You Will Drink Chocolate Milk, Yes You Will, Kid

Chicago school usurps parental authority
Bill Bumpas - OneNewsNow - 4/13/2011
In an extreme example of the "nanny state" mentality, a public school in Chicago is forbidding students to bring lunches from home and is ordering them to only eat food from the school cafeteria.

The principal at Little Village Academy (K-8) on Chicago's West Side told the Chicago Tribune that making students eat the cafeteria food, unless they have a medical excuse, is intended to protect them from their own unhealthful food choices. "Nutrition wise, it is better for the children to eat at school," said Elsa Carmona. "It's about nutrition and the excellent quality food that they are able to serve [in the lunchroom]. It's milk versus a Coke."

While the administrator makes the nutrition argument, former public school teacher Dr. Karen Gushta -- research coordinator at Coral Ridge Ministries and author of The War on Children: How Pop Culture and Public Schools Put Our Kids at Risk -- tells OneNewsNow it usurps parental authority.

"It's another effort to take away parental rights and the right of a parent to make decisions about what is in the best interest for the welfare of their own child, and place that right in the hand of an administrator or some government agent or whomever it may be," she laments.

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Education/Default.aspx?id=1329076