Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Quota system would dilute school's quality

Val, those studies are looking at malnutrition in developing countries and in birds. The article on Filipino children you cite includes this info: "Almost half of the children in the sample are currently stunted, i.e., their height-for-age is at least two standard deviations below the mean for a healthy US population." We are talking about apples and oranges here. I'm certainly not disputing that malnutrition of the type seen in developing countries affects development, growth, and learning. I'm sure a degree of actual *hunger*, which, true, isn't as rare as we might think, also affects some American children's ability to learn, but it's not typically developing-world style hunger, andwe already have free and reduced-price lunch and breakfast. I quite agree that the quality of these meals is poor and would like to see it improved. However, I quite strongly disagree that we have the evidence to say that THIS is where the money should go to improve academic outcomes in low-income kids. Show me a large study, randomized, where school lunch and breakfast quality was dramatically improved and test scores went way up. It would be a bombshell and I would love to use it in my line of work!