Maybe there is a free lunch ...

Starting next school year, about 59,000 students at 72 high-poverty Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools will automatically get free lunch through a new community eligibility provision of the federal school nutrition program.

The provision covers schools across the country where at least 40 percent of students are on public assistance,  in foster care or fall into other categories that automatically qualify them for lunch subsidies,  according to a presentation to the CMS board.  The goal is to eliminate the need for high-need schools to collect applications and process payments  --  and to make sure students get the nutrition they need to be ready to learn.

Breakfast at Elizabeth Traditional Elementary

CMS already rolled out a universal free breakfast program this year,  though participation hasn't been what officials had hoped, child nutrition director Cindy Hobbs told the board.  The district aimed for a 50 percent increase in kids eating breakfast;  so far it has been about 20 percent.

The free lunch program should save some time and money for participating schools  --  including, Superintendent Heath Morrison said, write-offs for lunches that children eat and parents fail to pay for.  "The reality is many of these families simply can't afford to pay,"  he said,  even if they don't meet the income cutoffs for free meals. The U.S. Department of Agriculture,  which already supports CMS students to the tune of about $50 million a year,  will pick up the tab for all students at the designated schools.

Of course,  there are complications.  Eligibility for federal lunch aid is used to gauge school need and qualify students for a waiver of athletic and other fees.  Families will still have to fill out income paperwork for the fee waivers,  CMS officials said,  and the district will have to find another method of tallying the number of  "economically disadvantaged students."

Regular blog readers may be amused to hear that board member Rhonda Lennon noted the perennial comments from "Wiley Coyote"  raising questions about the free lunch program.  "Mr. Coyote will want to know:  What alternative methods for determining student eligibility were used?"  The answers were fairly complex;  those who are really into this can find the child nutrition discussion on video at this link,  starting at the 1:47 mark.  Lennon's questions about Wiley Coyote (and comments about the tastiness and fat content of Takis hot snacks) starts at 2:03.

Vice Chair Tim Morgan asked about the prospects for the federal government to just pay for lunch for all students.

Hobbs said it won't happen soon,  but it should:  "If you can give a child free transportation and you can give them free books,  why can't you give them free meals?"

On the Raleigh roundup,  I'm not finding any new education-related bills on the General Assembly listing for Wednesday.  But Pamela Grundy of MecklenburgACTS says the Senate education committee is taking up changes to the Read to Achieve act,  which mandates consequences for third-graders who fail to prove they can read on grade level.  Read her group's critique here.

CMS breakfast details fall to schools

Starting Monday,  we'll see how Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools'  new  "free breakfast for all"  program plays out.

Each school is crafting its own strategy for getting food into the hands of hundreds of students,  then getting them to quickly shift gears to learning.  At Elizabeth Traditional Elementary,  where the bus drop-off is nowhere near the cafeteria,  a breakfast kiosk will be in place so kids can grab their food and head to class,  said Amy Harkey,  assistant director of child nutrition.  Some schools will use variations on that  "grab-and-go"  approach,  while others will have children eat in the cafeteria.

The district acknowledges there will be challenges,  from the trash that's generated to the demand on teacher time,  especially now that there are fewer assistants to help with the youngest kids.  One teacher emailed to say he'd been told everyone had to report 15 minutes early to handle breakfast,  but the principal later rescinded that order.

The school board approved the plan in hopes that kids who start their day with a nutritious meal will be better learners.  In the past,  CMS provided free breakfast for students who qualified for income-based lunch aid.  The national No Kid Hungry campaign urges districts to provide breakfast for everyone to eliminate the stigma.  At this week's back-to-school briefing,  Harkey noted that some students go hungry because their families are in a hurry,  not because they can't afford food.

"Students do show up to school hungry,  and hungry students can't learn,"  she said.  "Breakfast is part of the educational day."

Research on the benefits of free school breakfasts is squishy,  in part because no district uses biscuits and bagels as its only strategy to improve education. But CMS leaders hope the new program will get almost 148,000 preK-12 students off to a good start.

CMS has enough students who qualify for federal lunch and breakfast subsidies that it can afford to provide breakfast to all students at no charge,  without dipping into local or state money.  The child nutrition budget is separate from the CMS operating budget,  which means money can't be pulled from teachers,  supplies and other operating costs to cover food  --  or vice versa.

From biscuits to diplomas?

Will Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools'  new free breakfast program produce thousands more graduates?

Well  ...  I'd take that claim with a grain of salt.

Cindy Hobbs,  who heads the CMS child nutrition program,  was ecstatic when the school board OK'ed a plan to provide free breakfast to all students, regardless of family income.  By removing the stigma associated with getting a free meal,  supporters of the plan hope kids will start their school day with a nutritious meal,  eventually improving behavior, attendance and academic performance.

"We could be looking at 3,500 more children to graduate,  based on their 20 percent graduation rate,"  she told the board just before the 7-1 vote.

When I asked about that number,  she acknowledged it's more of a hope than a solid projection,  and one that would take many years to play out.

The CMS presentation used numbers drawn from  "Ending Childhood Hunger: A Social Impact Analysis," done by Deloitte for the advocacy group No Kid Hungry.  It's the kind of study designed to make a case,  with clear language, nice visuals and strong conclusions. It cites findings that students who participate in school breakfast programs attend 1.5 more days of school a year, score 17.5 percent higher on math tests and have fewer behavior problems.  The 20 percent figure comes from a different study,  which found that students who miss fewer than five days of school a year  --  not necessarily those who eat breakfast  --  are 20 percent more likely to graduate.  Based on that,  Deloitte extrapolated that the Maryland program they were reviewing might  "see up to 56,000 additional students achieving math proficiency and 14,000 more high school graduates over time."

Hobbs said she used that same approach to extrapolate a CMS increase in graduates over an unspecified period of time.

The source cited in the Deloitte footnote is a 36-page academic research review on breakfast studies done since the 1990s.  It's harder to get through than a big bowl of unsalted grits.  I did my best,  and found several studies showing that students performed better on some tests,  logged better attendance and appeared to be better behaved when they had breakfast.  But,  as tends to be the case with real academic research,  it's chock full of qualifiers,  along the lines of  "not statistically significant"  and  "another data source produced contradictory results."

There's no mention of any study linking breakfast to graduation rates.

Common sense tells us that sausage biscuits aren't the golden ticket to education reform.  It brings me back to a notion I've written about before,  that real change comes from 100 one-percent solutions, not one or two big reforms.  It would be lunacy to offer free breakfasts and figure the work is done,  but CMS leaders are hoping it's one small piece of a program to help more kids succeed.

While we're on the biscuit beat,  did anyone else cringe at the notion that kids are getting "turkey sausage on a whole-grain biscuit"?  Hobbs told the board that school cafeterias avoid pork because many families have religious prohibitions.

I happen to like turkey sausage.  But a whole-grain biscuit?  Is that even a real thing?

Real biscuits?

Hobbs laughed when I asked.  "They're  ...  OK," she said tactfully.  As a Southerner, she said, she wouldn't serve or eat them,  but the U.S. Department of Agriculture requires certain portions of whole grains in school meals.