LA Schools Want Exemption From Fraud-Fighting Verification Rule

[Jeanfromfillmore]

Originally Posted by ilbegone

I know a number of people from several school districts and this is the picture I put together from them:

English Language learner is a big cash winner for the district - there is a huge amount of money to be raked in by keeping those ready to move on classified as English learner.

I'm not sure about the idea of the Cafeteria being used for featherbedding more employees than necessary. Anymore the cafeteria is a microwave operation to heat food actually prepared and packaged elsewhere - probably by minimum wage people not represented by any union. There's not a large employee surplus at the school in that area.

The schools have been barred from asking the the true need of a family concerning taxpayer provided meals. So, there is a mix of the genuinely low income kids and kids who are dropped off by someone who lied about necessity, sometimes from expensive cars driven by people wearing expensive clothes. On the other hand there is a good proportion of the kids from all income levels who would have nothing to eat at all besides a bag of chips brought from home if it weren't for the school meals.

And there are all sorts of reasons for the low income kids, from druggie parents to broken families and single parent families to illegal foreigners who work for nothing to those who willfully exploit the system, and also the recession which knocked the legs out from under many families.

There are a lot of fingers pointed in all directions as to who is responsible for the low educational achievement. There is "teach to the test", parents who don't care, bad teachers, district policies which don't make sense to anyone, educator bias and social engineering, kids who don't speak English, over crowded classes, the list goes on and on.

It's a mixed bag, but this is my understanding.

You're correct that most, if not all, of the food is packaged. Most of it gets thrown away by the kids anyway. But, it is the parents responsibility to provide those kids a breakfast and lunch. No one gave me a free breakfast or lunch and I managed to do ok. If the kid is old enough they can make their own lunch and breakfast. It doesn't take much to put cereal and milk in a bowl. If the parents don't buy the food with those food stamps and there isn't food available and the kids are malnourished, there's child services; that's what they're paid to do.
We need to stop enabling parents to not be parents. The schools are not their parents. It's time the responsibility be where it belongs. Like I said, I had to make my own lunch and breakfast. If I forgot, then I was the one who paid the price by being hungry. I made sure I made that tuna sandwich the next day for lunch and got up early to eat breakfast. That was how I learned to be responsible for myself. There are a lot of life lessons that are learned when you have to be responsible for yourself.

[ilbegone]

Originally Posted by Jeanfromfillmore

You're correct that most, if not all, of the food is packaged. Most of it gets thrown away by the kids anyway. But, it is the parents responsibility to provide those kids a breakfast and lunch. No one gave me a free breakfast or lunch and I managed to do ok. If the kid is old enough they can make their own lunch and breakfast. It doesn't take much to put cereal and milk in a bowl. If the parents don't buy the food with those food stamps and there isn't food available and the kids are malnourished, there's child services; that's what they're paid to do.
We need to stop enabling parents to not be parents. The schools are not their parents. It's time the responsibility be where it belongs. Like I said, I had to make my own lunch and breakfast. If I forgot, then I was the one who paid the price by being hungry. I made sure I made that tuna sandwich the next day for lunch and got up early to eat breakfast. That was how I learned to be responsible for myself. There are a lot of life lessons that are learned when you have to be responsible for yourself.

You're right, that the responsibility to feed the kids lies with the parents.

However, you can't fix the problem to what should be without addressing what is, the cultural shift which has occurred since we ourselves were children.

We have a majority of a generation and a half who were largely ignored as children and therefore ignore their own children, at least until the kids get to about 13 and then the parents try to be buddy - buddy, but then it's too late.

This is in a nutshell of why those culturally American, in addition to the English learners whose parents don't want anything to do with Americanization, fail, and why those culturally American kids go hungry.

You and I can talk all day long about how the kids should eat breakfast at home and make a brown bag lunch for school, but the reality is all many of the kids know (regardless of parental income) is that bag of chips. To fail to acknowledge that fact is to fail to arrive at a cultural solution of parental responsibility.

And I will acknowledge that the schools are part of the problem, from at least the early 1980's the schools have pushed a narcissistic self view on the kids, "you're so special" - everyone gets a trophy regardless of achievement, pushed them to call 911 if parents compel obedience, and have sought to insert "educator" dogma between the myriad beliefs of individual parents and their children. I do believe that at some level there is an idea to hook kids into being dependent on a socialist ideal and to further a socialist cause. there is the idea of "give me a child of six years old and he will be mine for life".

Let's get beyond the school lunch and think about why there are now so many school shootings - which never happened in yesteryear when kids had knives, played "cowboys and Indians" or "cops and robbers", had BB guns and 22 rifles, many hunted with shot guns and rifles, went everywhere with little fear of abduction and random child molestation and so on.

We have to address the cultural shift, otherwise the talk is meaningless.

[Ayatollahgondola]

Originally Posted by ilbegone

Let's get beyond the school lunch and think about why there are now so many school shootings - which never happened in yesteryear when kids had knives, played "cowboys and Indians" or "cops and robbers", had BB guns and 22 rifles, many hunted with shot guns and rifles, went everywhere with little fear of abduction and random child molestation and so on.

We have to address the cultural shift, otherwise the talk is meaningless.

I can remember back when I was 5 or 6 years old (the late 50's), and at least two separate incidents of teens pulling knives on other students at what used to be Sac High school. Those teens probably didn't have guns is all. It's not new, but what is new is the grander population. There were bad kids back when I was in junior high, including one kid who robbed the doughnut shop next to the school, and got in a running gunfight with a cop. Both were shot. I don't think school shootings are not new per se, but rather a ratio that is becoming more publicized. We are getting more jammed together, so more restricted by our own expansion, and eventually a pipe bursts.

[ilbegone]

Originally Posted by Ayatollahgondola

I can remember back when I was 5 or 6 years old (the late 50's), and at least two separate incidents of teens pulling knives on other students at what used to be Sac High school. Those teens probably didn't have guns is all. It's not new, but what is new is the grander population. There were bad kids back when I was in junior high, including one kid who robbed the doughnut shop next to the school, and got in a running gunfight with a cop. Both were shot. I don't think school shootings are not new per se, but rather a ratio that is becoming more publicized. We are getting more jammed together, so more restricted by our own expansion, and eventually a pipe bursts.

I will concede that there were bad apples in the 50's. However, the 50's were not anything like what's going on now.

We have broken homes, single parent families, parents who might take the kids to soccer practice but otherwise ignore them (go play with your toys!), and in spite of all the modern politically correct vilification of the old Warner brothers cartoons with Foghorn Leghorn and the Dog whacking each other on the ass with two by fours, there is much more gratuitous graphic glorification of violence available through the media for consumption by children than there ever was before 1980.

It's a different world now.