In 1979, the United States Department of Education was created and no one was sure why, since education is done at the local level. But both chambers had a Democratic majority and Carter was a Democratic president and they said it was for the children so they split up the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare into two Cabinet level departments.(1)
Since then, the federal government has tried to make education better, and succeeded in some sense, with No Child Left Behind, but then annoying states by forcing Common Core on them.(2) And then there are school lunches, with competing cultural advocates arguing for organic food, meatless Mondays, plant juice substitutes for milk, and more, all arguing that "the research" is on their side. Parents are outraged at being used as political ping-pong balls.
But the Education Department doesn't have anything to do with school lunches, that is the Department of Agriculture.(3) And food is not theoretical pedagogy, it is real. Yet when it comes to food, some states are arguing the Department of Agriculture is wrong - about food, of all things - and insist the research is on their side.
There's obviously a problem with nutrition research, much like there is in chemicals and alternative medicine. And the problem is you can always find an authority figure to support your belief, even if your belief is, for example, that vaccines are a bad thing.
What wealthy elites think school lunches should be. This ignores the reality that a whole lot of this will go in the garbage. Photo: Andy Butterton/PA Archive via The Conversation
In April, New York, California, Illinois, Minnesota, New Mexico, Vermont and the District of Columbia sued Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue because his department undid some school lunch changes made by the previous administration, who had made lunch changes from the previous administration.
USDA halved the required amounts of "whole grains" that needed to be served, for example, which means they could again serve noodles and tortillas that kids are more likely to eat. Schools will be permitted to serve low-fat chocolate milk rather than regular fat-free milk.
These lunches are overwhelmingly helping poor kids and "whole grains" are busybody nonsense that have zero tangible health benefit. Before 2009, for many kids their school lunch might have been the healthiest meal of the day, and that was without mandatory vegetarian food, organic options, or whole grains. Claiming whole grains are healthier carbs is like claiming "evaporated cane juice" is not sugar just because it is called by a different name.
There were 4,100 schools exempted from whole grain rules so where are the higher obesity rates, dead bodies, or diabetes? Nowhere. It's all made up. And there is nothing that keeps states from serving any lunches they want. If they want all organic vegan food blessed by a holistic shaman, they can use their own money to do so.
Instead, they are suing.
If this looks like it is just political, with each side suing the other depending on who is in the White House, that is correct. Democratic states are arguing that without the Obama tinkering with lunches, kids would have too much salt - the science is on their side, they insist - except the science is not on their side at all. Salt is epidemiologically linked to high blood pressure which is a risk factor for heart disease. So salt is only statistically correlated to a risk factor for a risk factor. That is not science, that is barely speculation.
Under parens patriae (parent of the nation) understanding of the law, only the federal government can protect its citizens under federal law - and in this case there is nothing to protect them from, it is just a change to school lunches that were changed just as arbitrarily a few years ago.
It is absolutely heartwarming to see Democrats embracing enumerated powers for the first time and wanting to limit federal government, but it would be more convincing if we didn't all know that position will change the next time they are in the White House.
NOTES:
(1) Republicans said it was unconstitutional due to education not being enumerated while Democrats said it was legal because it was about commerce. And it was just about commerce. They collect money from people in states ($68 billion!) and give it back to them, minus a large administrative fee to cover 4,000 employees who are needed to redistribute money to states that send it to them.
(2) Technically the Every Student Succeeds Act replaced the No Child Left Behind Act. Like with NASA, President Obama really seems to have hated his predecessor and created a number of changes just to have his own name on them. But Republicans used it to prohibit the Education Department from forcing Common Core on states, which they had been doing with "grants" that were using money that came from the states for education in the first place.
(3) Nor does it handle the Headstart program despite that being education, the Department of the Interior's Native Americans' education programs, and the Department of Labor's education and training programs. Because government.
Parens Patriae: Can States Sue Over Federal School Lunch Changes They Don't Know Will Have An Effect?
Comments