Feed Me!

Among the usual policy debates in the education think tank world about teacher quality, statistical accuracies, or value-added, it's easy to forget that there are kids facing every-day struggles that are more fundamental to basic survival that anything we usually address.

When you come across a story like this, it's an important reminder that sometimes teachers help kids in ways that we don't always recognize or appreciate.

Teacher Kayla Brown realized that some of her Texas elementary school students' underperformance was due to the stark reality that they were literally too hungry to think. In a lesson-filled example of public/private partnership, Kayla teamed up with other teachers and her local church to start a Backpack Buddies program in which teachers snuck brown bags of donated food into students' backpacks when the kids were out at recess. What were the results? The kids got more food, their performance and attitudes went up, and they were saved the social embarrassment of being seen taking handouts.

It's shocking that in this land of plenty some kids don't get enough to eat. And while the government provides food stamps and a free and reduced price lunch program in some public schools, both require a level of agency (on the part of parents or students) that doesn't always make it possible for kids to stave off hunger. What do kids who rely on meals at school do on weekends? How useful are food stamps if kids' parents don't bother to sign up for them? Just as bad, sometimes the food that kids do get from parents or schools is of such low quality, that kids still end up with nutritional deficiencies or—ironically—obesity problems.

Since there's an obvious limit to the efficacy of public welfare, especially in the context of using education policy to address all facets of poverty, we should hope that programs like Backpack Buddies will inspire more partnerships between schools and the community groups that help students in these most basic but profound ways.

For all we think and talk about test scores and accountability, sometimes we need a little reminder that it's hard to measure the value added by a teacher like Kayla Brown.

Posted by Ethan Gray