Karen Heller: Bad taste of Phila. school breakfast plan

As if the pennant race weren't exciting enough, the mayor has proclaimed Wednesday as Aunt Jemima Frozen Breakfast Education Day.

Perhaps it's just me, but they lost me at "frozen breakfast." Neither nutrition nor taste comes immediately to mind. Also: What does education have to do with cold carbs?

"Kids will sample the blueberry pancakes because those are our latest," a publicist says to me. "We're talking the importance of a healthy breakfast because breakfast can be fun, right?"

As for eating breakfast, that responsibility now falls on Philadelphia principals - as if they didn't have enough on their plates upping attendance, graduation rates and, most important, test scores.

Testing has become the alpha and omega of public education. Schools maintain data lounges; many are wallpapered with scores. Unsurprisingly, administrators pushed harder for students to eat free school breakfasts during the all-important Pennsylvania System of School Assessments, according to a Public Citizens for Children and Youth (PCCY) study this year.

There's teaching to test, and now feeding to test.

After discovering that fewer than a third of the district's 165,000 students ate school breakfast last year, PCCY and Community Legal Services' Jonathan Stein, with the best of intentions, successfully pushed for Philadelphia principals to be held accountable for the children's morning food intake. The district goal is to have 70 percent of students participating in school lunch eat breakfast, too, by 2010. Along with academic achievement and safety, breakfast consumption is now part of a principal's annual assessment.

We can all agree that having healthy, well-nourished students is an admirable goal. But some children have eaten before arriving at school. As for those who haven't, you might ask where the families are in this equation, and how much parenting should be placed upon already-stressed educators? At a certain point, these children are in danger of becoming wards of the School District, where all the burden is placed on teachers and administrators.

"Really, what do they expect me to do? Force-feed them breakfast?" one principal asked.

There is also the issue of the food. Despite the idealistic efforts of gastro-crusaders Alice Waters and Jamie Oliver for edible schoolyards (food grown at the school) and compulsory cooking classes, the federal government provides only so much to the district - $2.57 for a free lunch, $1.46 for free breakfast. That's funding. Waters has argued that the true cost is "valued at a little over 20 cents per meal." Hence, breakfast sandwiches, the "super doughnut," and once-frozen carbs drenched in high-fructose corn syrup.

"Breakfast is one of those things over which we have minimal control," says Michael Lerner, president of Teamsters Local 502, representing principals and school administrators. "Every administrator and educator wants every kid to have a nutritious breakfast every day. But should they be responsible for it, should they be evaluated for it? Now the accountability ultimately rests with the principal."

Life is easier for corporations. To get the frozen breakfast proclamation, all Auntie J had to do was throw some iced flapjacks and $2,000 at one school, Franklin Edmonds Elementary in Northwest Philadelphia, where three of four students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches.

Granting corporate publicity for questionable food doesn't show smarts by the School District or city government. Here's a better lesson: If you're diming out Philadelphia's schools for a proclamation, do it for more money and better food.

While $2,000 is a lot for a hurting school, it's chump change for Aunt Jemima. The frozen products line is licensed to Pinnacle Foods, owned by the private equity group Blackstone Group. Its chairman is Abington native Stephen A. Schwarzman, worth $4.7 billion. A few years ago, he famously spent $3 million on his 60th birthday party where, I suspect, Aunt Jemima frozen breakfasts were not served.