The Albuquerque Journal

While we sit here scratching our collective heads as to what to do about New Mexico's education statistics scraping bottom year after year, there is one well-documented solution many policymakers and schools seem to be missing: free breakfast for all children attending low-performing schools.

The connection between hunger and educational outcomes is not brain surgery. It is time for legislators, schools, the governor and the Public Education Department to stop treating school meals like a luxury program, instead of a non-negotiable budget item required to educate our children.

A Tufts University study found that children who ate school breakfast performed better on standardized tests and were late or absent from school less often than children who did not eat breakfast at school. A Harvard study found students who eat breakfast at school were found to have fewer discipline problems, be less aggressive and violent and to show significant improvements in social behavior and general psychosocial functioning. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found "strong evidence" school breakfast, among other programs, decreases "rates of violence and aggressive behavior among school-aged children.

"Full Stomachs ‹ Full Minds," a policy report from New Mexico Appleseed states it best: "No expensive study is needed to show that hungry children cannot pay attention in class."

At least 25 percent of children in New Mexico don't know where their next meal comes from. Many of those children show up to school not only not having had breakfast, but also not having had dinner the night before.
Probably many more New Mexico children don't eat breakfast because their parents are scrambling to get them to school before work or simply don't understand its importance. These kids are already behind in school before the bell even rings.

Most other states seem to get the concept that there is no point in having books, a blackboard or a schoolhouse if the children are hungry and cannot concentrate And yet, many of New Mexico's leaders seem to be out of touch with the fact that providing free meals at schools is one of the easiest and most effective solutions to educational and economic failures around.

Education experts are advocating for more food in schools, not less.
Right at this very moment, Congress is debating the Child Nutrition Reauthorization Act, which will increase reimbursement to schools for feeding programs like breakfast, lunch and after school snacks. The White House is talking about ending childhood hunger by 2015. New Mexico's policy and education leaders must get with the program and give our children the basic fuel to learn and be productive members of society.

Three things must happen to fix the massive mistake of de-funding breakfast in the schools:

• The Legislature must re-fund the breakfast program in the next session and consider expanding it in light of the increasing number of children living in poverty in New Mexico.

• The governor and the Public Education Department must look for money now to re-fund the financial supplement to pay for free breakfast in certain low-performing schools; put in and fight for school breakfast in the budget they present to the Legislature; and throw in the garbage the idea that the schools that met Adequate Yearly Progress after getting breakfast at their school should be the first to lose funding because meeting AYP was the purpose of the breakfast program in the first place. Instead, they should choose which schools get breakfast based on financial considerations.

• School districts must stop and take the time to figure out which of their own schools can afford to provide free breakfast to all children, regardless of what happens with the state funding.

Schools that serve a high percentage of free and reduced price lunch children can actually turn a profit from serving free breakfast and lunch.
The more of the free/reduced price lunch children eating breakfast and lunch, the more reimbursement the school gets. Also, the more children eating, the lower the equipment and the labor per meal cost.

If the astonishing benefits of higher grades and attendance, and lower discipline referrals aren't enough, the financial benefits alone should spur schools to seriously consider offering breakfast to all children.

If the governor, the Public Education Department and schools truly care about improving education and the lives of New Mexico's children, then they will make restoring and expanding school breakfast a priority.

New Mexico Appleseed is a non-partisan policy advocacy organization.