According to government figures cited in a recent Nevada Appeal story, the next time you go to the playground in Carson City and watch a Little League baseball game, know that the families of eight of the nine kids on the field are “poor.” As such, every one of those kids except, say, the pitcher, will qualify for a free or reduced-cost meal at school this year.
Well, not really “free.” It’s taxpayer-funded. The old adage is still true: There’s no free lunch.
In any event, something is definitely wrong when 85 percent of Carson City’s kids are dining at school on the taxpayer gravy train, but it’s not what they’d like us to think it is. Folks, those are ghetto-like numbers. Are we to believe that Carson City is the Harlem of Nevada? Or is it more likely that there’s something wrong with the government’s numbers?
My bet is that the government is cooking the books somehow in order to keep draining $69 million a year from taxpayers to fund the ever-expanding school lunch program - which I believe now includes breakfast, as well. Like, maybe what the government considers “low income” isn’t what you and I would consider low income?
For example, in Congress right now there’s a debate on whether or not to fund an expansion of SCHIP, a taxpayer-funded government program which provides “free” health care to poor kids. But did you know that in the House version of the bill an adult making $100,000 a year could qualify for the benefit? I don’t know about you, but in my book an adult isn’t a kid, and $100,000 isn’t “poor.”
In addition, it doesn’t make me feel any better when government bureaucrats who are trying to keep both their program funding and their jobs hyperventilate that “sometimes the meal they (poor kids) receive at school may be the only meal they get for the day,” and that it’s “an old adage that hungry children can’t learn,” and that “studies have shown nutrition is paramount to learning.”
Well, duh.
But that’s not really the point here, is it? The point is whether or not taxpayers are picking up the meal tab for kids whose parents are perfectly capable of sending Little Johnny to school with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich themselves. Then again, that might mean the kid would have to wear Wal-Mart brand tennis shoes (like my kids) instead of Nikes. And we can’t have that now, can we?
And here’s something else the story didn’t disclose, which I suspect means the government continues to hide: Exactly how many of these “low income” children are illegal aliens or the children of illegal aliens? Why won’t anyone ever talk about THAT?
The legitimate purpose of government is to take care of those citizens who can’t take care of themselves, not those who won’t. The government wants us to believe that 8 out of 9 parents of Carson City students can’t feed their own kids. I don’t know about you, but I’m not buying it.
Well, actually, I guess I am. Literally. With my tax dollars. But I shouldn’t be. I have my own kids to feed.
FOLLOW-UP: Indeed, there was an inaccuracy in today’s story. Apparently, the 85 percent figure represents only one elementary school in Carson City. Districtwide the percent of kids getting a free or reduced-cost meal is estimated to be around 42-45 percent. Still…almost half our kids are poor?
Posted on August 7th, 2007 by Chuck Muth
Filed under: Carson City
There’s something weird about these numbers. The Nevada Appeal story says Hispanics comprise 57% of the school district’s students. However, Carson City’s website says that Hispanics comprise 18.5% of Carson City’s overall population. Even taking in account the larger Hispanic families with more children, it’s difficult to believe that 18.5% of the overall population would be contributing 57% of the student population.
Also, the Carson City School Board of Trustees met on May 16. At this meeting, Mark Korinek (the school district’s operations services manager who oversees purchasing, warehousing and food distribution) reported that 30% of the district’s students received free or reduced meals, which is well below the numbers (77% or 85%) reported in the Appeal.
Lastly, the Carson City School District had 8,874 students in 2005 according to schoolmatters.com. The Appeal reported that 2,700 meals per day were free or reduced cost. This would constitute between 15% (assuming two meals per day per student) and 30% (assuming one meal per day per student) of the total student population as reported by schoolmatters.com.
[…] There was a minor error in the Nevada Appeal story on the free and reduced lunch recipients in the paper on Monday. Only at one elementary school do 85 percent of students qualify as poor…er, “low income.” Citywide the figure is “only” around 45 percent. And as I suspected, the free lunch program does, in fact, also cover breakfasts. I received the following email from a teacher yesterday… “Yes, that ‘Free Lunch’ does indeed include the tab for breakfast for these little darlings. Remember the day when people fed their own kids? […]