Essay On School Lunch Program
The purpose of this essay is to internationally compare the United States’ school lunch entitlement program. In briefly analysing the history of free lunch within the United States, we develop a framework which suggest that we should compare school lunch programs on the basis of funding, nutritional value added, cost and participation.
Brief History of free and reduced lunch in the U.S.
In 1946, the 79TH congress of the United States of America passed the “Richard B. Russell National School Lunch Act.” The law, which created the National School Lunch Program (NSLP), would, in effect, provide free lunch to poor children and reduce the cost of a healthy meal for all American youth. Section 2 of the act defines its intentions:
It is hereby …show more content…
declared to be the policy of Congress, as a measure of national security, to safeguard the health and well-being of the Nation’s children and to encourage the domestic consumption of nutritious agricultural commodities and other food, by assisting the States, through grants-in-aid and other means, in providing an adequate supply of foods and other facilities for the establishment, maintenance, operation, and expansion of non-profit school lunch programs. The act would change
___
Prior to the creation of the National School Lunch Program, the burden of providing meals for school children was that of state and local authorities. State and local authorities were required to organize, distribute, and procure meals for their individual school districts. Although, it was not uncommon for charitable organizations and individuals to subsidize or donate resources to help school districts provide meals for their pupils.
Depression of 1930
As the depression of the 1930s came around, it would soon be clear to school districts and local legislatures that contributions from charities and state governments would not adequately cover the cost of food and food services for poor and indigent pupils. Thus, it was realized that contributions from the federal government were required.
One of the beginning sources of aid from the federal government came in the form of loans from sources created in the new deal such as the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, or the Civil Works Administration. The aid was mainly used to help alleviate labour cost.
However, as the adverse effects of the depression continued to decrees employment, inequality (paper I have in file), and food security, the results of the loan programs diminished.
The US government—in the depst of the depression—concluded two things: (1) widespread unemployment and a decrees in the price level of food had a dramatic impact on US farmer’s production surplus and income, and (2) millions of US students—due to limited family resources and the inability to pay for school lunches—were at risk of being malnourished.
Thus, the United States Congress, in an attempt to combat both US farmer’s surplus issues and the growing concern of malnutrition among youth, enacted Public Law 320 on August 24, 1936. Public Law 320 gave the Secretary of Agriculture 30 percent of all revenues received from US customs’ receipts every calendar year. The new stream of revenues received by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) would be used to purchase Agricultural commodities in surplus supply—helping alleviate price depressing surpluses in the market.
The aforementioned law—which was effectually the U.S.’s first school lunch program—solved the U.S. food surplus issue and gave needy children the nutrition they needed. In effect, farmers would sell their surplus to the USDA at a reasonably fair price (without disrupting normal market activities), and schools throughout America would receive donated surplus foods from the US Department of Agriculture. According to the USDA, by 1937 there were 3,839 schools receiving surplus commodities for lunch programs and over 340,000 children were being served daily.
Initially, the surplus commodities were allocated ‘based on the number of undernourished and underprivileged children participating in the program. However, this was soon changed to an allotment based on the number of children participating the program.’
WWII
The above programs were an initial success; however, As World War 2 came around, and Congress would shift its interest, again.
The New Deal’s central relief efforts-- including many of the programs that helped subsidized school districts lunch cost-- would be eliminated. And as a result, schools, and school districts, found themselves in scenarios similar to those prior to the great depression. Schools could no longer afford to pay for indigent and poor students’ lunches, and congress-- as a result of the war-- could no longer maintain a yearly budget for student lunches.
However, as WWII and the wartime effort ramped up, congress and most US citizens realized that there was an advantage and a necessity to having a nourished population (they were better fighters). Thus, in an attempt to save America's future, congress securitized and developed a permanent lunchtime program that insured that all American children would grow-up nourished. Thus, the aforementioned Richard B. Russell National School Lunch Act was formed.
While it seems that a more than hefty portion of this essay was dedicated to the history of the aforementioned policy (<1000), I suggest that the history of US School lunch programs leads us to a very logical framework in which to compare lunch program policies …show more content…
internationally.
The history suggest—outlined by malnutrition and the desire to get things paid for—that, national school lunch programs should be compared on the basis of Funding(sources and types), nutritional value added, cost, and participation.
Richard B. Russell National school lunch act
Both, Public and non-profit private schools can participate in the National School Lunch program. As noted in the history, USDA surplus foods and cash subsidies are given to local schools and school districts from the U.S. department of Agriculture. In order to receive such subsidies (1) schools must serve lunches that meet the federal government’s nutrition requirements, and (2) Schools must provide free or reduced lunches to students who satisfy free or reduced lunch requirements.
Students whom are eligible
If a student attend a school that participates in the National School lunch Program, she is eligible.
Following the U.S. guidelines, a pupils is eligible for free meals if their family income is at, or below 130 percent of the poverty line. While, Student are entitled to reduced-priced meals if their family income lies between 130 percent and 185 percent of the federal line of poverty. Congruently, children are expected to pay full price if their families’ income exceeds 185% of poverty.
While most U.S. schools canteens operate as non-profit programs, local school food authorities are given freedom to set the price of a full-paid meal.
In 2012, 31.6 million pupils a day received lunch through the national School Lunch Program. According to the USDA, ‘since the modern program began, more than 224 billion lunches have been served.’(USDA NLSP, p.8)
------------
Although we provide statistics for 18 countries:
In order to make our analysis more pliable and sensible, we will focus on six distinct nations: (1) We will focus on the US—as this is the focus of the paper; (2) England—which is similar to the US in terms of historical conflict, but demonstrates to have a less robust school lunch program; (3) Australia—which has no school meal entitlement programs of any kind; (4) Brazil—which provides federal assistance and covers all cost associated with meal entitlement programs; (5) Japan—which provides some assistance but not at the federal level, and lastly (6)Sweden—which provides free meals to all school pupils with no constraints. The six nations above, have characteristics that allow them to represent the sample.
On funding
Quite simply, at a broad scale, school lunch funding practices can be broken-down into two groups. Either a nation provides federally funded subsidized meal programs, or a nation does not provide federally funded programs. And frankly, most federal governments lean toward not providing permanent assistance for lunch entitlement programs; in fact, there are only four nations within our complete sample of 18 that provide federal assists for school meal programs: US, Brazil, China, and the Republic of Ireland.
As noted in the brief history, the United States of America’s school lunch program is funded at the federal level.
Within England, School lunches are ‘tangentially’ paid for by the Department of Education and Skills.
That is, on a ‘budget by budge’ basis, the Department of Education funds the School Food Trust—a non-profit organization created by the department of Education and Skills to deploy school nutrition and .. programs.
While, within Sweden, The Ministry of Education, Research and Culture, funds school meals. Swedish school meals are not subsidized; however, ‘budgets are given to individual head masters’ ( Harper, wood, and Claire, 2008 p.17) in which, they are required to manage without federal supervision.
While, Brazil provides federal funds to the Ministry of Education whom directly distributes funds to state and municipalities. (Harper, wood, and Claire, 2008 p.27) Local School Meals Councils provide oversight for the funds that the federal government provides.
Japan’s Ministry of Education, Culture, Sport Science and Technology (MEXT) mostly provides periodical ‘financial support’ to help subsidize equipment and facility cost (MEXT ‘white paper notice’). While, Australia, congruent to the point that they don’t support any lunch meal entitlement programs, don’t fund programs at the federal or district
level.
England and Japan’s current federal-es assistance programs resemble the programs of America pre-Richard B. Russel. While, Brazil’s decentralized, however remarkably scrutinized, school meals program has an unexpectedly mature element to it. I suspect that their local …
Sweden’s federal school meal program is brilliant, and by far the further advanced out of the six; however, Sweden’s blank ‘budget policy’ is reckless and—I suspect (although not covered in this essay)—promotes inefficiency and loss. Thus, Sweden’s program, however, is downgraded as it lacks federal oversight.
Note**It is interesting to note the United States is the only nation to house their school lunch program outside of the department of Education.
Note** Within our complete sample (18) we see that all nations provided some form of free and (or) reduced school meal options; however, as outliers, Sweden and Finland provide free lunches to all students regardless of economic class.
Participation-percentage of students who eat lunches provided by the school.
Japan (95%) had the highest participation rate out of the five nations that we covered. Sweden (85%) came in a close second followed by the United States (70%). While this is not a research paper, out data can suggest that there is a correlation between the participation rate and subsidies. Fifty percent of Japans food cost are subsidized, 100 percent of Swedish food cost are subsidized, and the US heavily subsidizes food cost: 112 % for free lunch, 92 % for reduced.
Cost
In comparing cost, we found that Brazil has the lowest average cost—followed by Sweden, and America. Again, we suspect that this is related to the subsidies that the three nations provide.
Nutritional value
In analysing percentage of required caloric input achieved from school meals programs, we found that Sweden was the clear winner in providing pupils with 70% of all required daily calorie input from their school lunch programs, followed by the United States and Japan at one third of caloric intake requirements.
Conclusion
The United States of America has one of the most robust and well-rounded school lunch programs in the world. Within our sample set, the US consistently ranked within the top three. However, in any other case—the aforementioned results would have purely been acceptable, however what our statistics failed to recognize the United States’ school lunch program is housed with the Department of Agriculture. All other countries meal programs are housed within their respective Department of Education. Thus, it is United States consistency and economic synergies that allows it to take the title of the best lunch entitlement program in the world (or our sample set).
Brief History of free and reduced lunch in the U.S.
In 1946, the 79TH congress of the United States of America passed the “Richard B. Russell National School Lunch Act.” The law, which created the National School Lunch Program (NSLP), would, in effect, provide free lunch to poor children and reduce the cost of a healthy meal for all American youth. Section 2 of the act defines its intentions:
It is hereby …show more content…
declared to be the policy of Congress, as a measure of national security, to safeguard the health and well-being of the Nation’s children and to encourage the domestic consumption of nutritious agricultural commodities and other food, by assisting the States, through grants-in-aid and other means, in providing an adequate supply of foods and other facilities for the establishment, maintenance, operation, and expansion of non-profit school lunch programs. The act would change
___
Prior to the creation of the National School Lunch Program, the burden of providing meals for school children was that of state and local authorities. State and local authorities were required to organize, distribute, and procure meals for their individual school districts. Although, it was not uncommon for charitable organizations and individuals to subsidize or donate resources to help school districts provide meals for their pupils.
Depression of 1930
As the depression of the 1930s came around, it would soon be clear to school districts and local legislatures that contributions from charities and state governments would not adequately cover the cost of food and food services for poor and indigent pupils. Thus, it was realized that contributions from the federal government were required.
One of the beginning sources of aid from the federal government came in the form of loans from sources created in the new deal such as the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, or the Civil Works Administration. The aid was mainly used to help alleviate labour cost.
However, as the adverse effects of the depression continued to decrees employment, inequality (paper I have in file), and food security, the results of the loan programs diminished.
The US government—in the depst of the depression—concluded two things: (1) widespread unemployment and a decrees in the price level of food had a dramatic impact on US farmer’s production surplus and income, and (2) millions of US students—due to limited family resources and the inability to pay for school lunches—were at risk of being malnourished.
Thus, the United States Congress, in an attempt to combat both US farmer’s surplus issues and the growing concern of malnutrition among youth, enacted Public Law 320 on August 24, 1936. Public Law 320 gave the Secretary of Agriculture 30 percent of all revenues received from US customs’ receipts every calendar year. The new stream of revenues received by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) would be used to purchase Agricultural commodities in surplus supply—helping alleviate price depressing surpluses in the market.
The aforementioned law—which was effectually the U.S.’s first school lunch program—solved the U.S. food surplus issue and gave needy children the nutrition they needed. In effect, farmers would sell their surplus to the USDA at a reasonably fair price (without disrupting normal market activities), and schools throughout America would receive donated surplus foods from the US Department of Agriculture. According to the USDA, by 1937 there were 3,839 schools receiving surplus commodities for lunch programs and over 340,000 children were being served daily.
Initially, the surplus commodities were allocated ‘based on the number of undernourished and underprivileged children participating in the program. However, this was soon changed to an allotment based on the number of children participating the program.’
WWII
The above programs were an initial success; however, As World War 2 came around, and Congress would shift its interest, again.
The New Deal’s central relief efforts-- including many of the programs that helped subsidized school districts lunch cost-- would be eliminated. And as a result, schools, and school districts, found themselves in scenarios similar to those prior to the great depression. Schools could no longer afford to pay for indigent and poor students’ lunches, and congress-- as a result of the war-- could no longer maintain a yearly budget for student lunches.
However, as WWII and the wartime effort ramped up, congress and most US citizens realized that there was an advantage and a necessity to having a nourished population (they were better fighters). Thus, in an attempt to save America's future, congress securitized and developed a permanent lunchtime program that insured that all American children would grow-up nourished. Thus, the aforementioned Richard B. Russell National School Lunch Act was formed.
While it seems that a more than hefty portion of this essay was dedicated to the history of the aforementioned policy (<1000), I suggest that the history of US School lunch programs leads us to a very logical framework in which to compare lunch program policies …show more content…
internationally.
The history suggest—outlined by malnutrition and the desire to get things paid for—that, national school lunch programs should be compared on the basis of Funding(sources and types), nutritional value added, cost, and participation.
Richard B. Russell National school lunch act
Both, Public and non-profit private schools can participate in the National School Lunch program. As noted in the history, USDA surplus foods and cash subsidies are given to local schools and school districts from the U.S. department of Agriculture. In order to receive such subsidies (1) schools must serve lunches that meet the federal government’s nutrition requirements, and (2) Schools must provide free or reduced lunches to students who satisfy free or reduced lunch requirements.
Students whom are eligible
If a student attend a school that participates in the National School lunch Program, she is eligible.
Following the U.S. guidelines, a pupils is eligible for free meals if their family income is at, or below 130 percent of the poverty line. While, Student are entitled to reduced-priced meals if their family income lies between 130 percent and 185 percent of the federal line of poverty. Congruently, children are expected to pay full price if their families’ income exceeds 185% of poverty.
While most U.S. schools canteens operate as non-profit programs, local school food authorities are given freedom to set the price of a full-paid meal.
In 2012, 31.6 million pupils a day received lunch through the national School Lunch Program. According to the USDA, ‘since the modern program began, more than 224 billion lunches have been served.’(USDA NLSP, p.8)
------------
Although we provide statistics for 18 countries:
In order to make our analysis more pliable and sensible, we will focus on six distinct nations: (1) We will focus on the US—as this is the focus of the paper; (2) England—which is similar to the US in terms of historical conflict, but demonstrates to have a less robust school lunch program; (3) Australia—which has no school meal entitlement programs of any kind; (4) Brazil—which provides federal assistance and covers all cost associated with meal entitlement programs; (5) Japan—which provides some assistance but not at the federal level, and lastly (6)Sweden—which provides free meals to all school pupils with no constraints. The six nations above, have characteristics that allow them to represent the sample.
On funding
Quite simply, at a broad scale, school lunch funding practices can be broken-down into two groups. Either a nation provides federally funded subsidized meal programs, or a nation does not provide federally funded programs. And frankly, most federal governments lean toward not providing permanent assistance for lunch entitlement programs; in fact, there are only four nations within our complete sample of 18 that provide federal assists for school meal programs: US, Brazil, China, and the Republic of Ireland.
As noted in the brief history, the United States of America’s school lunch program is funded at the federal level.
Within England, School lunches are ‘tangentially’ paid for by the Department of Education and Skills.
That is, on a ‘budget by budge’ basis, the Department of Education funds the School Food Trust—a non-profit organization created by the department of Education and Skills to deploy school nutrition and .. programs.
While, within Sweden, The Ministry of Education, Research and Culture, funds school meals. Swedish school meals are not subsidized; however, ‘budgets are given to individual head masters’ ( Harper, wood, and Claire, 2008 p.17) in which, they are required to manage without federal supervision.
While, Brazil provides federal funds to the Ministry of Education whom directly distributes funds to state and municipalities. (Harper, wood, and Claire, 2008 p.27) Local School Meals Councils provide oversight for the funds that the federal government provides.
Japan’s Ministry of Education, Culture, Sport Science and Technology (MEXT) mostly provides periodical ‘financial support’ to help subsidize equipment and facility cost (MEXT ‘white paper notice’). While, Australia, congruent to the point that they don’t support any lunch meal entitlement programs, don’t fund programs at the federal or district
level.
England and Japan’s current federal-es assistance programs resemble the programs of America pre-Richard B. Russel. While, Brazil’s decentralized, however remarkably scrutinized, school meals program has an unexpectedly mature element to it. I suspect that their local …
Sweden’s federal school meal program is brilliant, and by far the further advanced out of the six; however, Sweden’s blank ‘budget policy’ is reckless and—I suspect (although not covered in this essay)—promotes inefficiency and loss. Thus, Sweden’s program, however, is downgraded as it lacks federal oversight.
Note**It is interesting to note the United States is the only nation to house their school lunch program outside of the department of Education.
Note** Within our complete sample (18) we see that all nations provided some form of free and (or) reduced school meal options; however, as outliers, Sweden and Finland provide free lunches to all students regardless of economic class.
Participation-percentage of students who eat lunches provided by the school.
Japan (95%) had the highest participation rate out of the five nations that we covered. Sweden (85%) came in a close second followed by the United States (70%). While this is not a research paper, out data can suggest that there is a correlation between the participation rate and subsidies. Fifty percent of Japans food cost are subsidized, 100 percent of Swedish food cost are subsidized, and the US heavily subsidizes food cost: 112 % for free lunch, 92 % for reduced.
Cost
In comparing cost, we found that Brazil has the lowest average cost—followed by Sweden, and America. Again, we suspect that this is related to the subsidies that the three nations provide.
Nutritional value
In analysing percentage of required caloric input achieved from school meals programs, we found that Sweden was the clear winner in providing pupils with 70% of all required daily calorie input from their school lunch programs, followed by the United States and Japan at one third of caloric intake requirements.
Conclusion
The United States of America has one of the most robust and well-rounded school lunch programs in the world. Within our sample set, the US consistently ranked within the top three. However, in any other case—the aforementioned results would have purely been acceptable, however what our statistics failed to recognize the United States’ school lunch program is housed with the Department of Agriculture. All other countries meal programs are housed within their respective Department of Education. Thus, it is United States consistency and economic synergies that allows it to take the title of the best lunch entitlement program in the world (or our sample set).