Universal school meals for every child regardless of income help kids and schools succeed. A hungry child is a cranky, distracted, disruptive child. Hunger not only makes it harder for kids to learn, it makes it harder for teachers to teach.
Universal school meals take shame out of the equation. No kid should have to choose between going hungry or racking up debt their family can’t afford. And no kid should ever face the cruel practice of lunch-shaming where they are singled out in front of their classmates.
"At my school, you had to line up at morning break on a Monday to pay for the week's lunches. There were two lines — one for paying cash/check, and one for registering for free school lunches — so everyone knew whose families were struggling."
“I was in the third grade and I didn’t understand that you could be in debt, so I went to go get my lunch and the lady told me ‘you can’t have that,’ so she gave me a cheese sandwich and my friends began teasing me and I started crying,” said Ciel, an 18-year-old from El Paso, Texas, whose last name has been withheld for privacy reasons. “It’s so obvious when you are in lunch debt because they give you the ‘other’ meal. It was a horrifying experience as a 9-year-old that made me afraid to get lunch from school.” Prism Reports
Universal school meals eliminate the need for a payment system in the cafeteria. They save the crazy amounts of paperwork that means-tested programs require, a burden for both school administrators and parents. No more time spent collecting debt from stressed-out, cash-strapped parents.
Universal school meals support parents. It’s not just the benefit of extra food. Meals at school mean make the morning rush to get kids out the door far less hectic, one more thing that parents don’t have to think about.
Universal school meals can be delicious, nutritious, and fun if we give them the attention and resources they deserve. Make mealtime a central, joyous part of school life for all students.
Ensuring that no child goes hungry reflects our commitment to each other and to the common good. It’s an expression of the care we show for the most vulnerable among us.
Students from low-income families across the country are accruing school lunch debt in record numbers. Federal data shows that participation in school lunch programs dropped by 23% after pandemic-era free lunch programs ended. A recent survey by the School Nutrition Association found that students across the country are burdened with more than $19 million in school lunch debt.
People have been fighting to keep hunger out of public schools and pushing back against lunch-shaming collection policies at a local level for decades now. Governor Tim Walz, who knows a thing or two about what it takes to run a public school, passed a law providing breakfast and lunch for all students in Minnesota.
Other states have moved in the same direction.
There is no better time to restore a nationwide program making school meals a regular part of every kid’s education. Let’s put compassion at the top of the school lunch menu.
Careful readers may have noticed that I am not using the words "free school lunch" because every economist knows that there's no such thing as a free lunch. Except that there is. MVP Kamala Harris got right to the point when a reporter asked how she would pay for her economic programs: taking care of children is an investment in our collective future.
A healthier, better educated workforce is a more productive workforce. Increases in productivity mean that the same goods can be produced with less labor and raw materials: the pie gets bigger so we can have a free lunch. Or at least a free dessert. And fewer hungry children.
