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Military-Style Voucher School Serves Children Bread and Water
Now the AP reports that "bad children" regularly are underfed as a form of punishment, sometimes receiving bread and water if the offense warrants. I am wondering if the right-wing privatizers who are all about choice would choose to send their own kids to this military work house--or if they would own give their own children a choice in the matter. Give the children a choice, and see how much public money would then remain in this hell hole:
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel School accused of denying food Lunch trimmed as penalty, report says May 25, 2007 By Alan J. Borsuk Leaders of La Brew Troopers Military University School, a military-style private school at 4055 N. 34th St., have been ordered by the state Department of Public Instruction to stop serving some students smaller lunches as a punishment for misconduct. In a letter dated May 21, Helen Pesche, child nutrition program consultant for DPI, said the state will withhold any further payments for lunch and breakfast programs for low-income students until that practice and others related to the food program at the school are halted or corrected. The letter, addressed to Shan Owens, who leads the school, says that inspections at the school found that students were sometimes punished by being served something called "standard lunch" in which the meat or meat substitute and a vegetable or fruit of a school lunch were not served. On one day when inspectors visited, 24 children were served lunches that did not include a sloppy joe on a bun and canned fruit, the report says. Instead, they were given only a slice of white bread, a half cup of mashed potatoes and a half pint of milk. It says some students told a DPI employee that "when someone is really bad, we get bread and water." The DPI inspection report says withholding menu items "is a totally unacceptable practice for any school participating in the National School Lunch Program." "This method of discipline must stop immediately," the report says. La Brew, which serves kindergarten through sixth-grade students, has been part of the private school voucher program since the 2003-'04 school year. DPI records say it had 162 students receiving voucher support as of January, which indicates it is receiving a little over $1 million this school year in public money. The school is known for its "boot camp" regimen, including frequent rounds of exercise and the use of physical sanctions against misbehavior, sometimes including such things as carrying school desks around the block. Students often wear fatigues to school. The state report lists more than a dozen ways that corrective action was needed in how La Brew handled subsidized lunch and breakfast programs. Records were not kept properly, and the school claimed payment for lunches for 18 children who did not have applications to participate in the program on file. The DPI report says the school claimed payment for lunch on two days in February when the school was closed by bad weather. Owens did not return a call on Friday from a reporter asking about the report. Subsidized lunch and breakfast are available to all public and private schools for low-income students, with the federal government covering most of the costs and the state a smaller amount. — Jim Horn |
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