Children with stamped wrists. Debt collectors hounding parents. Untouched food thrown away while an adult says: “You have no money.” In a dystopian thriller, these scenes might be dismissed as on-the-nose. But they’re all real humiliations inflicted over unpaid accounts in US public school cafeterias.
Contrast these chilling scenes with a different one: a proud, middle-aged former teacher in a suit, surrounded by beaming schoolchildren, signing into law a program that will feed every student in his state. The most adorable bill-signing in US history – and a vision for how simple it could be to improve our kids’ lives – came courtesy of Tim Walz.
The Democratic vice-presidential nominee and current governor of Minnesota has made a name for himself on the campaign trail with his fiery defense of progressive policies, not to mention his deft deployment of upholstery- and breakfast pastry-related inside jokes. But his politics has a gentler side, too, as evinced by the aforementioned universal free school meals program he helped create in 2023. This straightforward reform has resulted in 2m more monthly meals being served to young Minnesotans.
Universal free school meals are clearly appealing to voters, who support it at a rate of 60%. But beyond photo ops and polling, this policy encapsulates exactly the pragmatic progressivism that Walz has championed and the Democratic party might wisely emulate – one where seemingly intractable problems such as education reform can be ameliorated with reforms that are as bold yet uncomplicated as feeding every schoolchild.
Though demagogues like Ron DeSantis continue to manufacture crises in public education, our system does face daunting challenges. The US’s schools have never been as globally competitive as our wealth would imply. But in the wake of Covid-19, children’s outcomes across a variety of measures precipitously declined and have yet to recover. By spring 2022, third- through eighth-graders had lost half a grade level in math and a third of a grade level in reading.
The rate of chronic absenteeism – students who miss at least 10% of a school year – nearly doubled after Covid-19. Moreover, 70% of educators reported that their students misbehave more than before the pandemic. While the 2022-2023 school year showed some modest improvements, it hasn’t been nearly enough to get us back on track.
Meanwhile, for a nation that prides itself on economic mobility, food security has actually decreased in the US since 2021. This regression is due in no small part to the expiration of the child tax credit. Millions of families that had been lifted out of poverty suddenly found themselves struggling again. And while it is senseless that Congress hasn’t been able to reinstate that policy, the fight over it has illuminated a simple truth: US families can do well if they have the basic resources they need to get by.
Our popular perception of schools’ utility could use similar simplification. We tend to idealize the classroom as a crucible for the consummate citizen, molding the next generation of Americans through the proverbial “three Rs” of reading, writing and arithmetic. But the fact is that schools are also distribution centers for government services: free childcare, free transportation and free healthcare. Improving them entails expanding the services they offer, including free meals for all. The “R” that matters more than any other is resources.
That might seem like an overstatement, but the data shows that free school meals help relieve most of the systemic problems undermining public education. A 2021 review found that free lunch improved students’ nutrition, increased food security, boosted academic success and essentially functioned as a pay raise for working families. Some of the studies reviewed also indicated that free school meals increased attendance levels, especially for low-income students. While perhaps not a silver bullet alone, addressing youth hunger clearly holds transformative potential for our schools.
A total of eight states – Michigan, New Mexico, Vermont, California, Colorado, Maine and Massachusetts, in addition to Minnesota – currently offer no-cost school breakfast and lunch, and expanding this policy nationwide has precedent abroad. High-income countries such as Sweden, Finland and Estonia already offer universal free school meals. In all three, these programs have improved student performance, and in Sweden, researchers estimated that free meals have even increased students’ lifetime incomes. India and Brazil have followed suit with their own variations, proving that this reform is more than feasible in geographically vast and socioeconomically stratified democracies like the United States.
While the Harris-Walz campaign hasn’t explicitly endorsed a federal program to provide universal free school meals, it wouldn’t be a stretch. Kamala Harris has long backed initiatives to aid working families, and the Biden administration already expanded access to free and reduced cost meals to low-income students.
And if no-cost school meals live up to their potential, perhaps our country can recognize the benefits offered by other educational subsidies, such as free pre-K, school supplies and college prep. Fully funding our public education system would create cascading benefits, with higher test scores, graduation rates and college attendance all leading to better adult economic outcomes.
That sounds like a potent – and popular – political program, and it all starts with one relatively uncontroversial reform. As Minnesota state senator Heather Gustafson said on the statehouse floor amid debate over the free school lunch bill: “We really don’t have to fight about everything. We can do good things together. Today, let’s just feed the kids.”
Katrina vanden Heuvel is editorial director and publisher of the Nation, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and has contributed to the Washington Post, the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times
