Charter Choices: Good Food, Free Food, No Food
I consider myself relatively well-informed when it comes to issues of charter schools. I have read a great deal of research and commentary on them, and I have experience working with (though not in) some of them. So I don’t often come across information on charter schools that surprises me. But yesterday, I did - a Los Angeles Times article entitled Charter Choices: Good Food, Free Food, No Food.
While I knew that charters are free from many of the regulations that govern traditional public schools, one thing I did not realize is that in California at least (I do not know about elsewhere) charter schools are “exempt from a state requirement to serve at least one nutritionally adequate subsidized meal a day to qualifying children.” Some charter schools in the state do not serve any meal at all. Students who attend these schools must bring their own or place orders with volunteers who run out to fast food restaurants to pick up food.
Of course, other California charter schools are extremely concerned with the food children consume on campus and provide highly nutritious meals. And charter schools serving meals, like traditional public schools that serve meals, receive a cash subsidy from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to help pay for meals for needy children. But when the charter school does not offer a meal, families must pay for food. Which is not a exactly problem, provided that families can afford it and children do not go hungry.
The state department of education does not have reliable information on charter schools’ nutrition programs. A state audit that tried to learn how many children eligible for subsidized meals attend charter schools that do not offer them was not able to answer the question, though it did determine that more than half the state’s charters did participate in federal breakfast or lunch programs. (Of course, depending on what exactly “more than half” means, it could be as much as “nearly half” don’t).
The implications are disturbing. The article points out that:
Advocates for low-income families worry that those struggling to put food on the table can be left to decide between a traditional public school that offers their children adequate nutrition and a charter that may have smaller classes or more enrichment programs.
One charter school principal acknowledged:
[T]he lack of a lunch program might be keeping some of the poorest families from sending their kids to the school. When the school opened in 2004, 85% to 95% of the children qualified for free or reduced-price meals, but the figure has fallen to about half.
This article describes some of the challenges associated with serving food at charter schools. It also points out that because charters vary so greatly in size and resources, it would be difficult to set standards for them all.
I sympathize with that. I truly do. But the fact that it may be hard for some charters to serve food should, in my opinion, not exempt them from doing so. One issue I have with the current setup gets back to the charters versus traditional public schools “fairness” debate. Some traditional public schools and districts struggle to provide meals and to meet ever-increasing nutritional standards for the food they serve – but they do it. If we as a society believe that public schools should serve nutritious food to children, then all public schools should serve nutritious food for children, regardless of whether they are traditional or charter.
But more importantly, I struggle with the idea that we have created a situation in which a parent might have to choose between food for their child and the public school they believe is best for that child. Is that really a decision we want parents to have to make?
(Hat tip to the ASCD Smartbrief for alerting me to this article)
SIGN UP
Visionaries
Click here to browse dozens of Public School Insights interviews with extraordinary education advocates, including:
- 2013 Digital Principal Ryan Imbriale
- Best Selling Author Dan Ariely
- Family Engagement Expert Dr. Maria C. Paredes
The views expressed in this website's interviews do not necessarily represent those of the Learning First Alliance or its members.
New Stories
Featured Story
Excellence is the Standard
At Pierce County High School in rural southeast Georgia, the graduation rate has gone up 31% in seven years. Teachers describe their collaboration as the unifying factor that drives the school’s improvement. Learn more...
School/District Characteristics
Hot Topics
Blog Roll
Members' Blogs
- Transforming Learning
- The EDifier
- School Board News Today
- Legal Clips
- Learning Forward’s PD Watch
- NAESP's Principals' Office
- NASSP's Principal's Policy Blog
- The Principal Difference
- ASCA Scene
- PDK Blog
- Always Something
- NSPRA: Social School Public Relations
- AACTE's President's Perspective
- AASA's The Leading Edge
- AASA Connects (formerly AASA's School Street)
- NEA Today
- Angles on Education
- Lily's Blackboard
- PTA's One Voice
- ISTE Connects
What Else We're Reading
- Advancing the Teaching Profession
- Edwize
- The Answer Sheet
- Edutopia's Blogs
- Politics K-12
- U.S. Department of Education Blog
- John Wilson Unleashed
- The Core Knowledge Blog
- This Week in Education
- Inside School Research
- Teacher Leadership Today
- On the Shoulders of Giants
- Teacher in a Strange Land
- Teach Moore
- The Tempered Radical
- The Educated Reporter
- Taking Note
- Character Education Partnership Blog
- Why I Teach
I would ask the question
I would ask the question differently. I would ask whether it weren't a form of coercion to offer the "free" meals at public schools to entice poor people to sign their children up. Better just to be consistent so that school choices are as parent-driven as possible.
Food stamp money doesn't go UP in the summer, does it? I think we should find the level of funding for ALL children we are comfortable with, and then be fair about distributing that.
A local mayor's "Christmas Tree" drive happened recently in cooperation with the school district and they were able to sponsor some 900 families. Oh. But they specifically excluded any family that didn't have school-aged children enrolled in a PUBLIC school. Please don't tell me that the schools care about the kids, if they aren't willing to be charitable toward the homeschooling and private ed children in their midst.
They don't.
I teach at an urban public
I teach at an urban public elementary school in Los Angeles. The entire student population qualifies for the free lunch (and breakfast) program as do students at many LAUSD schools.
A large number of those students attend a charter middle school one block away. In theory, they provide lunches to their students, but on several occasions, they've run out of food largely due to poor planning (they allowed seconds before all students were served). Children who are hungry are not likely to be learning. Charter schools neither have all the answers nor hold "THE" answer to the problems in education.
To Happy Elf Mom: You mentioned the mayor's holiday program and blamed the schools, not the mayor's office for exclusions? While schools should be concerned with the well-being of children in general, their first responsibility is to their own students, just as you would feed your children before providing lunches to other children.
Yes, I DO blame the mayor's
Yes, I DO blame the mayor's office and the city charity for the exclusions. It is a cooperative endeavour, however, that includes the schools. Let's just not pretend that the whole school meal or other "charity" thing does not ever, ever coerce parents to send children to school who might not have otherwise sent them. As we lump more and more social services into the schools that ALL taxpayers are buying, I become increasingly concerned that we are impounding the difficulties poor families already face in making a non-public school choice.
PS That's terrible about the children not being fed at that school. If they're funded for that food, and don't serve it there should be some consequence! I know charters get out of some of the "rules" traditional schools must follow, but they shouldn't in this case. Wow. I hope the media is on it.
Thanks for reporting on this.
Thanks for reporting on this. It reinforces the idea that charter schools in areas of high poverty tend to attract students who have savvier and more engaged parents/guardians, willing to sacrifice in some other area to get their child into a safe and productive educational environment.
What made me laugh was the idea that someone would run out for fast food, rather than requiring that all children bring a nutritious lunch from home. I hate to sound like a geezer here, but I was required to bring a cold lunch from home when I was in elementary school--we all were. And everyone did--and this was in a high-poverty area, too.
This blog reveals a number of key questions: Does a compassionate society provide at least one nutritious meal daily? Why aren't families able to provide meals for children? How are our abysmal national eating habits entwined with kids' ability to learn? And so on.
Kinder Teacher - Thanks for
Kinder Teacher - Thanks for sharing your story. That situation sounds almost WORSE than many mentioned in the article. At least when you know a school does not serve a meal, you can plan accordingly.
And Happy Elf Mom, I think I agree with Kinder Teacher on the mayor's holiday program. It makes sense to me that a school district (which likely does care about children in general - or at least, those who work for the district very likely do) would actually serve only its students (as said, those students are its first responsibility), particularly in a time of scarce resources. But perhaps the mayor should have taken more care to include all students.
Also, to your point about food stamps...Food stamp money may not go up in the summer, but a number of schools and districts continue to offer free/reduced-price meals to students during the summer. Some even expand those offerings to private (and I would assume home-schooled) students in their community during summer months.
I see your question about coercion in offering meals at public schools, but I don't agree with it. I think it is part of an extremely important discussion on societal values, and particularly on the choices that low- and middle/upper-income citizens have, though. But here I was just pointing out that in considering public schools (which both charter and traditional schools are) - so an initial "choice" (if you believe that low-income families currently have reasonable options other than public school) has been made on the part of a given family - this discrepancy exists.
Nancy - Thanks! I think that you and I probably had similar reactions to the initial piece. It does raise so many questions about not only the role/responsibilities of charter schools in our education system, but about our societal values and beliefs in general.
And Nancy, there is something funky going on with our site. We are still working it out, but one side effect is that your name in your comment is not linking to your blog properly.
For those of you interested in reading more from Nancy Flanagan, check out her blog "Teacher in a Strange Land" at http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/teacher_in_a_strange_land/
Post new comment