As Congress considers changes to the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act (HHFKA), one little-known section of the law is expected to sharply increase the number of students receiving free lunch (and breakfast) over the next several years.
The Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) allows entire school districts, rather than individual families, to qualify for subsidized meals.
This is a stark departure from how the program has been administered over the last 70 years, when families needed to prove financial need.
Now, all students in a school district are eligible if more than 40 percent are low-income.
So even if only half of the students actually qualify, every single student will receive a free breakfast and lunch each day.
...The USDA claims the CEP will “improve access for free meals in eligible high poverty schools” and “reduce the burden of collecting funds … for the students who pay for school meals.” Proponents claim this is actually “more cost-effective” because schools will “no longer handle school breakfast or lunch payments in the food line because there are no fees to collect.”
“This undermines the integrity of the program,” said a former USDA official who led the school lunch program years ago.
Schools were supposed to sell lunches to kids who could afford them, which would partially subsidize the meals for those who couldn’t.
But while free lunch participation is rising, paying customers are dropping out.
...Boosting child nutrition, lowering obesity rates and ensuring needy children receive meals are necessary and noble goals; perpetuating another costly federal entitlement program — which doesn’t deliver what it promises — is not.
It’s time for Congress to fix the program.
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