Mr. President, today I join with Senator Kohl to introduce the Student Breakfast and Education Improvement Act as part of my continued efforts to improve student achievement in our nation’s schools. One part of student performance that is often overlooked is nutrition, which can have a significant impact on student achievement. Mr. President, I know many of my colleagues share my support for school programs that help alleviate hunger for the most in-need students, such as the Free and Reduced Price Lunch Program, as well as those programs that provide more nutritious food, such as the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Snack program.
I am sure that I am not the only member of this body who grew up hearing that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. I was lucky never to have to worry about going hungry, and my parents did not have to choose between giving their children lunch or breakfast. The fact is, Mr. President, that’s a choice many parents do have to make today, even if they get the help of reduced price meals. The current economic difficulties and rising unemployment have only increased the burdens facing low income families in Wisconsin and around the country as they struggle to provide nutritious meals for their children.
The Student Breakfast and Education Improvement Act would provide grants for schools wishing to begin or expand universal school breakfast programs. Studies show that kids who eat breakfast perform better in school and on tests, and they tend to be less disruptive to the class. I have heard many stories from teachers, school nurses, and other school officials over the years to confirm this. In fact, in my home state of Wisconsin, the Milwaukee Public Schools have been working with the Hunger Task Force for the past few years to implement universal school breakfast programs, which they have in place now in more than 80 schools. This program, which has expanded in its second year, has proven popular with students, teachers, and parents.
This bill would target the most in-need schools- those with 65% or more of students eligible for the free and reduced price lunch program- with the funds necessary to implement a universal free breakfast program. The grants, which could be used in a number of ways, aim to help schools overcome the numerous barriers faced in trying to create a school breakfast program.
Mr. President, our nation faces a series of pressing education challenges in its schools, including most significantly a large achievement gap and graduation rate gap among minority and low income students. After decades of civil rights struggles, public education should provide all our students with access to equal opportunities, but the quality of public education provided to students of color and low-income students in urban and rural Wisconsin and around the country still does not come close to affording many of these students an equal chance for success. Too often these students learn in crumbling and outdated buildings, they do not have the same access to high quality technology in their classrooms, they are taught by the least experienced teachers, and they often do not have adequate access to important resources like school counselors and nurses.
These and a number of other factors contribute to the achievement gap in our nation’s schools and the federal government can help to address this gap by promoting smarter and more flexible accountability structures and increased supports for schools during the upcoming reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Congress should also help to address some of the many other issues facing our nation’s students living in poverty – issues that may not seem directly related to education, but impact the academic growth of students including hunger, affordable housing, and crime. This bill takes an important step to address hunger and also seeks to improve nutrition education by providing funds to expand school breakfast programs, boost collaboration between local farmers and schools, expand service-learning opportunities in our classrooms, and improve nutrition education programming for students.
In this economy, more and more parents are forced to make these kinds of decisions, and the school meal programs can provide a tremendous relief. As we look forward to reauthorizing the Child Nutrition Act, it is vital that we take stock of the successes and limitations of existing programs. School breakfast faces a number of hurdles that, quite simply, other school feeding programs do not. Chief of those is time. For some students, getting to school early is impossible; for some, the lure of breakfast is not a strong enough draw to get up earlier. These are problems that schools across the country are facing and solving with creativity and dedication. This legislation will help support the innovative work going on in some of our nation’s schools and will help to scale up successful nutrition programs in other schools so that hopefully one day, none of America’s students will start the school day hungry.
