Washington Post did an article on this Sunday, how timely-
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/17/AR2010121702561.html
5 MYTHS ABOUT SCHOOL FOOD:
1. School meals are free for the children who really need them.
This is certainly the intent of the National School Lunch and Breakfast programs, which offer free and reduced meals to children, based on their families' income, as well as full-price meals to any student. Currently, students are eligible for free meals if that income is below 130 percent of the federal poverty line -- $23,803 for a family of three, for instance -- and for reduced-price meals if it is somewhat higher -- up to $33,874 for that family of three.
Unfortunately, these thresholds are unrealistically low, especially in areas with high living costs. The 2008 Household Food Security survey by the U.S. Department of Agriculture found that more than a fifth of households with the most severe form of food insecurity -- in which children themselves sometimes went without meals -- had incomes above the cutoff for reduced price school meals.
Even some children whose family incomes are low enough to qualify for free school meals never actually get them. The process for establishing eligibility is cumbersome, expensive and prone to mistakes. In a recent USDA study, more than a third of children denied certification for free or reduced price meals were found to have been denied in error. And even after getting approval, at some schools a child must wait each time as a cafeteria cashier checks eligibility.
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Finally, there is a stigma attached to free meals, which deters some families from applying and discourages some students from eating the meals for which they qualify. Direct certification, a process in which state or local welfare agencies notify schools of eligible children, has been shown to reduce mistakes and bring more kids into the program. The new law contains a modest expansion of that procedure. But the only way to fully eliminate the errors, the administrative burden and the stigma, is to provide school meals the way we provide books, desks and chairs: free for all.