Saddest (and scariest) headline of the week: "School officials lament many NH parents don't let taxpayers feed their kids for them" - Granite Grok

Saddest (and scariest) headline of the week: “School officials lament many NH parents don’t let taxpayers feed their kids for them”

Really?

Is it truly the position of Government Employees that NH Parents are WRONG in not having perfect strangers to be forced to feed their kids?

Well, the answer is right in the first sentence of the article (mostly)- it is always about the Benjamins:

The rates of children who qualify for free or reduced-price school lunches has ballooned over a decade. Yet area school officials say there are more eligible families who don’t apply for the program, which not only provides access to meals but also qualifies schools for federal grants and additional state money.

The percentage of students in New Hampshire who are eligible for free or reduced-price lunches grew by 66 percent over 10 years. As of October 2012, 46,659, or 27.3 percent, of New Hampshire public school students in grades 1 through 12 qualified for the program, up from 16.4 percent in 2002.

Poverty has not grown that fast in NH to account for that level of growth – I saw this in Gilford, which is a rather well off town, and what I kept hearing from the School officials (despite the low poverty rate in town).  And it was always “where else to get more money from somewhere else”.  Of course, it was always “for the children”.

It continues to disturb me that I continue to see an attitude by  teachers that the students belong to them – more than to their own parents.  That headline does nothing to allay my “disturbedness”.  Is it truly a 100% caring position, or does it go to the “also qualifies schools for federal grants and additional state money“.  Bureaucracy always continues to grow, always wishing to expand its raison d’etre.  It used to be that schools taught, and taught well.  Now, amongst the free healthcare clinics, the breakfasts, the lunches, the dinners, the free abortions, the diversity training, the political correctness indoctrination – is it possible that the actual mission of public schools has been put into the background?  What schools are really supposed to do – stress high standards for academic excellence?

And the “School officials lament many NH parents don’t let taxpayers feed their kids for them” – maybe it is because the parents want the schools  to TEACH their kids – the school’s responsibility.  Because the parents know that FEEDING their kids is THEIR responsibility – not the school’s.

My Mom was a single mom for years after my Dad died – she worked in my elementary school’s cafeteria – a lunch lady, and then off to her bookkeeping job at a local heating oil biz.  With her working in the cafeteria, I could have eaten for free.  Instead, she worked both jobs to make sure that she would put the change into my and my brother’s pockets for lunch – not the Government.

I look back and wonder why she did it (heck, even HOW she ever pulled it off) – it could have been far easier just to take that handout.  But you see, she wasn’t going to be on Welfare; she had that chestful of pride to be independent (TRUE independence) and make sure that SHE provided for us.  That’s the way it was back then – the helping hand was there but only used in the worst of conditions – and while very difficult, that rock bottom was still below us because she kept hauling away on that rope.  She did not want the shame of not being able to provide for her own.  Nowadays, it seems, not so much.  What a difference 50 or 60 years make, and now it is your Government that pushes one to be on the dole.

The phrase that keeps on giving:  “for the children”.  My response is always “but the money always seems to go to the adults, doesn’t it?”.

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