'Outrageous': expert slams White House for denying school meals' link to learning

Author of groundbreaking study of school meals’ impact on class
achievement said proposed cuts to programs reflects ‘lack of
knowledge or … dishonesty’

Sam Thielman in New York
Friday 17 March 2017 18.07 GMT

The author of a groundbreaking 1988 study demonstrating the link between school meal programs and classroom achievement has denounced as “outrageous” the Trump administration’s assertion that no such link exists.

When Mick Mulvaney, director of Donald Trump’s office of budget management, told press on Thursday that the administration’s attack on school meal programs because they “don’t work”, he did not mean that they don’t feed hungry children.

“Let’s talk about after-school programs generally: they’re supposed to help kids who don’t get fed at home get fed so they do better in school. Guess what? There’s no demonstrable evidence that they’re actually doing that,” Mulvaney said. “There’s no demonstrable evidence they’re actually helping results, helping kids do better in school.”

That statement is “an outrageous, fallacious comment that clearly reflects a lack of knowledge, or perhaps even worse, dishonesty”, said physician Michael Weitzman in an interview with the Guardian. Weitzman is the former chair of pediatrics at New York University, where he currently teaches, and this year’s recipient of the John Howland award, the highest honor bestowed by the American Pediatric Society.

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