I would rather my child had chocolate milk than no protein. I never thought I would give my kid chocolate milk but I do. I would prefer it to a straight carb like a bagel.,,lots more nutrition

Anonymous wrote:

As for the hungry children who actually need breakfast in school, why would you begrudge them?

OP here. I want to make clear I'm fine with a free breakfast program. I just want it to be a higher-quality breakfast, or at least one that doesn't undermine kids' health.
Low-income kids unfortunately do not tend to have as much access to fruits and vegetables. If the food we give them in school is not nutritional, it makes them even more prone to poor health outcomes.
I get the sense that a lot of the nutritional choices are driven by the central office, so I will voice my concerns there. But I am wondering how much flexibility principals have. Does anyone have experience in at least tweaking the menu? I would think that the principal could say we don't need chocolate milk at breakfast, and let's make sure that the alternative breakfasts (which I guess is cereal) are always offered alongside the cinnamon roll or panwich. Anyone else have other incremental improvements that the principals have control over?
It doesn't have to cost more to substitute healthier choices. I'd love to see people working together to convince MCPS to do better for our kids.

I hope you have the same motivation for what is taught

As for the hungry children who actually need breakfast in school, why would you begrudge them?

OP here. I want to make clear I'm fine with a free breakfast program. I just want it to be a higher-quality breakfast, or at least one that doesn't undermine kids' health.
Low-income kids unfortunately do not tend to have as much access to fruits and vegetables. If the food we give them in school is not nutritional, it makes them even more prone to poor health outcomes.
I get the sense that a lot of the nutritional choices are driven by the central office, so I will voice my concerns there. But I am wondering how much flexibility principals have. Does anyone have experience in at least tweaking the menu? I would think that the principal could say we don't need chocolate milk at breakfast, and let's make sure that the alternative breakfasts (which I guess is cereal) are always offered alongside the cinnamon roll or panwich. Anyone else have other incremental improvements that the principals have control over?
It doesn't have to cost more to substitute healthier choices. I'd love to see people working together to convince MCPS to do better for our kids.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: it all detracts from the schools mission which is to teach. If school’s returned to that mission, the education they provide would improve. Thus I’m not P-ing vinegar… I’m offering solutions that will actually help.

They can't perform their primary function of teaching if the kids are hungry. In fact, this is what makes the rest of your slippery slope hyperbolic argument nonsensical, because all these hungry people are not being taught by the school, so there is the logical extension to students only.

Did you read the post, it admits is hyperbole so calm down… its point is the kids shouldn't be hungry.

DD attends a 'low-income' school, she says no one eats the breakfast... so I'll have to agree with the original PP you responded to (what’s the acronym for that?) cynicism and all. Schools need to teach, let the parents do the rest. If you are inspired to do more, do it through your church, mosque or civil charitable services… donate to meals on wheels, etc. I want my child to attend school for an education, which is why we have a public education system. It’s transitioned over the generations to a public social service system and the education provided is increasingly wanting. We DDs parents will not only supplement that education at home but provide all the ‘social services’ necessary for DD (or seek them elsewhere for her if need be). The more the schools alleviate the parent from their parental responsibility, the less responsible they and the child will be making it more likely their education experience worsens, not improves.

Conservatives used to mock liberals for trying to "immanentize the eschaton,' ie. bring about a perfect world through policy decisions. Your criticism falls in that category. In a perfect world, parents would step up and provide what their kids need. We don't live in a perfect world, though. We live in a chaotic, imperfect world. A lot of these kids have parents who can't or won't step up if the school stops helping them. We shouldn't stop these programs in the hopes that their parents will suddenly become better than they are.

Oh come on, do you realize how asinine that sounds? It’s not conservatives who aim to socially engineer us into a utopia. And it’s the social engineers who are so full of perfectionist zeal they ignore the fact their efforts lead to negligible or worse results! Conservative do not ‘hope to make parents better’ they want to stop the liberals from making them worse.

The lives of the ‘We must do it for the children’ program recipients have not been improved and in many areas doing worse. Despite all the work, all the haranguing, all the billions spent, families have not been lifted out of poverty. Instead we have more government dependence than ever. The perfectionists never take responsibility, never admit fault, all they do is claim obstruction and demand ‘we need to, we must do more.’

A perfect example (I’m surprised no one is talking about it) a few days ago the President announced Headstart is ‘not enough’ children need “1 Billon in investment to expand access to high-quality early childhood education to every child in America from birth and continuing to age 5."

They do not admit Headstart is a failure, which it is; from a 2010 Department of Health and Human Services report:

http://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/opre/executive_summary_final.pdf

It assessed approximately 5K 3-4-year-olds randomly assigned to either a control group or a group that had access to the federal Head Start program concluded "at the end of kindergarten and first grade ... the Head Start children and the control group children were at the same level on many of the measures studied."

Years of berating, billions spent, and what did we get? Negligible difference. And the answer… President Obama demands more. And here in MCPC you are demanding more. The PP was spot on with his ‘cynical’ analysis and I’ll expound. The end game appears to be the schools replace the home and hearth even the parents, why not if they cannot feed, house, and ‘socialize’ their children. And ironically once that is done we won’t need to education the children, they’ll be happy little automatons, wards of the State. An education is no longer necessary and potentially dangerous for the children may just learn to demand they want to be free. This plays out like an Orwell or Huxley novel of yore.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: it all detracts from the schools mission which is to teach. If school’s returned to that mission, the education they provide would improve. Thus I’m not P-ing vinegar… I’m offering solutions that will actually help.

They can't perform their primary function of teaching if the kids are hungry. In fact, this is what makes the rest of your slippery slope hyperbolic argument nonsensical, because all these hungry people are not being taught by the school, so there is the logical extension to students only.

Did you read the post, it admits is hyperbole so calm down… its point is the kids shouldn't be hungry.

DD attends a 'low-income' school, she says no one eats the breakfast... so I'll have to agree with the original PP you responded to (what’s the acronym for that?) cynicism and all. Schools need to teach, let the parents do the rest. If you are inspired to do more, do it through your church, mosque or civil charitable services… donate to meals on wheels, etc. I want my child to attend school for an education, which is why we have a public education system. It’s transitioned over the generations to a public social service system and the education provided is increasingly wanting. We DDs parents will not only supplement that education at home but provide all the ‘social services’ necessary for DD (or seek them elsewhere for her if need be). The more the schools alleviate the parent from their parental responsibility, the less responsible they and the child will be making it more likely their education experience worsens, not improves.

Conservatives used to mock liberals for trying to "immanentize the eschaton,' ie. bring about a perfect world through policy decisions. Your criticism falls in that category. In a perfect world, parents would step up and provide what their kids need. We don't live in a perfect world, though. We live in a chaotic, imperfect world. A lot of these kids have parents who can't or won't step up if the school stops helping them. We shouldn't stop these programs in the hopes that their parents will suddenly become better than they are.

Anonymous wrote:A loved child comes to school to learn.

An unloved child comes to school for love.


Don't underestimate the value of eating a meal surrounded by people who care about you.

I don't understand, are the teachers going to do teaching and loving the one's that can't be taught

Anonymous wrote:How about the schools teach and the parents parent

A thousand times THIS.

I agree with OP about the poor quality of school breakfasts. If your school is doing a bad job, you can ask them to make changes to healthier options. Cereal and inexpensive fruit and eggs and yogurt could be within their budget. Someone just needs to push for it.

A loved child comes to school to learn.

An unloved child comes to school for love.


Don't underestimate the value of eating a meal surrounded by people who care about you.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm in no way advocating for these crappy breakfasts, OP, but FYI the whole sugar=hyper myth has been debunked.

Sugar is toxic and causes inflammation which leads to disease. In the future we will be vilified and mocked as idiots for allowing our children anywhere near it.

I thought sugar caused chicken pox

My DD had free breakfast program in her middle school, but she ate at home, so barely ate anything in school, her breakfast was usually given to someone else.

If more than 25% of kids in a classroom could come to school with empty stomach, then I think the breakfast idea is beneficial.

Anonymous wrote:I'm in no way advocating for these crappy breakfasts, OP, but FYI the whole sugar=hyper myth has been debunked.

Sugar is toxic and causes inflammation which leads to disease. In the future we will be vilified and mocked as idiots for allowing our children anywhere near it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: it all detracts from the schools mission which is to teach. If school’s returned to that mission, the education they provide would improve. Thus I’m not P-ing vinegar… I’m offering solutions that will actually help.

They can't perform their primary function of teaching if the kids are hungry. In fact, this is what makes the rest of your slippery slope hyperbolic argument nonsensical, because all these hungry people are not being taught by the school, so there is the logical extension to students only.

Did you read the post, it admits is hyperbole so calm down… its point is the kids shouldn't be hungry.

DD attends a 'low-income' school, she says no one eats the breakfast... so I'll have to agree with the original PP you responded to (what’s the acronym for that?) cynicism and all. Schools need to teach, let the parents do the rest. If you are inspired to do more, do it through your church, mosque or civil charitable services… donate to meals on wheels, etc. I want my child to attend school for an education, which is why we have a public education system. It’s transitioned over the generations to a public social service system and the education provided is increasingly wanting. We DDs parents will not only supplement that education at home but provide all the ‘social services’ necessary for DD (or seek them elsewhere for her if need be). The more the schools alleviate the parent from their parental responsibility, the less responsible they and the child will be making it more likely their education experience worsens, not improves.

Anonymous wrote: it all detracts from the schools mission which is to teach. If school’s returned to that mission, the education they provide would improve. Thus I’m not P-ing vinegar… I’m offering solutions that will actually help.

They can't perform their primary function of teaching if the kids are hungry. In fact, this is what makes the rest of your slippery slope hyperbolic argument nonsensical, because all these hungry people are not being taught by the school, so there is the logical extension to students only.

This is a good read regarding the benefits of the breakfast program:

http://www.sodexofoundation.org/hunger_us/Images/Impact%20of%20School%20Breakfast%20Study_tcm150-212606.PDF