Food service programs have long been recognized as important components of education in the American schools. "You can't teach a hungry child" has been an accepted principle since the early years of the country, when children were expected to bring lunches from home to get them through the day. However, not all children were able to do so because of financial and other circumstances. In addition, the food brought from home was often lacking in nutritional quality and desirability, and the schools usually lacked the facilities to store milk and other perishable food products. At the same time, food supplies in this country have usually been abundant and, at least during recessionary periods, in excess of market demands.
Particularly during the 1930s, farmers faced extremely low prices and excess food supplies while people were literally starving. Children were perceived as being in critical need of food support. To solve both problems, the Congress passed Public Law 74-320, authorizing the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to purchase surplus agricultural commodities and distribute them to needy families and specifically to school lunch programs. At the same time, the Works Progress Administration (WPA), established in 1935, provided labor and trained supervisory personnel for staffing school lunch program on a national scale.
Early Lunch Programs
Precedents for school lunch programs date back to the mid-nineteenth century in England and western Europe. In 1849, school canteens were established in France, and in 1866 the Destitute Diner Society was established in London. By the beginning of the twentieth century, most western European countries had national laws or extensive municipal legislation providing for school meals.
In 1853, the Children's Aid Society of New York served food to all children who attended its industrial schools, which later became public schools. Serving food became an inducement to children from the slums to attend school. In the economic downturn of 1893, the problem of hungry school children came to public attention. The conviction arose that children in a weak physical and mental state resulting from poverty learned little or nothing at school.
The Star Center Association began school food service in Philadelphia elementary schools in 1894. In 1909, the Philadelphia Board of Education took over all school food service in secondary schools, making Philadelphia the first large city to establish central food control. School lunch programs increased rapidly in the 1920s, as new knowledge of nutrition led to greater concern for the health of children. As a result, the purpose of school food service broadened from provision for the needy and undernourished to provision for all children who need food at school.
The National School Lunch Program
During World War II, many U.S. draftees were found to be malnourished to such an extent that they were turned down for military service. The realization of this low nutritional state of the general population led to the passage of the National School Lunch Act (NSLA) in 1946, which established the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) in elementary and secondary schools. This landmark legislation, although amended many times, continues in force today, with its original objectives still in place. These objectives are "to safeguard the health and well-being of the Nation's children, and to encourage the domestic consumption of nutritious agricultural commodities and other food."
The NSLA provided annual appropriations to the USDA to purchase surplus foods and apportion them to state agencies, along with certain funds that were to be matched three-to-one with state funds or volunteer labor. Commodities and funds were provided to state educational agencies and to other non-profit agencies participating in the program (private schools in about twenty-five states that could not transmit funds through their state educational agency). These agencies managed the lunch programs at the local level, and sometimes added state funds. They were provided with state operating expenses that covered part, but not all, of their own expenses, also on an apportionment basis. Apportionments after 1962 were made on the basis of state level of participation during the previous year and per capita state incomes relative to the U.S. total. Nonfood assistance for the purchase of food service equipment was also provided selectively in low-income areas by grants authorized by the Child Nutrition Act of 1966 (Pub. L. 89-642).
The Food and Nutrition Service of the USDA operates the NSLP at the national level, and the individual states must sign agreements to operate the program in accordance with the regulations to receive federal reimbursements for meals served. Normally, the state educational agency is responsible for operating the program at the state level. More than 97,700 public and nonprofit private schools and residential child-care institutions operated the program in fiscal year 2002. Among the important requirements for operating the program, NSLP meals served at the local level are required to meet nutritional standards specified in the NSLA. Those requirements originally were called the Type A lunch pattern (as opposed to Type B, which consisted only of milk). That term, while still in use locally in many places, was replaced in the 1970s with USDA menupattern, which refers to service of specified portions of meat, milk, vegetables or fruits, and bread. The legislation recognized that federal support was only supplemental to total costs, and therefore it was expected that meals would be sold at cost to the children that could afford to pay, while low-income children would receive their lunches free.
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