Thursday, March 11, 2010

Does spending more on school lunches benefit kids?

Benjamin Burr at The Independent Bloghorn has first hand experience on this matter. Here is the crux of his argument:

...the government spends $2.68 a day per child, while only spending $.93 a day on food. The problem isn’t that the government isn’t spending enough money. $1.75 per meal per day on operations is an absolute pathetic joke that reflects an egregious example of government incompetence. When I was catering school lunches, we charged $2.50 (less then the government pays), spent $1.60-1.75 per meal on average on food, covered our operational costs including labor, and still made a decent profit. Sorry, Chef Ann Cooper, the problem isn’t that we aren’t spending enough money, the problem is that people like you fail to recognize the broken nature of this system, and despite its flaws still advocate that the government should be involved in something that clearly sucks at doing.

You are never going to increase the overall nutritional value of lunches as long as the Department of Agriculture, (a massive, entrenched, worthless government bureaucracy that has worn out its usefulness) uses the National School Lunch program for dumping all the excess commodities that it is responsible for creating through inefficient subsidies.

You want to see the quality of school lunches increase? Privatize the whole thing.

VH: I agree with Benjamin, privatize school lunches. The core mission of schools should be teaching and not running an expensive unionized cafeteria; Mr. Burr runs a school lunch software business that deserves your attention.

5 comments:

Burro said...

Thanks for the shameless plug. If you ever need some serious exposure, the Independent Bloghorn has got your back.

jd said...

can anyone think of one service that can't be better provided privately than publically?

maybe if you want to become an astronaut (pre-obama days).

Harrison said...

Schools don't seem to be doing a very good job educating students, much less feeding them.

burro said...

@ jd
If we start with the constitution, there are some things that I would prefer the govt. perform. National defense is an example. I love that firms like Blackwater exist, but at the end of the day, our military is one of the bright spots in our government's list of services.

I don't have a problem with things like the Interstate highway system or even the regulation of quasi-monoplistic industries like a utility company.

Like Harrison said, schools don't do a good job educating students. Nowhere in the Constitution is the federal government entrusted with this task. Therein lies the problem.

Edisto Joe said...

Privatization would be the way to go except for one very big obstacle...CONTROL!