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unintended irony

For those of you who haven't heard about the "Nugget-gate scandal" in North Carolina, last month a preschool child (from one of the More at Four programs, which is a modified form of welfare daycare) was given a school lunch instead of eating the lunch packed by her mother. Stories differ widely from the parents, the teacher, the principal, the health inspector who deemed the packed lunch "inappropriate", the local district superintendent and the media. Evidently this happened to four children on the same day, this is an on-going problem, and despite all the letters and press releases that the health inspector/social worker and the teacher were both simply doing their jobs, the teacher is now suspended.  Two of the children were supposed to only be given milk to drink (the missing ingredient from their lunch), but instead were given an entire lunch, of which the kids only ate the chicken nuggets. I won't digress on a commentary on this.

So now you know the back-story. NC Spin, which my husband watches every Sunday morning and I semi-despise because the men often bicker over each other making it impossible to understand what is being said, at the last moment briefly delved into the whole More at Four program and the political mess that is going on in the legislature and courts over it. One of the panelists mentioned that a private daycare couldn't operate on the funds that the state does because of the state's requirement that lead teachers in daycare have college degrees. Time was up, the news came on, and WRAL's opening news item and picture: UNC students jumping over illegal fires in celebration of their win over Duke.

Yeah. Just because you go to a state-sponsored school that your parents and tax-payers are paying for where you learn to drink and party and burn your butt because you are happy and built a fire in the middle of a road for which you don't have the proper permit means you deserve a better salary and a lead teacher position to teach colors and numbers and crafts and how to wash your hands after pottying to four-year-olds.

Somehow I think the irony and the timing of these two items were lost to Capitol Broadcasting.

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