How Free School Meals Went Mainstream
www.nytimes.com
Over the past decade, many more schools started to offer free meals to all children, regardless of family income.
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    30 days ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:

    Kurt Marthaller, who oversees school food programs in Butte, Mont., faces many cafeteria-related challenges: children skipping the lunch line because they fear being judged, parents fuming about surprise bills they can’t afford, unpaid meal debts of $70,000 districtwide.

    Their first big win came quietly, in 2010, when Congress passed an under-the-radar policy called the community eligibility provision, which made it easier for schools to serve free meals to all.

    In 2010, the first lady, Michelle Obama, who made childhood obesity a signature issue, pressed for the passage of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, which led school cafeterias to serve more fruits, vegetables and whole grains and less salt, sugar and unhealthy fats.

    “I certainly did not foresee that a little more than 10 years later, 20 million kids would be enrolled in schools that were doing C.E.P.,” said Cindy Long, administrator of the Food and Nutrition Service of the Agriculture Department, who helped design the 2010 act.

    To pay for the programs, California, Maine, Minnesota, New Mexico, Vermont and Michigan tapped general revenue or education funds; Massachusetts and Colorado raised taxes on their highest earners.

    There is no cash register, and at lunchtime, children whiz through the line, grabbing trays of applesauce and teriyaki-doused “steakettes.” They plop down next to friends eating peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches from colorful lunchboxes.

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