Photo by Ellie Strikes WeirdThe city of Washington has received a fair amount of accolades lately. We’re tops for biking and walking, growing a business, crashing our cars on purpose, and also pretty high up when it comes to rudeness, intolerance and butt implants.
Now comes word of another ranking in which D.C. takes the No. 1 spot: Our public schools’ breakfast program for low-income students. D.C. Public Schools enrolled 64 percent of its low-income students in its free breakfast program during the 2010-11 school year, according to the School Breakfast Scorecard, an annual report by the Food Research and Action Center, an anti-hunger group. The DCPS program also experienced the largest year-over-year growth of any such state-run program, expanding by 32 percent from the previous school year.
The report chalks up D.C.’s top spot for school breakfasts to the Healthy Schools Act, a 2010 bill that besides expanding the morning meals, also replaced many of the dishes common on school-lunch menus with healthier selections. (At the time of its passage, Alan Suderman was pretty cheesed about the, well, lack of processed cheese.)
The Healthy School Act, the rankings report said, has made D.C. “the first city to legislate breakfast in the classroom” in schools where at least 40 percent of students qualify for free or reduced-price meals.
The act’s author, Councilmember Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3) passed along the rankings in a press release taking credit for the good results.
“Our efforts to improve the health of our children mean we are not only feeding their stomachs well, but also their minds in order to boost performance in the classroom,” she said in the release. “We will continue to fight and legislate on their behalf as D.C. students set the standard for the nation in healthy eating.”
Immediately trailing D.C. in the School Breakfast Scorecard were South Carolina and Vermont. Maryland and Virginia came in at No. 24 and No. 21, respectively.
See the full report:
School Breakfast Scorecard 2010-2011
