For perspective: I come from a country where “cafeteria” food at school is good and affordable (most is less than the equivalent of 5-10 USD max and it’s not slop, it’s actual food), but it’s not an obligation for everyone since it’s up to the student if they want to buy something or bring their own lunch.
The “cafeteria” in my school isn’t a typical American one, rather it’s closer to a canteen where they sell food you can purchase from cup noodles, fried stuff, sandwiches, baked goods, etc. also appliances like a kettle or microwave are available in the dining hall for students to heat up left overs if they wanted.
The thing I tend to notice from American schools (according to US movies, there’s bias whether it’s true or false) is that they tend to depict kids always heading for the cafeteria for recess or lunch picking up whats available instead of bringing their own food from home (left overs from dinner), why is that the case?
Some US states already do this. It’s mainly unpopular in red states, though, because their ‘protect the children’ rhetoric ends when it stops being synonymous with harming women.
I have a school age child in a super red state and I am rather surprised we have had free school lunches and even breakfast for the last 4-5 years. Granted, poverty is really high around here and I am certain that this is most kids’ best meal of the day so it may not be high quality, but its better than an empty stomach. This is all paid for with tax money which is something I am totally in favor of. The bigger issue is summertime hunger since those same kids are out of school for about 3 months so they even offer a meal option during that time as well but I am not sure how it works since we don’t use that service.
100% agreed on the point made about how conservatives only seem to care about fetuses and consider them grease for the machinery once they get born but somehow this backward-ass state is doing the right thing…for now at least.
Not to overly repeat myself, but as discussed in the book “dying of whiteness”, there’s a lot of people that would rather their kid go hungry than a black kid get a meal.