Rep. Jack Kingston Proposes That Poor Students Sweep Floors In Exchange For Lunch

[Bang!Zoom!]

Intro:

 

WASHINGTON -- Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) wants kids to learn early in life that there's no such thing as a free lunch. To make sure they absorb that lesson, he's proposing that low-income children do some manual labor in exchange for their subsidized meals.

Video/Story at:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/18/jack-kingston-school-lunch_n_4467711.html

[Moxie]

Sure. As soon as criminals in prison have to work for their food. Good grief.

[Amira]

Since the rich kids are already working for their lunches?

[Mrs Mungo]

Is he part of the Dickensian school of economics?

 

Why not make ALL students work for their lunches, so they aren't leeching off of their hardworking parents?

[HRAAB]

I think he needs a visit from a few Christmas spirits.

[Alte Veste Academy]

His handlers should warn him away from impromptu brainstorming. What an ...

[ILiveInFlipFlops]

I think he needs a visit from a few Christmas spirits.

 

:lol:

[LucyStoner]

I went to a high school where everyone worked in the kitchen and made lunch.  There was a schedule and people signed up for a certain number of shifts per month.  I don't have a problem with that, but I agree it should be all the kids and not just the poor kids.  

[Jann in TX]

I worked in the lunch room in grades 5-9 for my lunch.  It was only 20 minutes each day and I still had time for a lunch/study break.

My family was 'poor' and the few dollars in savings each week really helped!  The added benefit-- it was FUN!  I loved the 'lunch ladies' I worked with-- they were great mentors and friends (many were still working at that school when I returned several years later as a teacher).

 

The 'work for your lunch' program was open to ANY student--rich or poor-- my best friend also worked with me and her famil was 'rich' (well everyone was rich compared to me!).
 

[zoobie]

I was thinking pleasedontbetheguyfromGeorgia and, well, crap.

[zoobie]

Also, as Congress isn't doing anything, can we require Representatives do some manual labor in exchange for their $174K?

[ILiveInFlipFlops]

Also, as Congress isn't doing anything, can we require Representatives do some manual labor in exchange for their $174K?

 

No kidding.

[OneStepAtATime]

Also, as Congress isn't doing anything, can we require Representatives do some manual labor in exchange for their $174K?

:iagree:  :iagree:  :iagree:  :lol:

 

 

Seriously...please...

[ILiveInFlipFlops]

:iagree:  :iagree:  :iagree:  :lol:

 

 

Seriously...please...

 

Maybe we can set up some WPA-type projects for them. I can think of some local spots that need restoration/beautifying. 

[Slartibartfast]

I wouldn't mind if they at least picked up some of the garbage they spewed.

[LucyStoner]

Congress members should totally have to open the congressional dining hall to DC area free-lunch kids and take shifts serving them food and cleaning up the kitchen.  Perhaps then they would write better bills.  

[OneStepAtATime]

Maybe we can set up some WPA-type projects for them. I can think of some local spots that need restoration/beautifying. 

 

 

I wouldn't mind if they at least picked up some of the garbage they spewed.

 

 

Also, as Congress isn't doing anything, can we require Representatives do some manual labor in exchange for their $174K?

 

 

Congress members should totally have to open the congressional dining hall to DC area free-lunch kids and take shifts serving them food and cleaning up the kitchen.  Perhaps then they would write better bills.  

Any of you interested in running?  :)

[Slartibartfast]

Any of you interested in running?   :)

 

 

I would probably get in trouble for constantly telling people I was going to punch them in the face. 

 

ETA: fellow members of congress I mean, not constituents.

[LucyStoner]

Once upon a time?  Yes.  Now or in the future?  I like myself too much.  Also, I actually like my Congresswoman and one Senator a lot.  I'm not wild about our junior Senator.  I do think it is cool that all three of these people are women though!  Not all many districts have women as all three elected officials to the federal level.  

[LucyStoner]

I would probably get in trouble for constantly telling people I was going to punch them in the face. 

 

ETA: fellow members of congress I mean, not constituents.

 

Yeah, that's a concern.  The late great Daniel Patrick Moynihan said all nice like "you are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts" and I would be more like "You can't make stupid sh!t up!  Now STFU before I give you something to cry about!"  I fear there are too not enough people like DPM in Congress anymore.  

[Slartibartfast]

Yeah, that's a concern.  The late great Daniel Patrick Moynihan said all nice like "you are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts" and I would be more like "You can't make stupid sh!t up!  Now STFU before I give you something to cry about!"  I fear there are too not enough people like DPM in Congress anymore.  

 

 

I agree.

 

It seems the great statesman is a dying breed.

[Mrs Mungo]

Yeah, that's a concern. The late great Daniel Patrick Moynihan said all nice like "you are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts" and I would be more like "You can't make stupid sh!t up! Now STFU before I give you something to cry about!" I fear there are too not enough people like DPM in Congress anymore.

Or one could always quote Davy Crockett (edited because my fingers typed Daniel Boone while I was thinking Davy Crockett):

"What in the nation have you done this year? Why, waste paper enough to calculate all your political sins upon, and that would take a sheet for each one o' you as long as the Mississippi. and as broad as all Kentucky. You've gone ahead in doin' nothin' backwards, till the hull nation's done up. You've spouted out a Mount Etny o' gas, chawed a hull Allegheny o' tobacco, spit a Niagary o' juice, told a hail storm o' lies, drunk a Lake Superior o' liquor, and all, as you say, for the good o' the nation; but I say, I swar, for her etarnal bankruptification!"

[Slartibartfast]

Or one could always quote Davy Crockett (edited because my fingers typed Daniel Boone while I was thinking Davy Crockett):

"What in the nation have you done this year? Why, waste paper enough to calculate all your political sins upon, and that would take a sheet for each one o' you as long as the Mississippi. and as broad as all Kentucky. You've gone ahead in doin' nothin' backwards, till the hull nation's done up. You've spouted out a Mount Etny o' gas, chawed a hull Allegheny o' tobacco, spit a Niagary o' juice, told a hail storm o' lies, drunk a Lake Superior o' liquor, and all, as you say, for the good o' the nation; but I say, I swar, for her etarnal bankruptification!"

 

Or Davey Crocket

 

"You can go to Hell, I'm goin' to Texas."

 

[LucyStoner]

The nation can no more go on as this as an eel can swim in a tea kettle's steam!  

 

(Paraphrased from the same speech as Mrs. Mungo quoted.)

[Slartibartfast]

The nation can no more go on as this as an eel can swim in a tea kettle's steam!  

 

(Paraphrased from the same speech as Mrs. Mungo quoted.)

 

:lol:

 

I am partial to a  nice old fashioned wild simile.

[Mrs Mungo]

:lol:

 

I am partial to a nice old fashioned wild simile.

They are very Shakespearian.

[lovinmomma]

Ack! That makes me SO angry. Can you imagine how it would make the "poor" kids to feel cleaning up while all of the "rich" kids watch? Seriously? I don't have an issue with ALL kids helping. I love the school models that have gardens, etc. and the school works as a community to provide their meals.

[LucyStoner]

I would probably get in trouble for constantly telling people I was going to punch them in the face. 

 

ETA: fellow members of congress I mean, not constituents.

 

To be fair though, there are likely some constituents who could use a little punch in the face.  There's some real nutters out there.  Look at Gabby Giffords's shooter.  

[OneStepAtATime]

Well, I'm paying my bills with a smile on my face.  Thanks, fellow posters!

[Slartibartfast]

To be fair though, there are likely some constituents who could use a little punch in the face.  There's some real nutters out there.  Look at Gabby Giffords's shooter.  

 

 

Yeah having had a family member with that sort of mental illness it is a chilling thing to see. I think it is just a sad testament of the state of mental health care system in this country. People who knew him weren't surprised. :( 

 

 

[Mrs Mungo]

Well, I'm paying my bills with a smile on my face. Thanks, fellow posters!

Nothing brings people together like hating on Congress!

[Mergath]

Good grief.  Yeah, let's make those poor kindergartners work for their food, and really teach them a lesson.  Next time, they'll be sure to... be born to wealthier parents?

 

That's all I can say about this without going off on a rage-filled vent.  I saw this earlier today, and I've been fuming about it ever since.

[FaithManor]

Has anyone seen Scrooged with Bill Murray? I volunteer to be the ghost of Christmas present, don fairy

wings, and smack him in the chops with a shiny stainless steel toaster.

 

I have many adjectives to adequately describe this idiot, but none of them are nice enough.

 

I think that at the next state dinner, he and his buddies should sweep and mop before dinner and wash

after...the taxpayers should get some sort of manual labor in exchange for his free meal.

 

I hope someone at least smacked him on the back of the head upon returning to his

office.

[LucyStoner]

Are there no poorhouses?  

 

We could just put toddlers to work for their WIC milk.  Lazy little children drinking all that free milk and cereal!

[bolt.]

What's the rationale behind free meals at school anyways?

 

I hear all thd time about this and I just don't understand. How can there possibly be so many children whose parents can't/won't pack them a lunch -- and if they can't/won't feed their children one of the 3 meals of the day, every day... How is it that it's not called neglect?

 

Honestly, I know you do it in the US, but setting up a widespread at-school feeding program seems really like a 3rd world solution to abject poverty, like for children in a drought-stricken farm community. It's what my missionary friends do in Haiti. Is child poverty really that bad in the US? Is this really a proportional solution? Or is it disproportional? Or is it just a part if your culture that I can't connect with?

[Anne in CA]

I would not object to PARENTS working for their kid's lunch. I think it would be reasonable. But the kids themselves???? The words evil idiot are too charitable IMO.

[momacacia]

Gosh, and I thought "poor students" meant students who weren't studying and were performing poorly. Seems study hall would be a better solution for that, in any case, but okay . . . real life consequences for doing poorly in school. Otherwise, still trying to get my head around this.

 

It would save some taxpayer dollars, though, if all the kids cleaned the school for 20 minutes before their taxpayer-funded lunch. :coolgleamA:

[goldberry]

DH has been saying that we always had people like this in public office, but at least they tried to hide it and behave somewhat respectfully in public.  Now, they are blatant about it.  I seriously think it's the gerrymandering issue!  We hear about elected officials making these outrageous statements, and yet THEY STILL GET RE-ELECTED.  That's the scary part. 

[meena]

What's the rationale behind free meals at school anyways?

 

I hear all thd time about this and I just don't understand. How can there possibly be so many children whose parents can't/won't pack them a lunch -- and if they can't/won't feed their children one of the 3 meals of the day, every day... How is it that it's not called neglect?

 

Honestly, I know you do it in the US, but setting up a widespread at-school feeding program seems really like a 3rd world solution to abject poverty, like for children in a drought-stricken farm community. It's what my missionary friends do in Haiti. Is child poverty really that bad in the US? Is this really a proportional solution? Or is it disproportional? Or is it just a part if your culture that I can't connect with?

 

For many children school lunch is their only meal of the day. Yes, it is neglect if their parents won't feed them properly but in many cases it's that they can't due to poverty. At least with school meals they are given at least 1 meal (and possibly 2 as most schools now offer breakfast as well). What would be a better solution?

[LucyStoner]

What's the rationale behind free meals at school anyways?

 

I hear all thd time about this and I just don't understand. How can there possibly be so many children whose parents can't/won't pack them a lunch -- and if they can't/won't feed their children one of the 3 meals of the day, every day... How is it that it's not called neglect?

 

Honestly, I know you do it in the US, but setting up a widespread at-school feeding program seems really like a 3rd world solution to abject poverty, like for children in a drought-stricken farm community. It's what my missionary friends do in Haiti. Is child poverty really that bad in the US? Is this really a proportional solution? Or is it disproportional? Or is it just a part if your culture that I can't connect with?

Child poverty in the United States is a huge problem.  Slightly more than 1 in 5 American children are below the poverty line and approx. another 1 in 5 are not too far above it.  Many, many children eat 1-2 meals at school everyday.  For some of those kids, they will not have enough to eat for dinner and the weekend.  

 

I am not happy with the way the lunch program is structured and the food that is used but ending our school lunch program would be a real hardship to a lot of people.  We do not have the same sort of social safety net though that you enjoy in Canada.  I think your rate of child poverty overall is considerably lower.  

 

I ate free lunch as a child.  While I would have eaten something even if not, I know people not as fortunate and when I say that I am saying people not as fortunate as me.  So not as fortunate as a child who came to school from a motel or a van sometimes and was very close to homelessness at many other times.  The money not spent on lunch and breakfast was money that went to keep us sheltered and warm.  I am not saying this is an efficient model of help, just providing an example of benefiting from the school lunch program.  Considering that I am the first college grad in my mom's family and my own kids are not being raised in poverty, I like to think I was a good investment.  Kids need to eat to learn.  

 

ETA:  sorry, I don't think that I know where you are.  For some reason Canada came to mind.  Excuse me if I am totally wrong!

[Dandelion]

What a tool. 

[Renee in NC]

What's the rationale behind free meals at school anyways?

 

I hear all thd time about this and I just don't understand. How can there possibly be so many children whose parents can't/won't pack them a lunch -- and if they can't/won't feed their children one of the 3 meals of the day, every day... How is it that it's not called neglect?

 

Honestly, I know you do it in the US, but setting up a widespread at-school feeding program seems really like a 3rd world solution to abject poverty, like for children in a drought-stricken farm community. It's what my missionary friends do in Haiti. Is child poverty really that bad in the US? Is this really a proportional solution? Or is it disproportional? Or is it just a part if your culture that I can't connect with?

 

As someone who works closely with CPS/DSS and foster children as a volunteer - poverty is never neglect.  Regardless of how anyone feels about the parents and their choices, it isn't the fault of the children.

 

Our school PTA works to collect food that is sent home with children for the weekends.

[OneStepAtATime]

Are there no poorhouses?  

 

We could just put toddlers to work for their WIC milk.  Lazy little children drinking all that free milk and cereal!

My dog woke me up at 4am to go potty and I hopped on the board with my phone as I was heading back into the bedroom.  I had to leap in the bathroom and shut the door so my laughter wouldn't wake poor hubby.... :lol:  :lol:  :lol:

[Jane in NC]

What's the rationale behind free meals at school anyways?

 

I hear all thd time about this and I just don't understand. How can there possibly be so many children whose parents can't/won't pack them a lunch -- and if they can't/won't feed their children one of the 3 meals of the day, every day... How is it that it's not called neglect?

 

Honestly, I know you do it in the US, but setting up a widespread at-school feeding program seems really like a 3rd world solution to abject poverty, like for children in a drought-stricken farm community. It's what my missionary friends do in Haiti. Is child poverty really that bad in the US? Is this really a proportional solution? Or is it disproportional? Or is it just a part if your culture that I can't connect with?

 

While the US is an affluent country, the disparity between rich and poor grows greater by the day.

 

One problem faced by many Americans is lack of access to health care--one illness or one accident can result in a tremendous financial disaster.  Food is/should be a priority, but a dollar can only be spread so far.

 

My heart bleeds for a single parent of three children whom I know.  Her husband left her, he quit making car payments so her vehicle was repossessed.  Yeah, she needs a good lawyer and all that but in the meantime her children must eat.

 

I know, anecdotes don't prove the rule but this case provides a very human face to poverty in my immediate world.

[Jane in NC]

I sometimes wonder the same, but here it's like 90% get free or reduced lunch.  This year now they just give free lunch to everyone irregardless.  I guess it's part of some new method they get reimbursed for the lunches. 

 

Apparently that many people are hard up around here.  A family does have to have a pretty low income to qualify.

 

A family member teaches in a school that offers breakfast to all because of high poverty.  This school is near a major military base.  Maybe Mrs. Mungo can weigh in on this....

[OneStepAtATime]

As someone who works closely with CPS/DSS and foster children as a volunteer - poverty is never neglect.  Regardless of how anyone feels about the parents and their choices, it isn't the fault of the children.

 

Our school PTA works to collect food that is sent home with children for the weekends.

My SIL teaches kids in an extremely impoverished area.  Many of them wear the same clothes to school every day and their parents are starving themselves so their children will have at least SOMETHING to eat for dinner.  The free lunch at school is their only real source of consistent food.  The parents of most of these kids are not willfully neglecting their children.  They just don't have the resources, education and support to follow a better path.  Free lunches really don't address the overall issue, though.  It just limps the kids along to the next meal.  Glad they have it, but I wish there were a more effective global method of dealing with this issue.

 

When my church Sunday School class several years ago was patting themselves on the back for every Christmas bringing shoes and clothing to this one family they had been helping for the past 3 years, I became rather unpopular when I suggested we pitch in to help the single parent mom with virtually no education and no job to learn how to read, learn a marketable skill to get a job and to take turns babysitting her kids when she needed to deal with medical issues or go on job interviews or work on her reading and other educational needs and generally help get her out of the situation she was in, not just help them limp along a little.  Why not actually do something that genuinely helps long-term?  Why wouldn't they want to do that?  Our class was really large.  Plenty of people to share the work.  She had 5 kids.  We wouldn't just be helping her, we'd be helping her kids and her kids' kids, and so on...And yet they voted not to and then lost contact with her right afterwards because she was forcibly evicted from her home for lack of rent payment.  It still bothers me that I didn't try harder to get her some help and I wonder what happened to her.  

[OneStepAtATime]

The area I live in doesn't have free lunches for all, but most of the families in my immediate area are middle class or in some cases upper middle class.  However, there is a city nearby that finally started doing free lunches for all because over 80% of the kids fell below the poverty line and it was hard to keep track of who shouldn't get a free lunch.  It actually made lunch flow more smoothly.  The kids eat in shifts and everyone gets food.  Not sure if it is good food, but it is food.  My SIL teaches at a school about 30 min from here where a ton of kids are way, way below the poverty line so they get free lunches, too, the whole school.

 

What is weird is the charter school that now REQUIRES children to eat breakfast at their school.  You have to be there in time to eat breakfast or you are considered tardy and you have to eat what they serve, you cannot bring your own or just show up for school after breakfast is over.   Why in the world would they make this mandatory?  What about the kids that get a really well-balanced meal at home and have no desire to eat pop tarts for breakfast (yes, sometimes they serve pop-tarts)?

[OneStepAtATime]

Yeah this would make me mad.  I guess it makes it easier for them to plan on how much food they need, but I don't see how a pop tart is better than what I serve.

 

They serve pop tarts here too.

Made me mad and it doesn't even affect me.  Heavy sigh...

[bettyandbob]

 

What is weird is the charter school that now REQUIRES children to eat breakfast at their school.  You have to be there in time to eat breakfast or you are considered tardy and you have to eat what they serve, you cannot bring your own or just show up for school after breakfast is over.   Why in the world would they make this mandatory?  What about the kids that get a really well-balanced meal at home and have no desire to eat pop tarts for breakfast (yes, sometimes they serve pop-tarts)?

 

 

attending a charter school is a choice. It is not the neighborhood school to which a student is assigned by address. So, those parents are choosing to comply with the breakfast policy or accept consequences. 

[Jane in NC]

In my public high school, the janitorial staff had one adult, and several part-time teen male students. They were always from families who needed the income -- maybe their farm hadn't done well, or a dad had been injured or mom had died.  No one gave them a hard time. They worked from 3 to 5 daily.  And this carp about throwing your food on the lunchroom floor that we have up here in NY...didn't happen. No one wasted food. If someone didn't want their apple or their milk or their soup, they'd pass it down the table until someone that was hungry took it (usually an older boy).

 

The high school aged 'poor' here in my area of NY have so many benefits that they sell their 'free' lunches to the children of the working poor students.  The going rate is a dollar. The children of the working poor sell goods and snacks out of their backpacks to other students in order to afford that.

 

On your first point:  One of the high schools near me has a marketing club that runs a coffee shop in their school.  The difference between this group or a couple of kids in your area doing custodial work vs. the Kingston plan is that the latter would be mandatory.  Where I live, poor children staying after school would miss the bus ride home.  Maybe these kids you mention live on farms that are walking/biking distance from school?

 

I am all for kids learning how to run a business or making a few bucks pushing a broom where feasible.  In fact, my son attended a Montessori school through sixth grade where children had assigned weekly chores that included dusting, sweeping, trash removal, etc.  Children did not clean toilets or use disinfectants like bleach though. 

 

On your last point:  Oh my!  This is not the case in rural NC where I live.  I am surprised that the school administration allows this sort of capitalism on campus.