ARE THE FOOD POLICE AT IT AGAIN?

There are conflicting stories about what happened to a four year-old girl in North Carolina.

The Carolina Journal reported that a federal agent inspected her lunch bag and found that it didn’t meet the USDA requirments and then made her eat chicken nuggets from the school cafeteria.

There are conflicting responses from the school and the school district about whether there was an agent and if there was one, whether he actually inspects lunches.

I’m going to assume that the school and the school district are spinning the story and based on the report from a second woman who says her daughter’s lunch was inspected, I’m going to assume that there are government agents, paid with our hard earned money, who are out there looking at the lunches of four year-olds.

A few things:

When did four year old kids need to go to school?

When did it become the business of my kid’s teacher what I put in his/her lunch box?

If this is, in fact, happening, what’s up with the wimpy parents? Why aren’t the parents going to the school, getting in the teacher’s face and saying : “If I want my kid to eat Hostess Twinkies for lunch every day, that’s what he’s going to eat. Keep your hands of my kid’s lunch.”

The country is a zillion dollars in debt and we can afford to pay lunch bag inspectors?

Date: February 17, 2012

Categories: Politics

Tags: NORTH CAROLINA FOOD POLICE

Comments RSS TrackBack 27 comments

Reply

Mason

in February 17th, 2012 @ 20:04

If Obamacare stands – this is just the beginning. Wait and see. Healthcare will give them the imagined power to regulate almost everything in our lives. I frequently ask my lib friends why they are willing to give up personal freedoms so easily. The response is generally that they don’t think they are. I don’t understand them.

Reply

John Steigerwald

in February 17th, 2012 @ 22:54

I liked George Will’s line on “This Week” last Sunday. After one of the liberal commentators finished a long, drawn out explanation of the contraceptive issue, he said.. “_____that’s what liberalism looks like.” Mark Steyn, who grew up in the UK, writes a lot about how government controlled health care is about so much more than health care. It gives the government control over just about everything. Sad nd pathetic that people sit back and allow it to happen. What’s amazing to me is that liberals want to turn all this power over to the government and they don’t seem to take into account that, sooner or later, someone they consider evil or a moron is going to be in control of it.

Reply

Chuck

in February 17th, 2012 @ 20:58

They should have put the kid in jail and thrown away the key. Seriously, this is getting so far out of hand with the food police and incidents like sending a 5 year old boy home crying from school for having a “plastic” hatchet while dressed as a fireman for Halloween. Like you said John, I’m so damn glad to have been born and raised when I did. Those really were the good old days…..

Reply

Rory B

in February 18th, 2012 @ 11:35

…unless you were a female or minority

Reply

Iron Mike

in February 17th, 2012 @ 21:06

It’s all about what you can see vs. what you can’t. I run into the same thing locally. As long as people can see the roads being plowed they don’t care about mismanagement of our tax dollars. The Federal Government just wants everyone to think they care about your kids so you ignore all of the other more important nonsense going on.
Reply

Uncle Pappy

in February 17th, 2012 @ 23:44

Seems like it’s just one more reason to homeschool.

Reply

DavidMcGwire

in February 20th, 2012 @ 08:23

Not being smart here, just wondering; How can I be allowed to homeschool my child if I’m not a certified teacher?

The reason I ask this is because the lady who babysits our child during the day homeschools her two boys, and the notes and updates she sends home with our baby are always misspelled and full of grammatical errors. I don’t see how she’s capable of teaching English.

Nothing against her, I certainly am not capable of teaching a high school calc class or physics…I had a hard enough time learning it when I was a student.

Reply

John Steigerwald

in February 20th, 2012 @ 10:11

Albert Einstein would not be able to teach in a public school because he doesn’t have a teaching degree. There are books and on-line course that do the teaching. I can’t tell you how many cover letters I’ve received from kids who want to be journalists that look like they were written by an immigrant from the Czech Republic.

Reply

DavidMcGwire

in February 20th, 2012 @ 10:31

I just don’t understand how there isn’t a criteria that makes you capable or not capable of homeschooling your children. I’m not worried about Albert Einstein’s kid…I’m worried about an semi-literate adult teaching a 5 year old how to read.

Take a typical high school for instance… I have a friend who’s a high school biology teacher who says he’s not at all able to teach a 5 year old how to read…That’s why we have multiple teachers that have studied how to teach math, science, social studies ect to a specified age group…..and then you have a stay at home parent who may or may not have finished high school.

I’m not knocking stay at home schooling, especially in distressed districts…I just don’t understand how the quality of the teacher can even be equatable.

Reply

DavidMcGwire

in February 20th, 2012 @ 10:35

And I’m not saying every teacher is great or public vs private school is better…I’m not even going there.

As much as I love my parents, I’m certainly glad I had teachers growing up…My dad would get frustrated when I couldn’t throw a curveball for a strike, thank god he wasn’t teaching me long division….not to mention the growing up and social skills you learn being in a classroom instead of sitting home with your mom all day.
Reply

John Steigerwald

in February 20th, 2012 @ 11:09

Home schoolers do better on standardized tests.

Reply

DavidMcGwire

in February 20th, 2012 @ 11:18

You can’t seriously think you’d be better off if you were home with your mom having her teach you while growing up.

Reply

John Steigerwald

in February 20th, 2012 @ 20:57

I went to good Catholic schools and got a great education. If I were growing up in the city right now and could only go to,say, Langley, I’d prefer my mother.
Reply

Uncle Pappy

in February 20th, 2012 @ 21:38

Mr. McGwire, I seriously think – and know – that I was better off staying home with my mom and having her teach me while I was growing up. as were my siblings. We all graduated with high grades, above average SAT scores, earned our various degrees at college and all have productive jobs. We may not be geniuses, but we are definitely not stupid.

And we were not alone in our experience. The majority of the children e grew up with have similar experiences. We are business owners, IT directors, special ed teachers at private and public schools, pastors, bankers, members of the Navy and Air Force, engineers, and stay at home parents. I’m not going to say that we’re better than our public schooled counterparts but I have no doubts that we aren’t worse than them.

Reply

Uncle Pappy

in February 20th, 2012 @ 12:43

I’m not sure why there have to be criteria that parents have to meet in order to teach their children. I mean, isn’t that what it comes down to? Do I need to meet certain criteria to teach my children when they’re two? Then why would I have to meet criteria when they’re 8 or 12 or 16?

Moreover, Pennsylvania has criteria that homeschool students must meet (as most states do as I understand things). Among other guidelines, students in Pa. must document 180 days (or 900 hours) of schooling; be evaluated at the conclusion of the school year by a teacher (or someone approved by the local school board) and they must be administered a standardized test in third, fifth and eighth grades. In addition to the standardized tests, most homeschoolers (in my experience) take the SAT in high school.

Reply

Dan

in February 21st, 2012 @ 14:01

I think to be considered a high school graduate the criteria has to be met and to go anywhere in this country you need to prove that you graduated high school.

Reply

Uncle Pappy

in February 22nd, 2012 @ 00:14

There are High School diploma programs for homeschoolers within the commonwealth that are recognized by the Pennsylvania Department of Education. It’s been a few years since I graduated, but in the late 90′s, there were 4-6 accreditation agencies.

The program I graduated under had requirements from junior high through high school. This included at least 6 years of English (including a certain number of books read, including classics and a certain number of research papers, including a minimum 10 pager each year); 1 year of arithmetic and 4 years of higher math; 4 years of science; 3 years in social studies (including at least one year of American history) and 2 years of foreign language among other requirements. These were minimum requirements and a large majority (including myself and my siblings) went above and beyond these.

My diploma, as awarded to me, is on the same level as any diploma given to any public high school graduate in the commonwealth. It is, also, *not* a GED (although I know of a few folks who went that route instead of getting a recognized diploma.)

I was homeschooled, sir, and I most certainly can prove that I graduated high school. I graduated with a 4.0 GPA and, before you make a snide comment about my mother giving me my grades, know that I also tested in the 88th percentile on the SAT and graduated from a private college with a Bachelor of Science and a 3.0 GPA. My point is not to brag, not in the least. My point is that I don’t think I have any more to prove than you or anyone else who has a commonwealth recognized high school diploma.

Reply

Dan

in February 22nd, 2012 @ 22:31

I don’t think my post came across the way I intended. I was not criticizing you at all. My response was directed toward your question of why do I need to teach my kids at home to a certain criteria? And my answer was that that criteria needs to be satisfied to earn a diploma and thus have a chance at a good job and higher education. I don’t think you have to prove anything to me at all. I was simply saying that without that criteria in place how could we call someone who was homeschooled, and may have done nothing but learn, say, finance and social studies until they were 18, how could we call them a graduate on the same level as a high school student who had to take several courses as dictated by a criteria?

I think it’s a good thing that the criteria is in place and that the government tells parents how they need to teach their kids in order for their kids to be called a high school graduate.

I hope you see this because I just wanted to make it clear I was NOT attacking you or anyone that was homeschooled at all.

Uncle Pappy

in February 23rd, 2012 @ 16:58

That was my mistake then, because I did take it as an attack on homeschoolers, in general. So, I do apologize.

I understand your concern because i feel the same way. I appreciate the diploma programs because it does outline certain subjects/standards that have to be met in order to graduate. I also appreciate them because I can prove that I was educated in a truly liberal arts program.

Reply

oksteelerfan

in February 20th, 2012 @ 13:41

I know teachers that are as dumb as a rock. I have a sister-in-law that is a prime example of that. She writes like she never finished grade school and can barely spell her name, yet she’s an elementary English teacher. I have no idea how she even graduated hs, much less earned a degree.

So just because someone has a degree, doesn’t mean they’re qualified, because there is no way I would want her teaching my kids. I looked over some of her kid’s spelling tests that she was grading one time and asked her why she wasn’t counting a word wrong that was misspelled and she said it’s spelled correctly and I said no it’s not and she got out her book and said oops I was spelling it wrong too.

Reply

Dr. Phibes

in February 18th, 2012 @ 00:22

Remember in grade school the bully that used to take your lunch money or lunch so that you had nothing to eat? Well now he works for the government, still takes your lunch away from you, and forces you to eat something he cooked up.

In 10 years could schools have the authority to inspect what kids eat at home for breakfast and dinner? Don’t bet against it.
Reply

Jonathan

in February 18th, 2012 @ 08:24

Why get in the teacher’s face and scream? What did they have to do with this?

Reply

John Steigerwald

in February 18th, 2012 @ 10:12

The teachers are supposed to be in charge of your kids. They should tell the federal agent that no one is to mess with the kid’s lunch without a search warrant.

Reply

franji1

in February 19th, 2012 @ 16:50

My wife’s a preschool teacher – she would not only have gotten in the agent’s face, she would have called the police and had them arrested for harassing children. She takes her role as “teacher” as serious as anyone can. Think about it – a PARENT drops their CHILD off into HER CARE. She’s gonna shoot first, ask questions later, if ANYBODY tries to MESS WITH ANY of her kids (this is a metaphoric statement, but you liberals can think whatever you want).

Think about it – how many “parental custody” disputes are ongoing at any one time among all of the kids in any given school. If you are a passive teacher, and just allow ANYBODY to “take control” of a kid (their lunch, their ride home, their medication, etc.), you need to get out of teaching.

Reply

Gary M

in February 19th, 2012 @ 06:22

I heard this on the radio on my drive home, so I looked up the numbers on a .gov site.
Almost all of the dollars, 89.2%, for primary and secondary education comes directly from the state, and most of that via property taxes.
The remaining 10.8% comes from the federal government.
However, a whopping 70% of the rule and regulations are set forth at the federal level. There are huge strings attached to that money. I’d love to live in a state that says, keep your 10%, we’ll make up the difference, and please, mind your own business.
You know Michelle did get floppy ears to sign off on the child nutrition bill and that’s going to embolden teachers to be lunch bag Nazi.
Reply

MARK J. PENLAND

in February 19th, 2012 @ 12:09

I AGREE 100% WITH YOU!!!
Reply

Nancy

in February 20th, 2012 @ 16:37

“If I want my kid to eat Hostess Twinkies for lunch every day, that’s what he’s going to eat. Keep your hands of my kid’s lunch.” <– YES, this. Exactly. I'm so tired of the school telling me what my kids can and can't have for lunch. What we can and can't send in for holidays/birthdays. ENOUGH.

I could not agree more.

Pittsburgh Sports, Opinion and Politics | Just Watch the Game Blog

Tweet @John

Advertisements

Past Postings

Archives

Links