There are now
4 Rs in Philly schools:
In a locally unprecedented move, the School District of Philadelphia will hold principals accountable for the number of students eating breakfast in their schools.
Breakfast participation will be part of the report card that rates principals each year, along with categories such as attendance and math and reading performance.
All 165,000 students in Philadelphia public schools, regardless of income, are eligible for free breakfasts. But just 54,000 ate breakfast last year, district figures show.
The new system, which begins this year, is expected to increase the number of students eating breakfast, said Jonathan Stein, a lawyer with Community Legal Services, whose efforts - along with those of Public Citizens for Children and Youth (PCCY) - helped bring about the move.
Many studies have shown that breakfast boosts student performance and health.
Want to read the most discouraging comment in the whole article?
"This is the first accountability system for school meals in the history of the school system," Stein said. "It's very exciting."
I'll bet it's the only accountability system in the school...period. Who cares if they can pass their tests as long as they have a good government-funded breakfast.
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3 comments:
Since when did it become the school's job to feed kids, especially breakfast? Silly me, for thinking this is the parent's job.
And the City of Phialdelphia just raised its sales tax an extra 1%, presumably to cover their budget shortfall. It's no wonder why they have a shortfall.
Even if eligible, it's hard to eat the breakfast if you aren't there. This is classic, actually. It's the old "can lead a horse to water, but can't make him drink" conundrum. Thankfully, mine's not eligible nor there at breakfast time. (A win-win.)
Usually in an educational setting the lament is more about getting Johnny to pay attention to the aforementioned Rs, but -- hmm -- educational goals go in lots of new directions these days.
My recommendation: maybe they'll even get the kids arriving for school in time for the free meal, but we won't know if they've actually eaten it without other evidence. Maybe they can inspect the trash cans as part of their eating enforcement.
Or the toilets. Their pick.
Principals held accountable. . . but not the parents of these children. Why and how did this sad state of affairs come about?
Abandoning your kids to the government ought to be a crime!
Of course, the next step, already underway in lots of government schools, is before and after school day care. It's already here. The government meals are merely part and parcel of all of that kind of thinking.
How sad people don't value their freedoms while there is still yet time. . .
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