Philadelphia Principals Forced to Force-Feed Students

You can’t say there’s no accountability in the moonbatty education establishment:

In a locally unprecedented move, the School District of Philadelphia will hold principals accountable for the number of students eating breakfast in their schools.

Breakfast participation will be part of the report card that rates principals each year, along with categories such as attendance and math and reading performance.

All 165,000 students in Philadelphia public schools, regardless of income, are eligible for free breakfasts. But just 54,000 ate breakfast last year, district figures show. …

“This is the first accountability system for school meals in the history of the school system,” [activist lawyer Jonathan] Stein said. “It’s very exciting.”

Uh oh, here’s a wet blanket who’s not excited about forcing kids to eat free breakfasts at public expense.

“You’re doing a disservice to principals by holding them accountable without controlling for other variables,” said Michael Lerner, president of Teamsters Local 502, Commonwealth Association of School Administrators.

Should a principal be blamed for a student who ate breakfast at home and therefore doesn’t eat in school, asked Lerner, who was a principal for 22 years.

“Are we going to get to forced feedings?” he continued. “I think it’s wrong to assume no parent in Philadelphia is providing breakfast each day.”

And, Lerner added, many children wind up not eating, thereby wasting food.

That’s okay; somebody else pays for it. Besides:

Advocates point out that many Philadelphia children live in high-poverty areas, and thus are more likely to be without the kind of nutritious foods that mandatory breakfasts provide.

But the kids running wild in urban schools can’t even be prevented from assaulting teachers; how to get them to eat their mandatory breakfast?

Just how food will be served in Philadelphia schools is up to principals. Studies show, however, that more children eat when breakfast is served in the first class of the day. …

Typically, principals have resisted such service, saying it detracted from instructional time.

But in the spring, the Pennsylvania Department of Education ruled that if students throughout the state eat breakfast in their first class with a teacher present, it will be counted as instructional time.

Fresh from his triumph tying principal performance to breakfast, Stein added, “First-class service should be required throughout the school system.”

Steak and eggs for everybody! The taxpayer’s buying! If you already ate, just fling the food at your teacher.

All we need to do now is change the tests so that students are graded on eating breakfast instead of math and science. Then no child will be left behind, as surely as no child will get ahead with moonbats in charge of schools.

On a tip from SK. Cross-posted at Moonbattery.

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