Survey: Most Ohio economists think universal school meals would pay dividends

Yahoo

04-04-2025

Olentangy Orange High School Senior Connor Morrison and other students urge Ohio lawmakers to make breakfast and lunch free for K-12 schools. (Photo by Morgan Trau, WEWS.)
The Ohio General Assembly is considering a bill that would provide free breakfasts and lunches to children attending public schools. A strong majority of a panel of economists agreed that the measure would improve student outcomes, a survey released this week said.
Ohio Senate Bill 109, introduced by state Sens. Louis Blessing III, R-Colerain Township, and Kent Smith, D-Euclid, would provide the meals free of charge to all kids in Ohio's public and charter schools at an estimated cost of $300 million a year.
House Speaker Matt Huffman, R-Lima, claims that Ohio can't afford public education at its current funding level. That level was derived in an attempt to resolve a 28-year-old state Supreme Court ruling that school funding was so paltry that it violated the Ohio Constitution.
Ohio students plead with lawmakers for free breakfast and lunch in schools
This week, Huffman introduced a budget decimating the amount called for under the Fair School Funding Plan by about two-thirds, to $226 million.
Huffman claims that Ohio can't afford to fund public schools a year after he supported giving nearly $1 billion a year in vouchers to families with kids in private school. The measure was sold as a way of helping low-income families afford private education, but nearly 90% of families receiving money are not low income and nearly 20% are in the state's top income bracket.
Ohio subsidizes the wealthy in other ways, including the $1 billion it forgoes each year on an LLC tax break that has failed to produce the promised jobs. The subsidies also include more than $1 billion over a decade that used to flow into the state treasury from the liquor franchise. It's now handed out as business incentives through JobsOhio — though the private agency hasn't proven that it's attracted any jobs.
Huffman says Ohio doesn't have $666 million to fund public education, but his budget has $600 million to subsidize the billionaire Haslam family in building a new stadium for the perennially underperforming Cleveland Browns. The Haslams have claimed that the project would generate far more in tax revenue than the cost to taxpayers. But an expert told The Statehouse News Bureau that their assumptions were far too optimistic. And Cuyahoga County Executive Chris Ronayne has said the Haslams' own model assumes that ticket prices would climb to $800 over the 30-year life of the bonds.
Ohio hasn't had the best record when it comes to such deals. Cleveland.com last week reported that the state has little power to claw back $600 million it's put up for an Intel plant that is now not expected to open until 2030 at the earliest, and is said to be unlikely to live up to its original promises.
Meanwhile, good public education seems to be at least as important to growing the Ohio economy as tax breaks and other subsidies for the wealthy. But spending $300 million a year on meals for public schoolchildren hasn't made it out of the Ohio Senate committee to which the bill was assigned.
Majority of Ohioans are in favor of universal free school meal program, according to poll
The great majority of economists surveyed this week seemed to think it should. Asked whether 'universal free school lunches will improve student outcomes such as test scores and graduation rates,' 14 agreed and three were uncertain.
'There is an abundant body of literature that finds that universal free school lunches not only improve average test scores and overall academic performance…, but also reduce suspensions,' Will Georgic of Ohio Wesleyan University wrote in the comments section of the survey. 'While not every student's academic achievement will improve, the average effect for all students will be unambiguously positive.'
Bill LaFayette of Regionomics said such a program would benefit family budgets and promote good nutrition.
'Many children, especially in urban districts, live in economically challenged families, possibly without access to fresh decent food. Hungry children cannot learn,' he wrote. 'This would also relieve the household of an additional expense.'
David Brasington of the University of Cincinnati said he was uncertain of the overall benefit because he didn't know how many families would take advantage of the program.
'It will help children who otherwise wouldn't get the food, but this is a sufficiently small number of students that it wouldn't move the needle,' he wrote. 'My children also don't like the food school offers, so take-up might be low, too low to make the cost worthwhile.'
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The economists were also asked whether they believed universal breakfasts and lunches at school would 'promote equitable outcomes in Ohio's K-12 education system.' Fourteen agreed, two were uncertain and one disagreed.
Jonathan Andreas said the program would promote student equality by not singling out those from low-income families.
'Universal benefits are more equitable than means-tested benefits because they literally treat everyone the same,' he wrote. 'They increase equitability of social status by eliminating the stigma of singling out the needy for special help.'
Even though the program wouldn't force anyone to eat school meals, Michael Jones of the University of Cincinnati disagreed that it would promote equity. He said it would discourage some kids from staying home and having breakfast with their families.
'Encouraging children to eat breakfast at school rather than at home shifts parental responsibilities to government programs. This sends the message that providing basic needs such as food is something families can opt out of rather than prioritize,' he wrote. 'Parents who value family time together should not be put at a financial disadvantage simply because they do not use a free school breakfast. Families are strengthened when children see their parents taking care of them.'
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