Funding
Similar to what was mentioned in the ‘Curriculum and Structure’ tab of this website, school funding not only differs greatly between the UK and the US but there is also a distinction between the different states within the US. Public school finance mechanisms differ from state to state, and they are often extremely complex (Howell and Miller 1997). Funding for public education is the responsibility of each of the 50 united states since the U.S. Constitution does not recognize the need for public schools, but instead, it is a requirement within the constitution of each state. Within those states comes a wide amount of interest from contributors and stake holders in public education. Given the enormous resources involved and – more importantly – the critical private and societal benefits that education produced, the distribution of educational opportunities across communities has generated considerable interest among policy makers, the public, and the courts (Moser and Rubenstein 2002).
In the UK, most state-funded schools receive funding through revenue and capital funding which determine what the money can be spent on and it is the decision of the school to decide how that money is spent (The Education Hub 2023). Similar to the US, the money they receive is mainly used for day-to-day running costs such as teacher and staff pay, energy bills, maintenance and materials. In the UK, however, that money only comes from the revenue funding. Capital funding is used for construction of new school buildings and improvements to the school estate (The Education Hub 2023).
School Meals
Thanks to the Education (Provision of Meals) Act 1906, free school meals became a provision. Results from this act led to conclusions that children who received free school meals were better nourished and their lives improved (Intriguing History 2011). The passing of the act in parliament was partly due to the campaigning of educationalist, Margaret McMillan, in which she was convinced that hungry children can’t learn (Simkin 1997). Due to the COVID-19 lockdown, the provision of free school meals was halted which led to an anger in the opinion of the public. However, due a campaign led by football superstar, Marcus Rashford, the British government had no alternative but to reverse their decision. The aim of the campaign was to extend free school meals to children from low-income families during school holiday periods in England. In today’s legislation, the provision of food in schools in the UK falls to the responsibility of the school governors.
School meals in the US, much like the UK, are free for students from low-income families. The big difference between the US and the UK, regarding school meals, came with the first lockdown of COVID-19. Different to what the UK did, federal lawmakers in the United States decided to pay for free lunch for every public school student in America (North 2023). Despite this decision, school lunches still carry a bad reputation in the United States. School foods are frozen or made elsewhere and then heated before serving which creates meals that are far from fresh and, sadly, unappealing (Oberst 2018). Since the inception of the Healthy, Hunger-free Kids Act 2010, funding for school lunches have increased and schools around the United States are required to meet school meal nutrition standards. The implementation of stronger nutrition standards for school meals and snacks through the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act was associated with a significant reduction in the risk of obesity for youth in poverty (Kenney et al. 2020).