Correction: An earlier edition of this report incorrectly stated the source of income grades for students’ families eligible for loose school meals.
WASHINGTON — Every child in a U. S. public school is in a U. S. public schoolU. S. citizens were entitled to free school meals during the COVID-19 pandemic, regardless of family income, thanks to the federal government.
Although this is now over, a developing number of states across the country are adopting universal school meal legislation for children’s food security and educational equity. With little prospect of congressional action in the near future, state movements show an appetite for loose school meals. for all who expand beyond Washington.
Nine states have followed a transient or permanent universal food policy in the past year. Another 23 have seen the law introduced in the last 3 years, according to recent data from the Center for Food Research and Action.
“As a former teacher, I know that offering loose breakfast and lunch to our students is one of the most productive investments we can make to reduce costs, Minnesota leads families and cares for our young students and the long term of our state. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, said at the signing of his state’s universal school meals bill on March 17.
“When we feed our children, we feed our future,” New Mexico Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said as she signed her state’s policy into law March 28.
The National School Lunch Program and School Breakfast Program authorize the Department of Agriculture to subsidize food for low-income students. Schools are reimbursed for foods that meet federal nutrition criteria and incorporate foods grown in the U. S. U. S.
The systems accounted for $18 billion in annual spending in 2019, serving approximately 30 million students for lunch and $16 million for breakfast.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the federal government followed a policy ensuring access to school meals for all public school students, which teachers and families said supported children’s well-being during the fitness crisis.
However, the program ended in 2022, given objections to its estimated annual value of about $29 billion and conservative members of Congress’ preference to “get back to normal. “
“Some elements of this program are severely damaged,” said Jonathan Butcher, Will Skillman senior research fellow in school policy at the Conservative Heritage Foundation. “You don’t solve anything by making it a universal program. “
Policy experts say that despite growing interest in some states, the federal law on universal school meals would not be a start for the existing Congress, where most Republicans in the House intend to cut federal spending.
Republican-led states are also less willing to move forward, with state spending stuck in committee or bypassing small margins. two years in Minnesota.
Of the nine states that have followed universal school meals, all have Democratic majorities in the chambers of state legislatures and in the governor’s office.
The latest law brought to the federal level the Universal School Meals Program Act of 2021, sponsored by Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn. , and Vermont independent Sen. Bernie Sanders. The bill failed to get out of the Senate Agriculture Committee. , Nutrition and Forestry.
TRUSTED SUPPORT NEWS.
“In fact, I don’t have a lot of hope with Republican control of the House that they’re going to do much, in terms of units,” said Marcus Weaver-Hightower, a professor of educational fundamentals at Virginia Tech.
Still, there is optimism about long-term universal school meals at the federal level, following the pandemic trial.
“The resistance is not as strong as it seems,” said Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich. , an advocate for universal school meals. urgently, talking about it more and more. “
As communities were shut down in March 2020 with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the economy endured mass layoffs, the Ministry of Agriculture allowed the provision of loose meal exemptions for all academics and increased the reimbursement rate according to food.
The program has grown to help approximately 50 million students overcome the fitness crisis. Families with food-insecure children shrank by 2. 3 percent between 2020 and 2021, according to the USDA.
“It’s kind of an herbal experiment,” Weaver-Hightower said. “All of a sudden, everyone gets them for free. “
Jeanne Reilly, director of school nutrition at Windham Raymond Schools in Maine, recalled that when schools were closed, school nutrition groups were creative. Lunch would meet with parents in the parking lots to distribute meals.
However, as vaccines proliferated in late 2021 and students returned to school, the federal universal meal program faced turbulence.
Conservative members of Congress, plus Kentucky Republican Sens. Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul, refused to expand universal food policy as part of the overall spending bill passed in March 2022.
The bipartisan Keep Kids Fed Act of 2022 passed by Congress in June 2022 allowed some states to expand their loose meal systems and more budget for budget readjustment. However, school nutritionists say the effects of falling exemptions persist.
Cohen said experts are now beginning to hear about paying off school meal debt, which may force schools to forgo school expenses by paying the USDA for meal expenses. A recent survey through the School Nutrition Association found that 847 school districts racked up more than $19 million in debt due to unpaid lunches.
School participation in feeding systems also dropped to 88 in fall 2022, down from 94 in March 2022, according to a study by the Ministry of Education.
Five states have passed legislation that will provide universal loose school meals in the 2023-2024 school year and beyond, adding Minnesota, New Mexico, Maine, California and Colorado.
Vermont, Connecticut and Massachusetts are offering universal school meals for the 2022-2023 school year, thanks to a combination of federal and state funding. Nevada is offering universal school meals for the 2023-24 school year.
Twenty-three other states have noted the introduction of universal food law in the past three years, adding Arizona, Louisiana, Montana, Maryland, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin.
Punam Ohri-Vacchaspati, a professor of nutrition and head of Arizona State’s Food Policy and Environment Research Group, said providing loose school meals reduces social stigma for low-income students, expanding participation and nutritional benefits for those who want it most.
Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, a cardiologist and Jean Mayer Professor at Tufts University’s Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, cited an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association that found that school foods are among the most nutritious foods students eat.
Other studies have shown that universal school meals produce overall positive effects on school attendance and at all levels.
Tlaib says she directly benefited from participating in the National School Lunch Program as a child, growing up with thirteen siblings, an immigrant father who worked night shifts at Ford Motor Company, and a mother who was still learning English.
“As our circle of relatives has grown, I will tell you that I don’t think my circle of relatives would ever have been around to provide us with food for lunch,” Tlaib said. “When you have a father who tells me that he is the only position that his son eats twice a day, it is very important. “
Others say the policy would be a waste of taxpayer money and take the lunch program away from its original purpose.
“Free and discounted school meals are for those who want help,” Arkansas Republican Sen. John Boozman, who refused to make greater universal school meal exemptions in a tentative spending bill in September, said in a statement to the state newsroom.
“Universal school meals aren’t about scaling up for hungry youth, it’s about subsidizing food for those who don’t want it. “
The Heritage Foundation’s Butcher said the National School Breakfast and National School Lunch systems were on the Government Accountability Office’s list of priorities, accounting for more than a billion dollars in unrecorded spending as food waste in dining halls increases.
Baylen Linnekin, a food policy analyst for the libertarian Reason Foundation, said the nutritional quality of food has improved “slightly” since the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act.
But he said two-thirds of the program’s prices go to overhead, and with the variety of diets and allergies emerging, he said there’s “no way” a school meal program can satisfy every child’s desires.
In preparation for World War I and World War II, a significant number of men who enlisted for military service were disqualified due to nutritional deficiencies. This, combined with the economic pressures of the Great Depression, fueled the progression of federal meal programs.
President Harry Truman signed the National School Lunch Act into law in 1946, enshrining the National School Lunch Program.
“The preamble is that it has a military function: the national defense of youth welfare and the coverage of our agricultural system,” Weaver-Hightower said.
In the 1970s and 1980s, Republicans in Washington began denouncing the inefficiencies of the meal program and sales policies that caused the participation of millions of young people to plummet.
Get the morning headlines in your inbox
It wasn’t until 2010 that the idea of nutritious school meals for all children gained momentum, when Congress finally passed the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act in 2010.
The law enacted stricter nutritional criteria to combat obesity in the formative years, while expanding reimbursement rates for federal foods. It also created the Community Eligibility Provision, or CEP, which allowed schools with more than 40 percent of students in federal nutrition systems to verify financial means. Offer loose food to all scholars.
While CEP has improved student outcomes in low-income areas, nutrition experts say the provision has eliminated children’s food insecurity.
“What a lot of other people don’t realize is that there are a lot of families who qualify for loose school meals and are struggling,” said Juliana Cohen, director of the Center for Health Inclusion, Research and Practice at Merrimack College in Massachusetts.
Although Congress is not acting on universal school meals, political minds have stated that there are many opportunities for state and local governments to access food for students.
Cohen said Arizona just ditched its discounted value tier for school meals in 2022, incorporating it into the loose lunch tier.
Mozaffarian said he believes the return on investment at the federal level is to expand the network’s eligibility provision, so that public schools can provide loose meals to all students if 25% or more of their students get proven nutrition assistance.
He said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack proposed the previous one this year.
Mozaffarian also advised expanding the reimbursement rate for low-income schools, as well as getting better nutritional criteria for federal school meals. .
Butcher advised money from universal school meals to create school savings accounts, which allow parents to “design” their children’s school experience.
Reilly said he hopes to see a federal law on universal school meals because “everyone wants it. “
“I think it’s possible in the next five or 10 years at the federal level,” Mozaffarian said.
Tlaib said that, as a society, we have a “moral obligation” for academics not to worry about the origin of their next meal.
“Something like this, anything our country can do, we deserve to do,” Tlaib said. “Don’t hesitate. “
by Adam Goldstein, capital of Idaho Sunday, April 24, 2023
Correction: An earlier edition of this report incorrectly stated the source of income grades for students’ families eligible for loose school meals.
WASHINGTON — Every child in a U. S. public school is in a U. S. public schoolU. S. citizens were entitled to free school meals during the COVID-19 pandemic, regardless of family income, thanks to the federal government.
Although this is now over, a developing number of states across the country are adopting universal school meal legislation for children’s food security and educational equity. With little prospect of congressional action in the near future, state movements show an appetite for loose school meals. for all who expand beyond Washington.
Nine states have followed a transient or permanent universal food policy in the past year. Another 23 have seen the law introduced in the last 3 years, according to recent data from the Center for Food Research and Action.
“As a former teacher, I know that offering loose breakfast and lunch to our students is one of the most productive investments we can make to reduce costs, Minnesota leads families and cares for our young students and the long term of our state. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, said at the signing of his state’s universal school meals bill on March 17.
“When we feed our children, we feed our future,” New Mexico Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said as she signed her state’s policy into law March 28.
The National School Lunch Program and School Breakfast Program authorize the Department of Agriculture to subsidize food for low-income students. Schools are reimbursed for foods that meet federal nutrition criteria and incorporate foods grown in the U. S. U. S.
The systems accounted for $18 billion in annual spending in 2019, serving approximately 30 million students for lunch and $16 million for breakfast.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the federal government followed a policy ensuring access to school meals for all public school students, which teachers and families said supported children’s well-being during the fitness crisis.
However, the program ended in 2022, given objections to its estimated annual value of about $29 billion and conservative members of Congress’ preference to “get back to normal. “
“Some elements of this program are severely damaged,” said Jonathan Butcher, Will Skillman senior research fellow in school policy at the Conservative Heritage Foundation. “You don’t solve anything by making it a universal program. “
Policy experts say that despite growing interest in some states, the federal law on universal school meals would not be a start for the existing Congress, where most Republicans in the House intend to cut federal spending.
Republican-led states are also less willing to move forward, with state spending stuck in committee or bypassing small margins. two years in Minnesota.
Of the nine states that have followed universal school meals, all have Democratic majorities in the chambers of state legislatures and in the governor’s office.
The latest law brought to the federal level the Universal School Meals Program Act of 2021, sponsored by Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn. , and Vermont independent Sen. Bernie Sanders. The bill failed to get out of the Senate Agriculture Committee. , Nutrition and Forestry.
TRUSTED SUPPORT NEWS.
“In fact, I don’t have a lot of hope with Republican control of the House that they’re going to do much, in terms of units,” said Marcus Weaver-Hightower, a professor of educational fundamentals at Virginia Tech.
Still, there is optimism about long-term universal school meals at the federal level, following the pandemic trial.
“The resistance is not as strong as it seems,” said Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich. , an advocate for universal school meals. urgently, talking about it more and more. “
As communities were shut down in March 2020 with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the economy endured mass layoffs, the Ministry of Agriculture allowed the provision of loose meal exemptions for all academics and increased the reimbursement rate according to food.
The program has grown to help approximately 50 million students overcome the fitness crisis. Families with food-insecure children shrank by 2. 3 percent between 2020 and 2021, according to the USDA.
“It’s kind of an herbal experiment,” Weaver-Hightower said. “All of a sudden, everyone gets them for free. “
Jeanne Reilly, director of school nutrition at Windham Raymond Schools in Maine, recalled that when schools were closed, school nutrition groups were creative. Lunch would meet with parents in the parking lots to distribute meals.
However, as vaccines proliferated in late 2021 and students returned to school, the federal universal meal program experienced turbulence.
Conservative members of Congress, plus Kentucky Republican Sens. Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul, refused to expand universal food policy as part of the overall spending bill passed in March 2022.
The bipartisan Keep Kids Fed Act of 2022 passed by Congress in June 2022 allowed some states to expand their loose meal systems and more budget for budget readjustment. However, school nutritionists say the effects of falling exemptions persist.
Cohen said experts are now beginning to hear about paying off school meal debt, which may force schools to forgo school expenses by paying the USDA for meal expenses. A recent survey through the School Nutrition Association found that 847 school districts racked up more than $19 million in debt due to unpaid lunches.
School participation in feeding systems also dropped to 88 in fall 2022, down from 94 in March 2022, according to a study by the Ministry of Education.
Five states have passed legislation that will provide universal loose school meals in the 2023-2024 school year and beyond, adding Minnesota, New Mexico, Maine, California and Colorado.
Vermont, Connecticut and Massachusetts are offering universal school meals for the 2022-2023 school year, thanks to a combination of federal and state funding. Nevada is offering universal school meals for the 2023-24 school year.
Twenty-three other states have noted the introduction of universal food law in the past three years, adding Arizona, Louisiana, Montana, Maryland, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin.
Punam Ohri-Vacchaspati, a professor of nutrition and head of Arizona State’s Food Policy and Environment Research Group, said providing loose school meals reduces social stigma for low-income students, expanding participation and nutritional benefits for those who want it most.
Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, a cardiologist and Jean Mayer Professor at Tufts University’s Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, cited an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association that found that school foods are among the most nutritious foods students eat.
Other studies have shown that universal school meals produce overall positive effects on school attendance and at all levels.
Tlaib says she directly benefited from participating in the National School Lunch Program as a child, and grew up with thirteen siblings, an immigrant father who worked night shifts at Ford Motor Company and a mother who was still learning English.
“As our circle of relatives has grown, I will tell you that I don’t think my circle of relatives would ever have been to provide us with lunch food,” Tlaib said. “When you have a parent who tells me it’s the single position their child eats twice a day, it’s very important. “
Others say the policy would be a waste of taxpayer money and take the lunch program away from its original purpose.
“Free and discounted school meals are for those who want help,” Arkansas Republican Sen. John Boozman, who refused to make greater universal school meal exemptions in a tentative spending bill in September, said in a statement to the state newsroom.
“Universal school meals aren’t about scaling up for hungry youth, it’s about subsidizing food for those who don’t want it. “
The Heritage Foundation’s Butcher said the National School Breakfast and National School Lunch systems were on the Government Accountability Office’s list of priorities, accounting for more than a billion dollars in unrecorded spending as food waste in dining halls increases.
Baylen Linnekin, a food policy analyst for the libertarian Reason Foundation, said the nutritional quality of food has improved “slightly” since the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act.
But he said two-thirds of the program’s prices go to overhead, and with the variety of diets and allergies emerging, he said there’s “no way” a school meal program can satisfy every child’s desires.
In preparation for World War I and World War II, a significant number of men who enlisted for military service were disqualified due to nutritional deficiencies. This, combined with the economic pressures of the Great Depression, fueled the progression of federal meal programs.
President Harry Truman signed the National School Lunch Act into law in 1946, enshrining the National School Lunch Program.
“The preamble is that it has a military function: the national defense of youth welfare and the coverage of our agricultural system,” Weaver-Hightower said.
In the 1970s and 1980s, Republicans in Washington began denouncing the inefficiencies of the meal program and sales policies that caused the participation of millions of young people to plummet.
Get the morning headlines in your inbox
It wasn’t until 2010 that the idea of nutritious school meals for all children gained momentum, when Congress finally passed the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act in 2010.
The law enacted stricter nutritional criteria to combat obesity in the formative years, while expanding reimbursement rates for federal foods. It also created the Community Eligibility Provision, or CEP, which allowed schools with more than 40 percent of students in federal nutrition systems to verify financial means. Offer loose food to all scholars.
While CEP has improved student outcomes in low-income areas, nutrition experts say the provision has eliminated children’s food insecurity.
“What a lot of other people don’t realize is that there are a lot of families who qualify for loose school meals and are struggling,” said Juliana Cohen, director of the Center for Health Inclusion, Research and Practice at Merrimack College in Massachusetts.
Although Congress is not acting on universal school meals, political minds have stated that there are many opportunities for state and local governments to access food for students.
Cohen said Arizona just ditched its discounted value tier for school meals in 2022, incorporating it into the loose lunch tier.
Mozaffarian said he believes the return on investment at the federal level is to expand the network’s eligibility provision, so that public schools can provide loose meals to all students if 25% or more of their students get proven nutrition assistance.
He said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack proposed the previous one this year.
Mozaffarian also advised expanding the reimbursement rate for low-income schools, as well as getting better nutritional criteria for federal school meals. .
Butcher advised money from universal school meals to create school savings accounts, which allow parents to “design” their children’s school experience.
Reilly said he hopes to see a federal law on universal school meals because “everyone wants it. “
“I think it’s possible in the next five or 10 years at the federal level,” Mozaffarian said.
Tlaib said that, as a society, we have a “moral obligation” for academics not to worry about the origin of their next meal.
“Something like this, anything our country can do, we deserve to do,” Tlaib said. “Don’t hesitate. “
Idaho Capital Sun is a component of States Newsroom, a network of grant-funded news offices and a donor coalition as a 501c public charity(3). Idaho Capital Sun maintains editorial independence. Please contact Editor Christina Lords if you have any questions: info@idahocapitalsun. com. Follow the Idaho Capital Sun on Facebook and Twitter.
Adam Goldstein is a D. C. Bureau intern for the state newsroom. Goldstein is a graduate student at the University of Missouri School of Journalism, virtual reporting. He is from San Francisco and enjoys swimming, cooking and the San Francisco 49ers.
DEMOCRACY TOOLBOX
The Idaho Capital Sun is Gem State’s latest nonprofit news organization providing journalism on state politics, fitness, fiscal policy, the surrounding area and more.
Our stories can be republished online or published under a Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 4. 0 license. We ask that you modify them to suit taste or shorten them, provide proper attribution and a link to our website.