California schoolkids who want to raise money for field trips and extracurricular activities will have to think of something other than holding a bake sale. Cookies, cupcakes, pizza and other goodies exceed the fat, sugar and caloric limits set by the state’s legislature for foods sold on campus, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. Parents and teachers are not too happy about it, especially in these tight budgetary times.
Bake sales are one of the quickest and easiest ways for schools to raise money,” said Wendy Morrison, president of the Montclair Elementary School Parent-Teacher Association in Oakland. “To limit this option has a significant impact on fundraising. And as a parent, it should really be my choice if I want to buy my child a cookie or slice of pizza after school.”
State guidelines passed in 2005 limit the calories, fat and sugar content of snacks sold in California schools. Each district is responsible for enforcing the new law, and some have hired “wellness coordinators” to ensure that schools are in compliance, the Chronicle reports. State Department of Education officials make periodic visits to schools and will put schools on notice if illegal treats are discovered.
Of course, not every school district is upset. In Berkeley (naturally) candy and baked goods were “banned by the district four years ago. Instead of peppermint candies on a school secretary’s desk, kids can reach for cashews and peanuts,” the paper notes. “A district-issued cookbook of healthy alternatives to brownies and cupcakes, such as vegan cookies and fruit and granola concoctions, is available to parents.” Yum!
Good to know California has solved all their other problems and can finally turn their attention to those insidious bake sales.
Lawmakers in California have had a busy summer deciding what students in the Golden State should be taught in school. A bill requiring that a 1946 court ruling on desegregation be added to the curriculum won strong support, as did a measure that adds the contribution of Filipino-American soldiers. Legislation requiring lessons on the contributions of Italian Americans, Native Americans and the deportation of Mexican citizens during the Depression are pending.
An editorial in one local paper makes sport of the whole miasma:
OK, boys and girls, please turn to page 151 of your state history book and skip down to the section on the contributions of Filipino-American soldiers in World War II. We were going to talk about the contributions of the Chinese, but seeing as how that isn’t mandatory, we’re going to take a pass.
Please be prepared immediately after recess to discuss Myanmar’s failure to adopt U.S. concepts of Democracy. Yes, Jimmy, I know you’re only in fourth grade, but a bipartisan state Senate majority felt California students were getting way behind in their comparative political theory. And we wouldn’t want to argue with bipartisan state Senate majorities, now would we?
Fortunately, we will have time to go over our spelling words a couple of more times this week because the governor vetoed Senate Bill 908, which would have encouraged each California grade level to include a section on global warming.
“They all have merit,” concludes an editorial in the Contra Costa Times, “but it is not the job of individual legislators to alter the public school curriculum on a piecemeal basis. This is the purview of the state Board of Education.”
Rewarding students for high performance has been discussed here and elsewhere, now a pending California bill would authorize and encourage school districts to provide nonmonetary incentives to middle and high school students.
“What we’re really looking at is recognition and motivation and incentive to achieve,” Sen. Elaine Alquist, a Santa Clara Democrat who proposed the measure, tells the Sacramento Bee. Not everyone agrees. “At some point, students need to be taught that every good deed does not require reward,” said Jon Coupal of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.
I’m a pragmatist. I favor whatever works. But there will always be something that rubs me the wrong way about having to reward people for acting in their own self-interest.
Update: The Gradebook, a really good edublog by the St. Petersburg Times’ Jeffrey Solochek, has more on this, including similar proposals in Florida and New York.
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