NPR.
This is the indicator from planet money.
I'm Darian woods.
And I'm Waylon Wong.
Darian, if you couldn't already tell from the smell of sharpened number two pencils in the air, it's back to school season.
I was wondering what that smell was.
And one aspect of us educational policy has become a particular flashpoint in the presidential election cycle, school meals and which students should get to eat for free.
Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walls made school meals free as governor of Minnesota.
He touted this policy in his speech last week at the Democratic National Convention.
So while other states were banning books from their schools, we were banishing hunger from ours.
Meanwhile, a group of House Republicans wants to get rid of an Obama era program that allows universal access to free meals in low income school districts.
So school meals are political, to say the least.
But you can't really dig into school meals without a big serving of our favorite topic, economics.
It's a school food fight at the government policy level.
Today on the show, we explore an important question at the heart of the economic debate about feeding students.
What helps low income children more, paying just for their meals or paying for everyone's meals?
Are you looking for something a little different in your 2024 election coverage?
Here at the it's been a Minute podcast, we look at politics from a culture perspective.
We look at why name calling seems to be in how influencers are changing the game and how the candidate's fashion choices are redefining power dressing.
We're giving you a different way to look at the 2024 election.