the same?
G in INdiana
in NYC it's simply free for everyone. Of course it's gross lunch food. I was not poor in high school and still didn't eat school lunch.
teens will find way to divide along groups. it's what they do. Somehow the hatefulness of other groups needs to be reeducated when young. Then it won't matter so much if in poor line or not. There is no way I've ever seen to keep teens from putting in a pecking order. The question is how damaging does that pecking order have to be. Can you switch mind frame to caring for those who have less instead of picking on them, etc.
People will never actually be egalitarian. Judgement is too entwined with survival.
Here in Wisconsin, it's not uncommon for the kids of the teachers to qualify for free lunches. Our schools use a number system so the kids can't discriminate.
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