Privatization of School Food Service: Unhealthy for Kids and Little Cost Savings
How the Food Industry Eats Your Kid’s Lunch
Heather Ainsworth for The New York Times
By LUCY KOMISAR Published: December 3, 2011 NYTimes
An increasingly cozy alliance between companies that manufacture processed foods and companies that serve the meals is making students — a captive market — fat and sick while pulling in hundreds of millions of dollars in profits. At a time of fiscal austerity, these companies are seducing school administrators with promises to cut costs through privatization. Parents who want healthier meals, meanwhile, are outgunned.Each day, 32 million children in the United States get lunch at schools that participate in the National School Lunch Program, which uses agricultural surplus to feed children. About 21 million of these students eat free or reduced-price meals, a number that has surged since the recession. The program, which also provides breakfast, costs $13.3 billion a year.
Sadly, it is being mismanaged and exploited. About a quarter of the school nutrition program has been privatized, much of it outsourced to food service management giants like Aramark, based in Philadelphia; Sodexo, based in France; and the Chartwells division of the Compass Group, based in Britain. They work in
Newt Gingrich’s War on Poor Children
By CHARLES M. BLOW Published: December 2, 2011 NYTimes Nearly two weeks after claiming that child labor laws are “truly stupid” and implying that poor children should be put to work as janitors in their schools, he now claims that poor children don’t understand work unless they’re doing something illegal. On Thursday, at a campaign [...]
Gail Collins on Virtual Education
Virtually Educated By GAIL COLLINS Published: December 2, 2011 NYTimes I always thought that the only kids getting their entire public schooling online were in the hospital, living in the Alaskan tundra, or pursuing a career as a singing orphan in the road company of “Annie.” Not so. There are now around 250,000 cyberschool students [...]
Recall Argument That Makes Real Sense
A recall effort to preserve rights Wisconsin residents fervently want their government to do what’s best for the state. But many disagree on what that is. By Peggy Williams Dec. 1, 2011 |(310) Comments MJS There has been much debate in the media as to whether there should be a recall of Gov. Scott Walker. [...]
SAGE Works in MPS
Congratulate kids, don’t belittle them By Angela McManaman Dec. 3, 2011 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel I was insulted by the tone and startled by the inaccuracies in the Nov. 20 Crossroads op-ed on Wisconsin’s SAGE class-size reduction program. Christian Schneider of the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute called the program a “horror” for Wisconsin, asserting the only [...]
Economic Development in Milwaukee Falls Far Short of Meeting Our Needs
Laborers vote with their feet when firms offer no security By Michael Rosen Dec. 3, 2011 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Wisconsin’s manufacturers are facing a skilled labor shortage of machinists, operators, craft workers, distributors and technicians. In response, the Milwaukee 7, southeastern Wisconsin’s regional development organization of business and community leaders, has announced a public relations [...]
Governor Scott Walker Not Allowed to Speak at Chicago Business Breakfast
The Occupy Chicago movement prevented Scott Walker from speaking at a business breakfast November 3rd in Chicago. Take a look. To view Walker’s humiliation go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KET6XK1E4CQ
More on Rocketship Charters
A Retro-Rocketship to the Future: Corporate Education Reform Blasts Off in Silicon Valley Written by Adam Bessie The Daily Censored, Nov 18, 2011 Rocketship is blasting off in Silicon Valley, with great fanfare – and no, it’s not a new tech start up, propelled by the genius of another 22-year old wunderkind who has invented [...]
Louisiana Law Makes It Easy for New Orleans Charters to Expel Students
Louisiana Charter Law on Expulsion Charters in Louisiana operate under different rules than traditional public schools. They can expel students for minor infractions or simply expel those students who might contribute to lowering test scores. If “behavior problem” students and special education students, who often are challenged by standardized tests, are taken out of the [...]