For MASSPTA

High food costs hit school lunch trays

The minimum average cost to prepare and serve a school lunch was $2.66 during the 2007-08 school year:

- Food costs: $1.15

- Non-food costs: 14 cents

- Labor costs: $1.26

- Indirect costs: 11 cents

But the federal subsidy to support those meals paid far less:

- For free meals to children from the poorest families, the government paid $2.47 per lunch, up 3 percent.

- For students eligible for reduced-price lunches, the subsidy was $2.07.

- For students who paid full price, the subsidy was 23 cents.

A bill phasing out manufacturers' use of toxic chemicals in favor of "safer alternatives" could reach the House floor by the end of the month, a legislative leader said Thursday.

Rep. Paul Donato, chairman of the committee that schedules bills for floor consideration and a sponsor of the legislation (S 2481), said, "The environment today needs a safer alternatives bill." A Medford Democrat, Donato joined other House leaders and fellow sponsors, Reps. Frank Smizik (D-Brookline) and Jay Kaufman (D-Lexington), in putting pressure on colleagues at a press conference highlighting chemicals released from vinyl shower curtains. The Senate in January signed off on the bill, which is now in the House.

A Center for Health, Environment and Justice report released today on chemicals that make up the "new shower curtain smell" showed 108 different volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are released into the air from a curtain over a 28-day period, including types that can cause cancer, learning disabilities and asthma attacks.

A top lobbying group for manufacturers, the Associated Industries of Massachusetts, says the bill is unnecessary and burdens businesses. Manufacturers already conduct alternatives assessments as required under state law, according to Robert Rio, senior vice president of government affairs for the group. The bill would fail to prevent a product made in China, which doesn't require substitutes, from coming into Massachusetts, he added. "We'd be forcing our manufacturers and only our manufacturers to change the makeup of their products and their competitors would be unencumbered by this process," Rio said.

Smizik, chairman of the Committee on the Environment, Natural Resources and Agriculture, said that's untrue, and distributors would be held to the same responsibility as producers. Rio sent a three-page letter in May urging lawmakers to oppose the bill. Bill supporters say the legislation allows for a slow and deliberative process, with the secretary of environmental and energy affairs working with the business community.

The bill also provides businesses with subsidies and technical assistance.

The Alliance for a Healthy Tomorrow, which held the press conference, is pressing lawmakers today to pass the bill by handing out the CHEJ report and attaching a small sample of the curtains in a plastic baggie. "They'll get a sniff and a whiff but they won't be exposed like our children at home," said Lee Ketelson, New England director of Clean Water Action.

Regarding S-2481: An Act to Promote Safer
Alternatives to Toxic Chemicals.

On behalf of the Massachusetts Parent Teacher
Association (MassPTA) I urge you to do all that you
can to pass S-2481: An Act to Promote Safer
Alternatives to Toxic Chemicals.

Supporting the Safer Alternatives Bill is the safe
choice and the smart choice for Massachusetts. This
is the most important step you as a policy maker can
take for public health this session.

We know enough about the damage caused by toxic
chemicals to act now. We know that synthetic
hormones, pesticides, flame retardants and other
toxic chemicals are in our bodies and even in
newborn baby cord blood.

We know there is a direct connection between these
toxic chemicals in our water, food and air and the
growing rates of asthma, cancer, birth defects,
neurological and immune system disorders and the
crises in health, health care costs, and health
insurance -- the budget busters of every family,
business and municipality in the state.

You can help stem the epidemic of illnesses and
disabilities caused by toxic chemicals and the
growing burdens they impose on our families and
communities.

Vote yes to pass S-2481. The wealth of our
communities is the health of our children.

Don't be fooled by the few short-sighted marketers and
manufacturers who think putting short-term profits before
people is good for Massachusetts. Setting a high standard
for community and workplace safety, public health and
corporate responsibility protects our children and the
health of our local economies and our long term interests
in the global marketplace.

Please let me know that I can tell the 19000 members of
the Massachusetts PTA that you are a leader among
legislators because you are committed to public health and
good government for all the residents of Massachusetts.

Ellie Goldberg, M.Ed.
Massachusetts PTA Legislative Chair
Massachusetts State PTA www.masspta.org
ellie.goldberg@gmail.com (H) 617-965-9637

A BOLDER, BROADER APPROACH TO EDUCATION
A new task force of national policy experts with diverse religious and political affiliations, in public policy fields including education, social welfare, health, housing, and civil rights today launched a campaign calling for a "Broader, Bolder Approach to Education" to break a decades-long cycle of reform efforts that promised much and have achieved far too little. The Task Force's framework points to the many flaws in the approach of the current No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law and charges that the nation's education and youth development policy has erred by relying on school improvement alone to raise achievement levels of disadvantaged children. According to the Task Force, multitudes of children are growing up in circumstances that hinder their educational achievement. Statistics suggest the rhetoric of leaving no child behind has trumped reality. As the Task Force's prominent ads have noted, "Some schools have demonstrated unusual effectiveness. But even they cannot, by themselves, close the entire gap between students from different backgrounds in a substantial, consistent and sustainable manner on the full range of academic and non-academic measures by which we judge student success." The signatories to "Bolder Approach" read like a Who's Who of diverse national leaders from all political and policy spectrums, who have come to agree that the policy embodied in NCLB has failed. The release of the "Broader, Bolder" statement marks the beginning of a long-term effort to persuade federal, state and local policymakers to consider a more enriching framework as they work to support every child's education.
http://www.boldapproach.org /statement.html

 
Video: The New PE
Collaborative games, zip lining, and classroom aikido are part of a new physical education movement that makes kids smarter.

 

Fresh Methods to Keep Kids Active Roll over, dodgeball. Bold new activities put the fizz back in phys ed. Credit: Bart Nagel

 

Florida Pupils Required to Exercise Thirty Minutes Daily
Governor Charlie Crist has signed a bill requiring Florida elementary schools to provide thirty minutes of continuous exercise daily for their students. -- USA Today

 

Related Edutopia article: Students Move to Learn

 

Action Alert:
The Conservation Tax Incentive act, which would help protect undeveloped land by providing a state income tax credit to taxpayers who donate land for conservation, is still in the House Committee on Ways and Means. Of all the current bills being promoted by the Green Agenda, this one has the best opportunity to be enacted into law this session . The July 31st end of the legislative session is fast approaching, and we need your help!  

Contact your state representative TODAY and ask him/her to support H. 799 by urging House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Robert DeLeo (D-Winthrop) to bring this important bill to the House floor for a vote. Dial 617-722-2000 and ask for your representative by name, or then mention your town and the operator will connect you. For more information on this bill, and on how to find your legislator, go to http://www.crwa.org/alert/cons _tax.html

For the Boston City Council Committee on Environment and Health

Ellie Goldberg, M.Ed., VP Legislation, MassPTA
May 29, 2008

My name is Ellie Goldberg. I am an advocate for healthy children, healthy schools and environmental health and safety. I am also a board member and Vice-president of Legislation for the Massachusetts PTA. I thank you for the opportunity to testify today.

Massachusetts PTA is part of the largest volunteer child advocacy organization in the United States. It is a not-for-profit organization of parents, educators, students, and other citizens active in their schools and communities. First organized in 1910, MassPTA now has approximately 19,000 members in 119 local units carrying on almost one hundred years of advocacy for children, families and schools.

PTA is a leader in reminding our nation of its obligations to children. The MassPTA position statement on Safe and Nurturing Environments dedicates us to support, expand, and improve efforts to protect children from toxic exposures that cause preventable illnesses and disabilities.

Just as MassPTA urges the passage of An Act to Promote Safer Alternatives to Toxic Chemicals as the safe choice and the smart choice for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, we urge the City of Boston to set a high standard for children's health and safety, public health and corporate accountability.

We know BPA is toxic and that it can sabotage children's healthy development. Indeed, our children are the hit and run victims of the thousands of health damaging and life altering "stealth" substances that are ubiquitous in our water, air and food and in the consumer products we use in our daily lives.

We see the evidence of harm with our own eyes-- in our families, in our schools, in our communities, and in the daily newspapers. We need to stop the crisis of chronic disease and disability that leads to the rising health care and health insurance costs that are the budget busters of every family, school, business and municipality in the state. We cannot afford to wait for the federal system or for the marketplace to address the gaps in protection from toxic chemicals.

In the 1962 book Silent Spring, Rachel Carson (whose 101st birthday was this week) described the link between the contamination of the environment and our health. In Chapter 14: One in Four, Carson pointed out that the most dangerous type of exposure was the "minute exposures, repeated over and over throughout the years." Carson explained that unlike diseases and injuries caused by germs, we have put the vast majority of chemicals into the environment and, if we wish, we can eliminate many of them to lessen or mitigate their horrible impact. Her most basic legacy is the message that "prevention is the imperative."

We need to always remember that the wealth of our communities is the health of our children. The public has the right to expect that our elected and appointed government officials at every level will act to safeguard the long term economic and health security of our families.

- We cannot undo the contamination and continuous malignant exposures from BPA and other toxic chemicals already in our environment and in our bodies. But we can stop it from getting worse.

- We can adopt standards that stop the manufacture, distribution and sale of children's products and all food and beverage containers that contain BPA and other known hormone disrupters, carcinogens, and neurotoxins.

- We can align the use of public funds by our agencies, schools, grantees and contractors with standards and regulations that protect and safeguard children and public health by establishing "purchasing preferences" to allow only the purchase and use of products made without hormone disrupters, carcinogens, and neurotoxins.

- We can eliminate unnecessary hazardous products from our homes, schools, hospitals and workplaces.

PTA membership is open to anyone who is concerned with the education, health, and welfare of children and youth. We urge all health and education professionals, organizations, parent groups, citizens and City of Boston leaders and policy makers to be our partners in prevention. Together we can make wise policies and make sustainability, public health and good government a priority.


I encourage you to join PTA in working for the education, health and safety of your children and mine.

PREVENT CHILDHOOD OBESITY

Get junk food and sugary drinks out of schools. H. 4376, "An Act to Promote Proper School Nutrition," is in the House Ways and Means Committee. Help pass this important bill in the House!

  Email Your Representative NOW!

Learn More from the Massachusetts Public Health Association