BrianGarst.com

It’s stories like this that reaffirm for me why breaking the government monopoly on education is so vital:

Little Village Academy, a public school on Chicago’s West Side, prohibits students from bringing homemade lunches unless the child has a medical excuse, according to the newspaper, which quotes school officials saying the rule is meant to encourage healthful eating, as students are forced to eat lunches served in the school cafeteria instead.

School Principal Elsa Carmona told the newspaper that she created the policy six years ago after observing students bringing “bottles of soda and flaming hot chips” from home.

“Nutrition wise, it is better for the children to eat at the school,” she told the Tribune. “It’s about the nutrition and the excellent quality food that they are able to serve (in the lunchroom). It’s milk versus a Coke. But with allergies and any medical issue, of course, we would make an exception.”

In certain contexts I wouldn’t object to a school instituting such a policy. For instance, if parents were free to pick the school their children attended in a competitive market, some might want the school to take on such responsibility. But in such a market, the school would have to compensate by offering a stellar lunch. It’s the sort of innovation that can be tested in a competitive market, where it would either thrive or fail.

But this is not such a case. These kids are trapped in this school, which makes this not an innovative offering to parents, but an act of tyranny. According to the school district, the students at Little Academy are 99.9 % “low income,” which means they also have little hope of escaping the moral dictates of the local food czar, Elsa Carmona.