School meals are usually discussed as a measure and defended as an education one.
A hungry child learns very little in the two hours before lunch.
Trials that added a free breakfast found gains in and in test results.
The gains were concentrated among the poorest pupils, as expected.
the meal at those pupils, however, produces a well-known problem.
Children know who queues in the free line, and many stop coming.
among pupils is often below seventy percent for that reason alone.
Universal provision removes the and costs considerably more.
It also removes the administration, which in some systems ate a third of the budget.
Quality is where most programmes actually fail.
A meal that children do not eat delivers nothing, whatever the table says.
Schools that let pupils taste and vote on the menu report far less waste.
That is a small administrative step and it decides whether the policy works at all.