Since the National School Lunch Program was created in 1946, it has had a flawed funding model that relies on children’s payments to supplement federal funding. This ultimately puts pressure on local school administrators to go after families with unpaid school lunch bills, or “lunch debt,” to balance budgets.
-Jennifer Gaddis is assistant professor of civil society and community studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of “The Labor of Lunch: Why We Need Real Food and Real Jobs in American Public Schools.”