Not Just The Poorest Of The Poor Neighborhoods
Newt Gingrich raised howls of protest for his comments on putting kids from poor neighborhoods to work cleaning their schools (see my post here). I wonder what he'll have to say with about the news contained in this article coming from the Midwest.
More Minnesota students are signing on for free or reduced-price meals, as middle-class families coping with cutbacks and foreclosures are becoming first-time users of the subsidized National School Lunch Program.
Reflecting a surge seen nationally, nearly 33,000 Minnesota kids have joined the program in the past two years. Nationwide, student poverty rose from 59.3 percent in 2007 to 65.3 percent in 2010.
"Middle-class families who never thought they'd be dealing with this kind of hardship and poverty are now having to face it," said University of Minnesota economics Prof. Ben Senauer, who's researched several metro-area school districts' school lunch data. "This is the new face of poverty." [Emphasis added]
It isn't just the "poorest of the poor" urban areas that need help. Job losses have affected the suburbs and even the fancy exurbs. People who never dreamed they'd have trouble feeding their families are now signing up for the lunch program so that their children get at least one meal a day during the week. Some schools, on their own initiative, also provide backpacks to the kids on Fridays so that they get some nutrition over the weekend.
"This is the new face of poverty."
Indeed.
More Minnesota students are signing on for free or reduced-price meals, as middle-class families coping with cutbacks and foreclosures are becoming first-time users of the subsidized National School Lunch Program.
Reflecting a surge seen nationally, nearly 33,000 Minnesota kids have joined the program in the past two years. Nationwide, student poverty rose from 59.3 percent in 2007 to 65.3 percent in 2010.
"Middle-class families who never thought they'd be dealing with this kind of hardship and poverty are now having to face it," said University of Minnesota economics Prof. Ben Senauer, who's researched several metro-area school districts' school lunch data. "This is the new face of poverty." [Emphasis added]
It isn't just the "poorest of the poor" urban areas that need help. Job losses have affected the suburbs and even the fancy exurbs. People who never dreamed they'd have trouble feeding their families are now signing up for the lunch program so that their children get at least one meal a day during the week. Some schools, on their own initiative, also provide backpacks to the kids on Fridays so that they get some nutrition over the weekend.
"This is the new face of poverty."
Indeed.
Labels: Child Welfare, Poverty
posted by Diane at 3:27 AM
3 Comments:
What will Newt say?
"This is great news! We'll have the cleanest schools in the world!"
Newt won't say anything because the Right ignores anything that isn't in their version of reality.
Even when it smacks them between the eyes, they reinterpret it to fit their belief system.
It's like The Myst in the Percy Jackson books that hides the reality of the Gods and demigods from the mundane world. Only in this case, it hides the real world from the deluded...
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