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I decided to pay off a school’s lunch debt

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Re: I decided to pay off a school’s lunch debt

#181

Post by wonderwonder »

em-bee wrote: post #161
wonderwonder wrote: post #79

Pretty depressing. I'm pretty right wing but kids should always be taken care of. I'll happily pay more in property tax to cover school lunches and kids medical.

property taxes go to schools in your own area. would you also support that taxes be redistributed to other areas that don't have enough tax income and where people can't afford higher taxes? because as i see it, that is the real problem in the way schools in the US are funded. (i am hoping/assuming your answer is yes, but i think the distinction is important and needs to be pointed out)

Honestly my answer is no. I want my property taxes to ensure that my kids get the best possible start.

My money supports my kids and those kids that live in my area. I would say yes to paying more property tax to support my local schools to an even greater degree. I am in no way ok with my kids school funding getting reduced to fund other areas. I specifically moved to this area for the good schools.

I would be ok with an additional penny of sales tax to fund a statewide program to ensure all kids have access to food.

Re: I decided to pay off a school’s lunch debt

#182

Post by senectus1 »

neolefty wrote: post #40
senectus1 wrote: post #29

(I'm in Australia) I dont understand why this concept of schools providing lunches ever became a thing... Why did this idea ever take off?

Do you mean you always have to bring your lunch to school with you, in Australia? I went to a weird high school in the US where that was the case. They just didn't have a lunch room, so everybody sat in the hallways at lunch time. But yeah, all the other schools I've heard of provide lunch. Most offer breakfast as well, as an option.

correct. most schools have canteens you can buy lunch from... but the "norm" is for every kid to bring recess and lunch foods every day. Keeping the bloody crows from getting into your bag and eating it is an added challenge that most rise to fairly easily.

note its also expected that you've already had breakfast before you arrive at school.

Re: I decided to pay off a school’s lunch debt

#183

Post by senectus1 »

icegreentea2 wrote: post #62
senectus1 wrote: post #29

(I'm in Australia) I dont understand why this concept of schools providing lunches ever became a thing... Why did this idea ever take off?

School lunch programs across the world get setup and perpetuated for a variety of reasons. They also have a variety of funding models. For the US specifically, major federal programs began during the Great Depression as a two for one combo. It solved the direct problem of... people being poor and their kids not having food/lunch, and it also provided a reasonable supply sink for the government to buy out supply from…

fascinating and horrifying.

Re: I decided to pay off a school’s lunch debt

#184

Post by senectus1 »

bombcar wrote: post #117
senectus1 wrote: post #29

(I'm in Australia) I dont understand why this concept of schools providing lunches ever became a thing... Why did this idea ever take off?

The US has discovered that there's a substantial portion of the population (which for this could be 1%, 10%, 20% whatever) who is really bad at raising kids, basically. If the school doesn't provide lunch, the kids would simply not eat any lunch. So they provide lunches, because it's easier than handling the fallout from some kids not eating, etc. As a child I never had "provided lunch" but I also went to private sch…

>The US has discovered that there's a substantial portion of the population (which for this could be 1%, 10%, 20% whatever) who is really bad at raising kids, basically.

I'm a center-lefty, but America appears to be mostly right and I find it fascinating that this is just "accepted".

Why does America just accept that some (a large enough number that most schools have to feed them) people cant raise their kids?

Re: I decided to pay off a school’s lunch debt

#185

Post by newAccount2025 »

candiddevmike wrote: post #7
thinkingtoilet wrote: post #5

It's astonishing this is a thing. I'm thankful to live in Massachusetts where all kids can get lunch for free with no questions asked. Where I live, kids can get breakfast too, however I've heard that isn't universal in the state. The article points out another issue that is so widespread. Often times, being right above or below a cut off line can make a huge difference and it's kids just above the cut off line here…

During COVID, school lunch was free, and most school served free bag lunches over the summer too. That ended in June 2022. Congress could've kept it going for a pittance, but alas...

It was a really nice time. One less chore to worry about every night.

Re: I decided to pay off a school’s lunch debt

#186

Post by atonse »

andreicap wrote: post #25

My poor country (Moldova) just implemented free lunches for kids in primary and middle schools. What is the reason US doesn’t have this already at federal level?

In the US, schools are managed at the state level, not the federal level. There are occasional grants given to states to run certain school programs, but states really run the show.

Which is why I'm actually not sure why certain states don't do this. Like richer states like Maryland, Virginia, New York, California.

Re: I decided to pay off a school’s lunch debt

#187

Post by jaggederest »

bombcar wrote: post #105
internetter wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without reading into lunch specifically, I'd very much be inclined to say yes. The reason is, I spent many hours researching the fair structure of my transit agency. Fares that have, obviously, been in the news for being harming to low income citizens. What I found was that the city spent almost 1 billion on upgrading their collection systems, whereas the yearly revenue from those same systems amounted to 1/10th of t…

One of the "don't say the quiet part out loud" with transit fares (which would NOT apply to school lunches) is that transit fares are a convenient way to remove unwanted transit enjoyers. It is somewhat hard to define "being disruptive on the subway" but it's easy to define "doesn't have a ticket".

We need votekick, but in real life. Clearly this is a concept that could have no practical downsides...

Re: I decided to pay off a school’s lunch debt

#188

Post by sitkack »

mjevans wrote: post #103
internetter wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without reading into lunch specifically, I'd very much be inclined to say yes. The reason is, I spent many hours researching the fair structure of my transit agency. Fares that have, obviously, been in the news for being harming to low income citizens. What I found was that the city spent almost 1 billion on upgrading their collection systems, whereas the yearly revenue from those same systems amounted to 1/10th of t…

I suspect the only real benefit is a change in behavior of some passengers. They _paid_ for a thing and therefore feel more respectful towards it. Which would be related to the other symptomatic reasons such a barrier might be sought. As a society my country (USA) sadly has low respect for the commons generally. There's a lack of investment (not none, but not enough), a sense of 'me-ism' entitlement in the population…

Disrespect of the commons has been a 50 year effort on the right to normalize ripping off the government to make it nonfunctional and illegitimate.

We are to celebrate those who get out of paying taxes by any means and looking the other way when others take from the commons.

Re: I decided to pay off a school’s lunch debt

#189

Post by 0max »

jaggederest wrote: post #187
bombcar wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the "don't say the quiet part out loud" with transit fares (which would NOT apply to school lunches) is that transit fares are a convenient way to remove unwanted transit enjoyers. It is somewhat hard to define "being disruptive on the subway" but it's easy to define "doesn't have a ticket".

We need votekick, but in real life. Clearly this is a concept that could have no practical downsides...

You're reminding me of Team Fortress 2 server nightmares from last year with all the hackers and bots

Re: I decided to pay off a school’s lunch debt

#190

Post by klodolph »

dahart wrote: post #143
klodolph wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re comparing the NY state education budget against a program for elementary school students in NYC using numbers from different decades. If you want better numbers, a good place to start would be to take total cost per student for a given year and the cost per lunch for the same year, and multiply cost per lunch by number of days and some participation rate %.

Which decades? Are you saying the $5M number is too small because this article was from 2017, and I used budget from 2024? Okay, the NY state budget in 2017 was a bit over $25B. That actually still leaves the answer at two hundredths of one percent, since I rounded up and left lots of room for error. ;) I was more or less trying to do what you suggest, but without getting stuck doing research until next week. I could…

2010s and 2020s are the two different decades.

I found $23,884 expenditure per child in 2014-2015, which is when the $4.30 school lunch cost is from. With 180 instructional days, lunch would be $4.30/day x 180day/year / $23884/year = 3.2%.

> I was more or less trying to do what you suggest, but without getting stuck doing research until next week. I could be off by a factor of 10 or even 100 without the point having a significantly different summary, right?

You were off by a factor of 150, about. Kinda big. I guess you could be stuck here doing research until next week. I searched “nyc cost per student school 2014” and plugged some numbers into a calculator. I made sure to put all my numbers up there with units in case you disagree with the numbers or disagree with the formula. If you want to use newer numbers you can do that, but I think it’s important to use numbers from the same time, more or less.

These “off by 3x, 2x, 4x” errors add up to orders of magnitude if you make enough errors like that. I was disagreeing with your estimate because there were too many errors. Just kind of a gut feeling.

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