Food insecurity does exist in the United States, which is why in schools, we already have free and reduced-price lunch and breakfast programs. I would never advocate cutting or taking them away. I absolutely think they serve a valuable purpose. I just don't agree that we have evidence that eating, say, poor quality pizza, frozen green beans and canned fruit (typical school lunch now) makes you perform worse on tests than eating better quality pizza with whole grain crust, fresh fruit and salad (typical improved school lunch under lunch improvement programs). Wasn't that what you were talking about--improving the quality of school lunches and breakfasts? (Upthread: "IMO, we'd do better to ensure that free school breakfasts and lunches have high nutritional content (substitute fresh fish, fruits and raw or steamed vegetables for pink slime hamburgers and french fries, for example, and get rid of soda in school.") That's really a different thing than helping kids who are actually hungry. BTW, huge progress towards eliminating soda in schools has already been made. You'd be surprised how much, but if you have university library access, as you seem to, you could look this up. I think this is fabulous news, but the really interesting thing is that so far so one has been able to find any convincing drops in kids' BMIs or sweetened drink consumption. The theory is that kids are making up for it at home.
Mind you, I think it's a good thing to improve school food like that. I just really don't see evidence that it's going to suddenly give us high achievers.
BTW, we ARE in agreement WRT prenatal care. If we could reduce premature birth, which carries a horrendous cost, boy, we could do a lot to help kids, not to mention reduce healthcare costs. A lot of preemies have LDs. It's really tough for them. The hard thing is that we don't exactly know what causes prematurity, but we do know that women who don't get prenatal care are at a higher risk of it. There seems to be a stress connection, and something just came out about how being on your feet a lot of hours is connected.
Re Abcedarian, I'd have to go back and look at it again. It is repeatedly cited as a model program, as are a number of other intensive high-intervention quality programs with young disadvantaged children. It's pretty widely acknowledged in the family science field. You were griping earlier about them not being proven to raise IQ. So? Isn't IQ supposed to be fairly immutable anyway? I'm much more interested in other outcomes, such as lack of involvement in criminal activity, steady employment, HS graduation rates, income, etc. Here's another study:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2010.01563.x/abstractUsing data collected up to age 26 in the Chicago Longitudinal Study, this cost–benefit analysis of the Child-Parent Centers (CPC) is the first for a sustained publicly funded early intervention. The program provides services for low-income families beginning at age 3 in 20 school sites. Kindergarten and school-age services are provided up to age 9 (third grade). Findings from a complete cohort of over 1,400 program and comparison group participants indicated that the CPCs had economic benefits in 2007 dollars that exceeded costs. The preschool program provided a total return to society of $10.83 per dollar invested (18% annual return). The primary sources of benefits were increased earnings and tax revenues and averted criminal justice system costs. The school-age program had a societal return of $3.97 per dollar invested (10% annual return). The extended intervention program (4–6 years) had a societal return of $8.24 (18% annual return). Estimates were robust across a wide range of analyses including Monte Carlo simulations. Males, 1-year preschool participants, and children from higher risk families derived greater benefits. Findings provide strong evidence that sustained programs can contribute to well-being for individuals and society.
Note that as usual, the programs for younger children were significantly more effective.
