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Free Meals in Schools

Last year, a program that provided universal free meals to students during the COVID-19 pandemic expired. Between 2020 and 2021, the program reduced child hunger by over 2%, and in 2022, 80 million more meals were served by schools than in the year before the pandemic. As the cost of school meals returns, so does meal debt. Students who are unable to afford school meals will often not be denied food. Instead, the school will keep track of their "debt," and sometimes use tactics such as serving students in debt lower-quality meals in order to pressure families to pay. Currently, students in the U.S. owe a total of around $19 million in meal debt. While students may qualify for free or reduced meals, in some areas the percentage of students who do has dropped since before the pandemic. When the pandemic-era program expired, the threshold for getting free food was around 130% of the poverty line. In addition, the process to apply for free and reduced meals can be complex and act...
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Social Justice in Education

Education serves to help people understand the world around them and interact effectively with their society. To that end, I do not believe one's education can be complete without some understanding of social justice. Regardless of your identity or place in the world, topics of social justice shape everything from personal interactions to the opportunities you have. We are all participants in society, and social justice helps us understand the mechanisms of that society. For example, we might become aware of how our implicit biases inform our choices, or learn why certain laws and policies exist. To go one step further, knowing about these issues allows us to make decisions we believe in, and that can contribute positively to society. We might buy books from independent bookstores, or take public transportation more. Social justice is not just for career advocates or politicians. By its very nature, it is an important subject for everyone. In schools, I think social justice can be ...
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Teacher Identity & the Classroom

A teacher's identity can impact a classroom in nearly infinite implicit and explicit ways. Let's go back to questions we discussed at the beginning of the semester: why is school important? What do we hope to get out of educational experiences? What makes a good teacher, and a good learning environment? Maybe the answers include factual information, or life skills, or curricula, or open-mindedness, or curiosity. Regardless of how you measure success, I think we can agree that teachers have a great impact on it. Stu dies have shown that students are more likely to score higher, develop interest in a subject, and stay in school if taught by someone with an identity -- such as race or gender -- similar to theirs. I can imagine many reasons this may be true. Someone with a similar background to you may also share a cultural background, and therefore may be able to get information across in a way that works with your worldview, understand the previous schooling you've had, or e...
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