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Is Your Future Worth a Decent Breakfast?
By Bonnie Christensen —
As governments take money from public schools to bail out their budget deficits (caused by completely unrelated factors), teachers are being asked to work with fewer resources and less time, but to meet the same standards of education. More than ever, these teachers need their students to be fed and ready for learning when they arrive at school. But most children do not get a healthy breakfast every day to prepare their brains for the mentally exhausting process of learning and interacting.
Schools provide an excellent venue for breakfast, as we can regulate what children eat and we can guarantee that all students have the opportunity to eat a morning meal each day. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. Most schools that participate in the National School Breakfast Program serve students before school begins, but many students do not arrive early to eat, partly because of the stigma associated with receiving free meals. Less than half of students who receive free or reduced-price lunches take advantage of free or reduced-price breakfast. More and more schools are adopting universal breakfast in the classroom, but with budget cuts, breakfast is sinking to the bottom of the totem pole. Right now, most districts have no school staff to provide this service, as anyone who can be cut has already been cut.
We want public schools to succeed, and we try to hold them accountable with No Child Left Behind. But we continually cut funding for support staff, materials, custodial services, maintenance and upkeep of school buildings and furniture, new books and learning materials, special programs to enrich learning, and on and on and on.
We ask public schools to be the health care police, the discipline police, the academic police, the nutrition police, but we don’t give the schools any support to be all these things. We make cuts to bail out local governments, but the money never gets put back when times are good. We take the money away to cover the mistakes of adults who lack vision, foresight, integrity and accountability. And then we force public schools to pay for the costly mistakes of others. And they pay and pay and pay.
Children need breakfast, and studies show they perform better when they arrive at school on a full stomach. They also need time to eat the breakfast, and time to have recess to run around and let off steam. They need time to eat lunch and time in phys ed to get proper exercise, and they need time in the classroom with qualified teachers and decent books and materials in structurally sound buildings with safe furniture — to learn!
The development of our children happens on many levels and requires many approaches over a long period of time, and it costs money. But we all need to care about what happens in public schools, because these children are our future.
Our country was founded on the idea that you cannot tax a population without that population being represented. A population cannot be represented if the population is not informed in a way that gives them a sound basis for choosing their leaders. If the citizens of the colonies could not read, write and communicate effectively, it was clear that they would not be able to make informed decisions. So public schools were born. But as long as public school budgets are used as the well from which government budgets re-hydrate, American children do not stand a chance.
Children need to eat healthy food each day in order to learn and be productive. But they very often do not get fed each day for one reason or another. If we want to make sure children eat a good meal in the morning so they can become productive and intelligent citizens, then we need to make sure they have a healthy breakfast.
When are we going to take the long view and do what is best for our students? These children are the future contributors to your social security, the future guardians of this planet. They will be the purchasers and producers, food growers and processors — the generators of goods and services that make our economic engine run. These children will be making policy, running our legal system and governments and protecting our nation. These children are our national security.
Is your future worth a decent breakfast? Think about it.
Bonnie Christensen is the executive chef for nutrition services in the Berkeley Unified School District in California.
April 18th, 2009 at 11:13 am
We tax tobacco to run anti-smoking ads, why not tax soda to fund school nutrition programs?
Oh yeah, Susan Neely she’s it as an affront to ‘moderation Moms’ everywhere.