Quote:
Originally posted by andViolins
My first thought after reading the article was what ways would the kids think of to fuck up the system. They mentioned the Garfield Heights system and the problems of reading the prints of kids with grimy hands. What about kids who will take a pen or a knife or some other object and try to scratch or damage the scanner? Or kids that will try to somehow alter their fingertips (glue?) to try and mess up the system. And if and when the system does crash, what do they do? Is there a back-up or does Betty the lunch lady just stare at the nice touch screen monitor for a few hours and hope that the thing magically fixes itself???
I still don't see why they don't go for some other system like a swipe card. The comment that kids lose the cards is recockulous. Charge the PARENTS a replacement fee on an escalating scale. We'll see how fast it would take for Johnny to stop losing the fucking card when mom and dad are charged $50 for a replacement.
It just seemed to me that the Board members view it as a system that comes from some far off fund that doesn't really mean anything, its cool and they are sold on the idea.
aV
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Only one board member seems to be a voice of reason here, and I know she's a lawyer.
Not to be inflammatory, but do you buy the "stigma of the free lunch ticket"? First of all, I don't think kids who receive free lunches think about it one way or another. Second of all, the kids who pay cash are paying what, a buck ten? I don't remember too many of us who paid for our lunches razzing or getting pissed at the other kids who had lunch tickets when I went to public high school.
Even if that's true and the kids are stigmatized, so what? Call me crazy, but I don't think shame is such a bad emotion to be familiar with. (Either that's a product of my growing up Catholic or the fact that I have observed several kids who pull atrocious shit and have no sense of either shame or regret after doing so).
Let's say, for instance that you do find it embarassing that you qualify for the free lunches (trust me, the bar isn't that low in terms of income). Is that so bad? Maybe the kid will be motivated more to make something more of himself, since presumably these kids will grow up, have kids of their own, and know what that feels like to be "poorer" and thus want to avoid it. I don't know.
Don't get me wrong, I believe in helping the less fortunate, and I don't always believe that one can always pull one's self up by one's bootstraps and that no one gets where they are without either starting out with advantages, or getting some help along the way, but I also don't think anyone should ever become too comfortable or complacent about receiving the government's largesse, especially in this day and age.
