A War on Our Kids

As food assistance and affordable care are threatened, the war on kids shows up in sick classrooms and starved learning.

Behind every empty tray is a story of policy choices that fail our children. © 2025 forwardED LLC

As the year draws to a close, I want you to reflect on the most critical development in education in 2025—how two of the most consequential federal programs shaping the education and lives of our most vulnerable children—the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), housed in the Department of Agriculture, and the Affordable Care Act (ACA), administered through the Department of Health and Human Services—have revealed just how fragile our promise of education to our children is.

When SNAP payments were recently delayed, our children suffered. When ACA premiums increase in January, our children will suffer again. And our classrooms have and will continue to bear the costs of this unlikely and unnecessary war on our kids.

While both programs sit far outside the U.S. Department of Education, they may be the most significant federal education policies we have because they do more than fight poverty; they help shape the foundation of American education itself. Research shows that SNAP improves children’s health, academic performance, and overall well-being (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 2025). Kids who receive SNAP benefits are healthier, have better attendance, and are more likely to graduate high school (No Kid Hungry, 2024). And when families have consistent access to food, children can concentrate, learn, and thrive in school.

Similarly, it has been reported that the ACA’s expansion of health coverage for low-income families has reduced absenteeism and chronic illness among children. When kids have access to preventive care, they spend more time learning and less time in hospitals. The ACA has not only saved lives; it has safeguarded learning by keeping our children healthier and, thus, more likely to be in school.

These programs are not charity—they are strategy and investments that make education possible for millions of children who face the most basic barriers to access and opportunity.

 

We have long known that when families have a stable income, schools inherit the possibility. Recent studies have illuminated the profound effects of programs such as direct cash payments to families. Programs that make possible unconditional transfers—monthly stipends (if you will) that give parents financial flexibility—have shown powerful outcomes for children’s cognitive and emotional development.

The Baby’s First Years study, a large randomized trial, found that modest cash transfers reduced stress and improved early developmental markers among infants in low-income households (NBER, 2025). Other studies confirm that income stability allows parents to invest in healthier food, safer housing, and enriched learning environments (Ford School of Public Policy, 2025).

Cash transfers, including programs like SNAP, and access to quality healthcare work because they address scarcity directly. They replace the daily panic of survival with the daily practice of care. When a parent doesn’t have to choose between food and rent or keeping a sick child at home or sending them to school, that parent has space to imagine a better life for their child.

As the recent federal government shutdown halted or delayed benefits for millions of families, leaving food pantries overwhelmed and children hungry (Wikipedia, 2025), the crucial link between life and learning was left strained. For the 43 million Americans who rely on SNAP—nearly 40 percent of whom are children—the consequences were immediate, as school systems serving families most impacted by the delay saw both noticeable decreases in attendance and increases in discipline referrals.

These emerging observations seem consistent with science. Research from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health explains that even brief interruptions in food assistance or healthcare can lead to declines in children’s physical and cognitive health (Harvard, 2024). Other studies have described how hunger and illness show up in classrooms as fatigue, irritability, inattention, or, worse, chronic absenteeism. It becomes harder to learn long division when your attention is divided due to an empty stomach or overburdened lungs triggered by asthma. Schools can out-teach neither hunger nor sickness. They can only bear their burdens.

Until recently, the U.S. government seemed ready to support schools in supporting our children. However, in March 2025, an executive order directed the U.S. Department of Education to transfer key programs—including Title I, which supports low-income schools—to other federal departments under the guise of efficiency (AP News, 2025). The move threatens decades of progress toward educational equity, as the Department was created to ensure access to quality schooling—regardless of race, zip code, or disability.

Though we have examples of programs, such as SNAP and ACA,  that sit outside the U.S. Department of Education and significantly influence school outcomes, let’s be clear: the weakening of the U.S. Department of Education is not about efficiency but about erasing our accountability to our children. As the Brookings Institution cautions, transferring responsibilities to other agencies diffuses oversight and undermines civil rights protections. The National Education Association calls such actions “catastrophic for millions of students in low-income communities.” When we dismantle institutions designed to protect children, we declare their needs negotiable. We saw this most recently when SNAP payments were delayed. We will see it again when ACA subsidies run out, and then again when the U.S. Department of Education is either shut down or rendered toothless.

Imagine Aisha, a fourth grader I met during a recent school visit for a study I am conducting on chronic absenteeism in NYC. Aisha’s family depends on SNAP. When her family’s benefits are delayed, she skips breakfast, arrives to school tired, and struggles to focus. Her teacher, overworked and underpaid, notices but can do little about it. Meanwhile, Title I funding uncertainty eliminates her after-school reading program. Her safety net frays from every direction—policy decisions made hundreds of miles away turn into barriers at her desk. Multiply Aisha by millions. The result is not an individual crisis but a national one.

The war on our kids is not metaphor but math. Cuts to food and health programs cost children meals, hours of learning, and years of life expectancy. The defunding of education oversight costs schools guidance, equity, and stability. The compounding effect is devastating: our youngest citizens grow up in systems that are actively divesting from them.

The data tells us what decency already knows: when children have access to nutrition, healthcare, and family income, they learn better, behave better, and dream bigger. They also attend school more often. When they don’t, they fall behind—and so does the nation.

Make no mistake, across the U.S., a quiet war is being waged against our children. It is not a war fought with bombs or armies, but with policies and budgets—through neglect, defunding, and political maneuvering. The casualties are not soldiers but students. The battleground is not overseas but in our classrooms, our kitchens, and our communities.

This war on our kids must end. Every delayed food benefit, every dismantled program, every bureaucratic excuse adds to a growing moral debt. If the measure of a nation is how it treats its children, then we must decide whether we want a society that nurtures them or neglects them.

Our children deserve peace—not just in the world, but in their daily lives: peace of mind, peace of body, peace in their schools. Ending this war begins with restoring their safety nets, protecting their schools, and believing, again, that the promise of public education belongs to all—especially our children.

References

Beharie, N. (2016). A protective association between SNAP participation and children’s educational advancement. PLOS One. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5513186/

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. (2024). The critical link between SNAP benefits and children’s education. https://www.cacscw.org/the-critical-link-between-snap-benefits-and-childrens-education/

National Bureau of Economic Research. (2025). The effect of a monthly unconditional cash transfer on children’s development at four years of age: A randomized controlled trial in the U.S. https://www.nber.org/papers/w33844

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. (2025). SNAP boosts the economy, reduces hunger, and improves health. https://www.rwjf.org/en/insights/our-research/2025/04/snap-boosts-the-economy-reduces-hunger-and-improves-health.html

Ford School of Public Policy. (2025). Child cash benefits improve child health and development internationally. https://fordschool.umich.edu/news/2025/child-cash-benefits-improve-child-health-and-development-internationally

Brookings Institution. (2025). Analyzing the order to dismantle the Department of Education. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/brookings-scholars-analyze-trumps-order-to-dismantle-the-department-of-education/

National Education Association. (2025). How dismantling the Department of Education would harm students. https://www.nea.org/nea-today/all-news-articles/how-dismantling-department-education-would-harm-students

Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. (2024). Ending SNAP benefits could harm health. https://hsph.harvard.edu/news/food-insecurity-from-ending-snap-benefits-could-harm-health/

Wikipedia. (2025). 2025 U.S. federal government shutdown. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_United_States_federal_government_shutdown

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Suggested citation

Kirkland, D.E. (2025). A war on our children. In forwardED Perspectives, https://www.forward-ed.com/post/a-war-on-our-kids.

About the AuthorDavid E. Kirkland, PhD, is the founder and CEO of forwardED, a national organization reimagining education through equity, healing, and human possibility. He can be reached at david@forward-ed.com.