SCHOOLS

 Yes Magazine -  In March 2023, when Minnesota Governor Tim Walz walked the halls of Webster Elementary, students stopped to chat with him and give him high fives. Walz was there to sign the Free School Meals for Kids bill into law, and the noisy excitement in the halls reflected the governor’s mood.

“No more lunch tickets,” he said to a woman standing in the hallway. 

When Walz held up the signed bill in the crowded school cafeteria, the room erupted into applause as children hugged the former coach’s neck. “As a former teacher, I know that providing free breakfast and lunch for our students is one of the best investments we can make to lower costs, support Minnesota’s working families, and care for our young learners and the future of our state,” Walz said in a press release on the legislation. “This bill puts us one step closer to making Minnesota the best state for kids to grow up, and I am grateful to all of the legislators and advocates for making it happen.”

The law reimbursed public school districts, charter schools, and non-public schools for meals purchased through the National School Lunch and the School Breakfast Programs. The state-funded Free School Meals for Kids program also provides reimbursement for meals served to students who do not qualify for free or reduced-price meals so all students receive the meals at no cost. The program is estimated to cost the state about $400 million over a two-year budget period.

“Based on the latest data from the Department of Education, lunch participation was up about 19 percent and breakfast participation was up 41 percent,” says Sophia Lenarz-Coy, executive director of the Food Group, which is focused on increasing access to healthy, locally grown food in Minnesota. “We can see that students are just better prepared. They’re better able to learn and focus.”

Compact Mag -  In October 2023, 86 percent of schools belonging to the National Education Association indicated that they were seeing more educators leave the profession since the start of the pandemic. Numerous school districts—especially in lower-income neighborhoods—are faced with teacher shortages. Many of these former teachers ... are heartbroken—even bitter—about what they once thought of as their dream jobs. Some have taken to YouTube and social media to tell their “Why I Quit Teaching” stories. 

The stories conveyed in this viral trend match the data. Those who leave teaching behind cite low pay (since 1996, the average wage of a public school teacher has risen just $29, $416 less than the average wage increase earned by other college graduates), unmanageable class sizes, lack of support from both administrators and parents, and disrespect from students...

Individual teachers, school boards, and think tanks are attempting to find ways to improve teachers’ working conditions so as to combat burnout, proposing a variety of measures ranging from increasing pay and benefits to offering coverage for mental health care. But such measures fail to address the deeper problem: a bloated bureaucracy that has swallowed up education and now makes it nearly impossible for teachers to do their job.