Flanagan also criticizes Alice Waters, a chef, for posing as an educator even though Waters and King Middle School Principal Neil Smith collaborated with teachers and community members to put the program together over a two-year period. Their goal was to integrate ESY into the middle school's curriculum, culture, and food program, according to the ESY website.
Flanagan, on the other hand, was an English teacher and college counselor at the Harvard-Westlake School in North Hollywood, California, a school known for its strong academic program, selective admissions, high college matriculation, and well-known parents and alumni. It's in the same league as the Eastern exclusive prep schools of Phillips Academy, Groton, Exeter, Hotchkiss School, etc. Working for the best and the brightest is hardly a credential for critiquing education in poor schools, which so many Right Wing commentators like to do. And they cling to their standardized tests as proof of success. Bah!
Actually, Flanagan's concern about the poor resembles the typical elitist patter that she also exhibited in her book, To Hell with All That: Loving and Loathing Our Inner Housewife (2006), where she trashes the feminist movement and extols the emotional rewards and social value of the traditional housewife. She works from home, takes her children to school and cooks for her family at night--all with the help of a nanny and a housekeeper.
Such hubris and disdain for the women of the 1960s and 70s who paved the way for women like her to make it to the Big Time is a disgusting display of tiresome Right Wing disingenuousness, which turns out to be a consistent pattern in Flanagan's writing and public persona, as witnessed on the "Colbert Report."
Finally, Flanagan is concerned that the public schools are playing into the "new Food Hysteria" that is promoted by "an agglomeration of foodies and educational reformers who are propelled by a vacuous if well-meaning ideology." Is this jealousy or just projection?
People like Flanagan are anathema to any discussion of the real issues. School gardening programs directly address the question of how we can get children to eat good, nutritious food. It sure isn't easy, especially when one in three American children is overweight because of their fat-laden and high fructose food they eat both at home and in school.
Like Alice Waters, British chef and school food advocate Jamie Oliver has been trying to attack obesity in children. For the past seven years he has been helping Americans understand that the food they eat is killing them. Four Americans die from the food they eat every 20 minutes, and that 10 percent of our health care bills or $150 billion, are obesity-related, he says. That amount is expected to double in 10 years.
One of the astounding realities Oliver discovered is that many kids can't even identify fruits or vegetables in their original form. That is because they are eating so much fast food, processed food, and restaurant food that they don't know what food looks like. Jamie Oliver, too, was recognized for his efforts in teaching kids about food by winning the $100,000 TED Prize.
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