To the Teacher
This lesson consists of two readings on free school meals programs in the United States. The first reading reviews the recent expansion of programs that provide free meals to students and discusses some of the benefits that may come from such programs. The second reading takes an in-depth look at how a state-level initiative to provide free school meals has played out in Minnesota, which adopted a statewide program after federal funding expired in 2022. Questions for discussion follow each reading as well as a post-reading small group activity in which students consider other universal programs that could benefit young people.
Reading One: The Rise of Free School Meals
While an old saying holds that “there is no such thing as free lunch,” some students may disagree. In recent years, this country has seen a significant expansion in government programs that provide meals to young people free of charge when they go to school. The federal government has been using similar programs to feed students whose families had limited incomes since 1946. But these initiatives were dramatically expanded in response to the COVID-19 pandemic with the federal government temporarily opening up its free lunch program to include all students nationwide.
In a September 2024 article for The Conversation, professor of Human Development and Family Sciences at the University of Connecticut, Marlene Schwartz, and Professor of Nutrition and Public Health at Merrimack College, Juliana Cohen, discussed the sudden expansion of free meals programs in American schools. Schwartz and Cohen wrote:
In March 2020, Congress realized that more students might face food insecurity – not having consistent access to enough nutritious food – due to school closures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. So, lawmakers temporarily authorized the U.S. Department of Agriculture to provide school meals at no cost for all students nationwide and to give schools more flexibility in terms of how they could distribute food to families with children.
This unexpected natural experiment illustrated the benefits of providing healthy meals for all children. Eight states – California, Colorado, New Mexico, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota and Vermont – have chosen to provide free meals for all public school students since the USDA stopped funding universal free school meals after the 2021-22 school year….
Some states have instead opted to expand access to free meals without making them universal, including Connecticut, Arizona, Louisiana and Texas. They are providing free meals to students who were previously eligible for reduced-price meals. New Jersey has increased the number of students with access to free meals at its public schools by 60,000.
At the federal level, the USDA expanded access to the Community Eligibility Provision in the fall of 2023. This enables individual schools or entire school districts with large numbers of low-income students to provide free meals to all students. This policy was originally implemented as part of the Obama administration’s Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010. The number of schools where all kids get free meals is rising. Nearly 20 million U.S. children attended a public or charter school participating in the Community Eligibility Provision during the 2022-23 school year, up 22.5% from the prior school year.
Due to all the steps taken to increase access to free meals, about two-thirds of public and charter school students received school meals for free during the 2023-24 school year.
While government programs providing free food to school students are not new, they have historically been limited to students whose families apply and prove that they fit within the income limitations for the program. Such government services are referred to as means-tested benefits. These types of programs can have the effect of stigmatizing those who receive free meals. For that reason, some eligible students may become wary of taking advantage of the benefits to which they are entitled. However, the recent expansions of free meals programs instead provide meals to all students who physically attend school, regardless of income. Such programs are referred to as universal benefits.
One group of students that benefit from universal school meals are those whose families were previously not eligible for free meals, but that still struggled to make ends meet. Universal free meals also help students who were previously eligible for benefits but who did not take advantage of them, either because of stigma or because their families had not filled out the paperwork. Whatever the case, universal programs help lessen food expenses for all families participating, including those with higher incomes.
While some detractors are critical of the potential of free meals programs to support wealthier families, and therefore to inefficiently use limited resources, advocates of universal free meals see the support for all families, regardless of income, as a positive. In an August 2024 article for The New York Times, food culture journalist Kim Severson reviewed some of the major benefits that free school meals provide. Severson wrote:
Free school meals can ease hunger, and help families who may not be poor enough to meet federal requirements but can’t afford to pay full price. By providing them to all, school districts can find better uses — like buying better food — for money and staff time that was spent vetting applications for free lunch and managing who gets what kind of meal.
Free school meals lead to better performance in class and can help rectify racial inequities. They also open the door for more creative approaches that might cost less in the long run, like buying more local food and providing healthy meals with less meat.
Universal school food can prevent “lunch shaming,” a term that has become popular to describe what happens to families with unpaid school-meal debt. A student might go through the cafeteria line, but have the meal taken away in front of other students because the family lunch account has an outstanding balance. Sometimes, a child with school-lunch debt will be given a substitute, like a peanut butter sandwich.
The argument is that schools foot the cost of computers and desks. So why not food, which is essential to learning?
[https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/13/dining/free-school-lunch-programs.html]
Additional studies show that universal school meals are associated with higher student attendance and lower food insecurity rates among the student bodies of participating schools. Conversely, a lack of consistent access to food has been linked to a host of problems for students, including challenges making friends, poorer academic performance, and lower graduation rates.
For Discussion:
- How much of the material in this reading was new to you, and how much was already familiar? Do you have any questions about what you read? What personal connections, thoughts, or feelings did you have about what you read?
- According to the reading, what factors prompted the federal government to expand universal school meal programs? What happened to these programs after 2022?
- According to the reading, what are some of the benefits of universal school meal programs?
- What is the difference between a “means tested” and a “universal” benefit. What might be some of the pros and cons of each?
- How do advocates for universal free meals programs respond to critics who argue that the government should not be supporting families with higher incomes? What do you think of this response?
Reading Two: Free Meals Spread in Minnesota
The federal government’s pandemic-era program to provide free school meals expired in 2022 and was not renewed by the United States Congress. Nevertheless, the temporary expansion of the initiative inspired many states to deepen their efforts to feed their students. Thirty-five states introduced legislation to establish free school meals for all students. Most of these states fell short of doing so, but many were still able to expand access. Eight states were able to establish permanent and universal programs. One of these states was Minnesota.
On March 17, 2023, Minnesota became the fourth state to establish a universal school meals initiative, dubbed the Free School Meals for Kids Program. The program did not come into existence overnight, however. It took years of concerted effort from activists, including a coalition of more than 25 state and national organizations, lobbying their lawmakers to put the legislation to a vote.
In a December 2023 article for Minnesota Public Radio News, education reporter Elizabeth Shockman described how a state budget surplus allowed school districts to improve their cafeteria services. Shockman wrote:
Flush with a huge projected state budget surplus, Gov. Tim Walz last spring signed a bill providing free breakfasts and lunches at schools across the state to any kid, regardless of family income.
He predicted the free meals would ease stress on parents and help reduce childhood poverty and “food insecurity” in Minnesota. Thousands of kids took him up on the offer.
Many schools this fall saw demand for meals jump. In Northfield Public Schools, student breakfast counts rose by nearly two-thirds from the prior year, with lunches up 20 percent. Roseville Area Schools saw similar numbers — 30 percent more kids eating lunch in the cafeteria and 50 percent more eating breakfast….
The infusion of money and popularity of the school meals program has [allowed] Roseville to improve their overall nutrition program, officials said. The district’s supervisor of nutrition services, Angela Richey, said her team is upgrading kitchen equipment, training staff and planning to invest more in sourcing healthy ingredients from local farmers.
“Aside from the larger positive result of reducing stigma around school meals, increasing participation allows us to invest in great food, invest in the growth of our farm-to-school program, invest in staff training, [promote a] return to focus on [from-scratch] cooking, [and] upgrading failing kitchen equipment,” Richey said. “This infusion of funds because of participation is just allowing us to better our program.”
Getting the program off the ground in Minnesota came with logistical wrinkles. Some districts scrambled to meet the sudden rise in participation among students. The program has also cost the state roughly $80 million more over a two-year period than initially expected. Such cost overruns were not atypical for states that have recently established free meal programs. Six of eight states providing free meals spent more than expected in their first year, mainly because they based their demand predictions on the participation rates of students during the pandemic, when attendance levels were lower than normal.
Nevertheless, in Minnesota, free meals legislation has proven popular in the court of public opinion. A February 2024 poll from the KSTP/SurveyUSA found that over 70 percent of Minnesota voters approved of the program, with majorities of both self-identified liberals and conservatives expressing their support.
In an October 2024 article for CBS News, reporters Adam Duxter and Stephen Swanson recapped the results of the program. Duxter and Swanson wrote:
One year into the Minnesota Free School Meals Program, the state's [Democratic] leaders are defending the decision to go millions of dollars over budget to serve nearly 150 million meals to students.
A handful of leaders, including Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, spent Wednesday morning dishing out breakfast at Maple Grove's Oak View Elementary School to mark one year of the program, and the release of the Minnesota Department of Education's preliminary summary.
Flanagan says in the program's first year, the state's 870,000 eligible K-12 students have each been served about 173 meals, saving parents about $1,000 per child….
She says while funding ballooned to about $267 million in year one, the program is worth every penny.
"We have made the decision that this is absolutely worth the investments," Flanagan said. "We see that attendance numbers have gone up, and I think these investments in feeding children, nutrition, healthy development, when we think about what this means for the long-term overall success of our state, that is a price I think that Minnesotans are absolutely willing to pay…."
The education department says it's looking to offset even more of that cost, and parents WCCO spoke with on Wednesday at Oak View say they're on board with the plan.
"For me as a mom, if they forget to eat breakfast at home, I know that they have an option to get it when they get to school," said parent Natalie Anderson.
[https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/news/minnesota-free-school-meal-program-over-budget/]
Although Minnesota’s program has proven popular, it may face challenges in coming years. The state relies on partial funding from the federal government’s free or reduced-price meals program to maintain its universal initiative. Should lawmakers in Washington who are hostile to the idea of providing free school meals scale back federal support, Minnesota and states like it could be forced to cover larger bills than expected.
For Discussion:
- How much of the material in this reading was new to you, and how much was already familiar? Do you have any questions about what you read? What personal connections, thoughts, or feelings did you have about what you read?
- According to the reading, how many states introduced legislation to establish universal school meals programs after federal funding expired in 2022? In how many states did the legislation pass?
- According to Roseville Area Schools officials, what has been the impact of Minnesota’s Free School Meals for Kids Program on their cafeterias?
- After addressing the cost overruns in Minnesota’s Free School Meals for Kids Program, that state’s Lieutenant Governor of Minnesota Peggy Flanagan argued that “We have made the decision that this is absolutely worth the investments.” What evidence did she provide to support her claim? Do you agree or disagree with her reasoning?
- Do some research: Has your state introduced a bill to expand its free school meals program after the federal program expired? Report back on whether or not a bill has been introduced or passed.
Post-Reading Activity: Small Group Presentations
Invite students to consider other services or resources that most young people could benefit from but may not have access to. Provide some ideas to spark their thinking (housing, technology, clothing, arts programs/classes, etc.)
Then, in small groups, invite them to consider a plan to make this service or resource universally available. Have them provide reasons why it should be universal and list as many of the positive outcomes they can think of resulting from this plan.
Students may create videos, PowerPoints or posters depending on the materials and technology you have available in your classrooms. They should then present their ideas for universal programs to the rest of the class.
– Research assistance provided by Sean Welch