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Barely Literate High School Students Have a Better Understanding of Jobs Creation Than Washington
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If you want to see in stark contrast why “top down” Government programs cannot fix the US economy take a look at the recent developments regarding school lunches.
In case you missed it, recently the US public school system has implemented a series of reforms to mandate what students should eat based on a healthier diet.
The program was spearheaded by First Lady Michelle Obama, who, despite not being a nutritionist or having any sort of medical degree, has decided she knows what’s best for children in terms of their diets.
As a result of the reforms, the cost of school lunches has risen by $0.20-$0.25 per plate. And students don’t like it. In fact, many of them have begun protesting the reforms saying that they’re hungry and the food portions are not enough.
However, the far more interesting development concerns students who have begun a black market of selling food to other students. Several enterprising individuals have begun bringing food to school and selling it to other students. One student simply brings in a chocolate syrup bottle and sells “shots” to classmates.
Bear in mind, SAT verbal scores just hit their lowest levels since 1972. And this is after the test was dumbed down several times.
What’s my point with all of this?
That high school students, even those who are borderline-failing their SATs, have a better understand of economics and job growth than Washington bureaucrats.
Welcome to the USA.
The reason the US rose to power was due to a Democratic Capitalism of innovation and entrepreneurialism, NOT the Government running things. In the recent case of school lunches, the Government has gotten involved, prices have gone up, and students are unhappy. As a result, other students have stepped in, creating a sub-economy for lunches in the schools.
Want to fix the economy? Get the Government out of the way. Heck, even SAT failing high school students know this.
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Graham Summers
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The schools need to bring back highly nutritous 'buffalo balls'.
Yessir, those stewed prunes, combined with a spoon for a catapult would qualify as WMD's when launched over the screen to the girls dining area in a middle school of yesteryear.
Schools have a duty to make good nutrition fun again.
1. The goverment should never pass a law that will keeps me from doing anything stupid, unless that stupid will cause DIRECT harm to someone else (i.e. smoking in public).
2. The motivation of the enterprising student, in this case, was to make money. The motivation of the politician is just to get re elected.
As always, I could be wrong! :)
MFB
High fructose corn syrup is heavily subsidized by the government.
It's in everything... soft drinks, cereals... basically every processed food in America.
It does not turn off your appetite ever. You can consume 10 gallons of it and still be hungry.
Some kids are probably also selling cigarettes at school, some are selling drugs at school, some are selling prescripted pills at school. These kids are very entrepreneurial as well.
As a parent I would not want to government to encourage that behavior. I do not favor government regulation and am a firm believer that government intervention has a counter productive effect.
I much rather however would have seen you use a more elaborate example than a programm that stimulates kids to eat healthy. I have nothing against the teacher of my kid to ask us parents to please consider healthy treats for birthday celebrations. I find nothing wrong in that.
There is so much government can and should butt out, but is this really a good example of how disruptive government intervention can be?
"I much rather however would have seen you use a more elaborate example than a programm that stimulates kids to eat healthy."
I believe the program you are looking for is this one --> Abolish the Department of Education
First of all, you cannot "fail" your SATs. You simply get a score, from 200 to 800 on each part. yes, the results are down, especially if you consider the rebasing referenced in the above piece.
Most large public high schools (at least in the West) have open campuses - kids that want more or different food simply walk down to Subway or Mickey D's.
I am personally thrilled that we are doing something about the crap sold as food to kids in public schools. Some of them essentially get nothing else to eat. And for the more affluent, recent trends to remove soda machines from schools is long overdue.
Food at the grocery store in general is more expensive and in smaller packages. Maybe that's why prices at school have gone up as well and has nothing to do with M. Obama's program??
When a society gets richer...the citizens seek high caloric intake. China for example has been for the last 100 years a healthy country. What's happening now...the people have more disposable income and they're eating higher cal;orie and richer foods...meats and fast foods but less vegetables. In a few years, the Emerging Markets will have a health problem....their weight and all the addendums (Heart aka Cholerstrol, Diabetes, etc).
The USA is on the other side of the curve. We have already had our binge. Fatty foods, bad diets, lack of nutrition education and less physical activity have produced a society where nearly 33% are overweight or obese. In my opinion, the US society is becoming poorer which will drive a healthier lifestyle. Primarily because the US citizens will no longer be able to afford the current lifestyle. This will take time but government programs can not force a healthier lifestyle. Hello Mayor Bloomberg.
How do you explain Japan?
they now have increasing obesity, heart health issues, etc. What's to explain? Been there lately? Suddenly, there are fat children for the first time ever.
Same with India. A fatty in India was way less common ten years ago than is now, not that anyone ever exercises...
Perhaps they score so low on their SATs because they were fed a diet of transfats and carbohydrates.
Any kid will choose junk food over healthy food. At least any normal kid. The only way to get them to eat healthy is to only give them the option of eating healthy food. The problem isn't the kids don't have enough to eat. The problem is the kids would rather go hungry than eat something healthy. I'm all in favor of forcing them to eat healthy. It's the only option IMO.
Yep, there's nothing like tyranny forced down your throat by the goobermint.
I can see it now, the Nazi's are goose stepping down Pennsylvania Ave and your on the sidelines yelling, "Hey everybody, get with the program".
Why doesn't Michelle Obama just try to breast feed everyone? Why drag the government into this and make the situation worse?
Graham Summers is a lunatic. The government got involved in education a long time ago, public schools and land grant colleges since what, 1830? They got involved in school lunches when kids were starving in the 1930s, now they want to make them healthier and you are bitching?
If you said they should close all government schools and send the lttle bastards back down the coal mines like God and Charles Dickens intended I would say you were logically consistent. Nuts, but logically consistent.
If you said healthier school lunches were a good thing for better scholastic performance, less behavior problems, as well as better physical health I would say you are also logically consistent.
But to say lousy government sponsored food is better than good government sponsored food because you are against government sponsored food is just bat shit crazy.
"After sober and judicious consideration, and weighing one thing against another in the interests of reasonable compromise, H. L. Mencken concluded that a startling and dramatic improvement in American education required only that we hang all the professors and burn down the schools. His uncharacteristically moderate proposal was not adopted." -- The Seven Deadly Principles, in The Graves of Academe, by Richard Mitchell
My friend in Southern Oregon was in Wal-Mart the other day and had a brief conversation with an articulate young man. It touched on the economy and when asked what his plan was, the youngster said “I have no future”.
Yes the kids have it figured out, and even NPR warns that spending a bunch of money on higher education may not pay off.
Unlike yesteryears where an aggressive and ambitious kid could “do it himself” the current government will do everything it can with codes and tax to prevent small business.
As some large cities have FREE zones where drugs and crime are left alone, there may be a need for a similar Free zones for legal start ups to operate without restriction.
More people dead from suicide than car wrecks in the USA now, says we need Hope and Change. No dig intended----- the young really do need hope,not lies, shuck and jive.
"Understanding" is not the issue...
Corruption via cronyism and lobbyist kickbacks is the issue.
Physical activity will help the kids more than a reduced calorie diet. I'm still amazed that in many parts of the country they have eliminated recess. Just picture being 8 years old and having to sit at desk all day.
One of the fundamental requirements of a healthy life is a minimum of 1 1/2 to 2 hours a day of physical activity that burns at least 800 - 1000 calories (as a big kid). As a little kid, you really oughta be playing outside all day 'err day.
Graham--I know that was fun for you, but your headline and your story have nothing in common. Just because aggregate test scores are still dropping doesn't mean there aren't some bright kids in there. Those are most likely your "chocolate capitalists."
The government excells at creating high-paying positions for billionaires.
I disagree. For every "athlete" that needs more calories, there are 20 fat fucking kids crusin to Type 2 diabeties and heart disease for the sickcare system. School lunch is LUNCH, if your an athelete, pack a snack. OMG, what are you making me eat, a vegetable? They should ban PE as well, and just start handing out insulin and performing bypass operations at the same time. The US Military called this out and said this is a national emergency, which is the only time I might agree with the armed forces. Weigh em, and if your BMI is under, seconds for you.
Junk food is cheap and provides calories with the largest profit margin for suppliers. It is also addicitve, particularly the carbos, creating even greater profits for the industry with the acceptable collateral damage of obesity, diabetes etc. If you want to run your school lunch program to maximize profits for industry stay with the Big Mac with Big Gulp. If you want school lunches to augment the health and vitality of the children..it will cost more in the short run.
100% correct. Juck food would be more $$$ if corn and soy weren't subsidized so much. HFCS is killing America, any kid born after 2000 has a 1 in 3 chance of being a type 2 diabetic. What type of odds are those, and people wonder why our healthcare system is bankrupting us. We're treating symptoms, not the core issue.
Isn't it mind-boggingly hilarious that while Michelle Obama is out there telling us to move, her husband and the rest of the idiots in Washington are subsidizing obesity and all of its offshoots, like Alzheimer's, breast cancer, etc. It's not just HFCS. It's gluten, excessive carbs, etc. We weren't designed to eat this crap before it's processed, let alone afterwards. This is another example of moronic Keynesian reasoning: "if we don't subsidize farmers, they'll lose their jobs. Then they won't buy stuff. All the merchants and companies like John Deere will then lose, and it will spiral! Food prices will skyrocket!" We need some actual economists, like Hayek and Hazlitt, to explain that if we stop subsidizing farmers, we'll get cheaper food prices, and oh ya, less obesity/illness.
Its all junk - - - the stuff the student 'entrepreneurs' are selling and the stuff they serve in the cafeterias. GMO corn, soy, and hormone filled 'meat'. Between this toxic brew and the 'schooling' and television - - its little wonder that kids do poorly on the dumbed downed tests. If you want kids to be educated, pull them out of the public schools and toss the t.v.(s) from your homes.
High Frequecy Caloric Stiumlation?
No pink slime for you!