West Virginia is among the first states to ban some synthetic food dyes from school lunches

Many dyes from nature can replace artificial colors.
(Adobe Stock photo)

West Virginia schools took certain food dyes off the school lunch menu starting on Aug. 1. "West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey signed a sweeping new law in March banning seven artificial dyes from school meals," reports Jonel Aleccia of The Associated Press. "Other states have enacted similar laws that would strip artificial dyes from school meals, but West Virginia’s action is the first to take effect."

The brief timeline between March and August sent state and school nutrition directors on a crunch time search to root out any school menu items that "contained any trace of petroleum-based synthetic dyes, including Red 3, Red 40, Yellow 5, Yellow 6, Blue 1, Blue 2 and Green 3," Aleccia explains. Once those items were removed, directors began working out substitution options that kids would still eat.

Health advocates have pushed to get synthetic dyes out of U.S. food for years, "citing mixed evidence of potential harm," Aleccia reports. "West Virginia’s ban on synthetic dyes was cheered by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has successfully pressured food makers to agree to remove artificial colors from their products."

Still, banning certain dyes won't suddenly make Americans healthier. "Nutrition experts agree that removing artificial colors from foods doesn’t address the main drivers of America’s chronic health problems," Aleccia writes. "Those stem largely from ingredients such as added sugars, sodium and saturated fat."

Nationally, the push against synthetic dyes is more of a baby step toward better nutrition. FDA Commissioner Marty Makary "has joined Kennedy in the push to get artificial dyes out of food, despite limited proof of health effects," Aleccia reports. In a recent podcast, Makary called the removal of petroleum-based food dyes "steps in the right direction.”

Just because Jell-O fruit cups and older versions of  Cool Ranch Doritos won't be served, doesn't mean school lunches will all turn beige. "Some suppliers had already removed artificial dyes from some school foods, swapping them for products colored with beet juice or turmeric." 

Parents revive the one-room schoolhouse in two rural Missouri communities

The Homestead School’s main room serves as the school's primary 
gathering space. (Photo by Kaitlyn McConnell, The Daily Yonder)

Ozark parents are going back in time to the old one-room schoolhouse concept, hoping that the past offers the best lessons on how to educate the hearts, minds and spirits of children.

"This seemingly old-timey form of schooling is reemerging in rural areas where families seek a different education for their children," reports Kaitlyn McConnell for The Daily Yonder. "Technology is very limited, and value is placed on personal character, work ethic, relationship building, and a foundation of faith in the primarily Christian region."

Starting around the end of the Civil War until the 1940s, the one-room schoolhouse was "the bedrock of rural Ozarks communities. Kids focused on learning basics that were taught by one teacher in one room," McConnell explains. The trend is re-emerging as "smaller – or at least more localized – is seen by some as better."

Not every new one-room schoolhouse runs exactly the way they did in earlier times; instead, their structure is meant to "channel close-knit classes, ideals, and beliefs – religious and lifestyle – that their leaders feel are important to instill in younger generations," McConnell reports.

Neighborhood Christian Schools serves about 40 kids from kindergarten through high school in Hutton Valley, Missouri, following the old philosophy. "The day is broken into periods that focus on traditional subjects," McConnell writes. "Kids from first through sixth grade are in the same room with one teacher. Like a traditional one-room school, more advanced students assist kids at lower levels."

Brenten and Kimberly Blake founded Homestead Schoolhouse about 100 miles west of Hutton Valley in rural Taney County. Their school "takes a more modern approach to 'one-room schooling,’" McConnell reports. "Instead of all being together in one room. . some core classes are broken down more into age or skill. In addition to coursework, the student’s experience includes 'life skills' training to recover rural knowledge, like animal husbandry and home economics."

"Whether it’s salvation or academics or better citizens, the long game is the goal for schools like these to have their impact be long-lasting beyond the core academic subjects," McConnell adds. Kimberly Blake told her, "Success really won’t be measured for several years – to see if you’re really instilling values in students."

Home schooling is America's fastest-growing form of education, but some are concerned about the results

The Washington Post graph

Amid school shootings, political polarization, controversial mask mandates, teacher strikes and student-to-student bullying, the U.S. educational system has been under tremendous pressure in recent years. In response, many parents are opting for an unconventional approach. "Home schooling has become — by a wide margin — America's fastest-growing form of education," report Peter Jamison, Laura Meckler, Prayag Gordy, Clara Ence Morse and Chris Alcantara of The Washington Post. "As families from Upper Manhattan to Eastern Kentucky embrace a largely unregulated practice once confined to the ideological fringe, a Washington Post analysis shows. . . . It is a remarkable expansion for a form of instruction that 40 years ago was still considered illegal in much of the country."

"The analysis — based on data The Post collected for thousands of school districts across the country — reveals that a dramatic rise in home schooling at the onset of the pandemic has largely sustained itself through the 2022-23 academic year, defying predictions that most families would return to schools that have dispensed with mask mandates and other covid-19 restrictions," the Post reports. "The growth demonstrates home schooling's arrival as a mainstay of the American educational system, with its impact — on society, on public schools and, above all, on hundreds of thousands of children now learning outside a conventional academic setting — only beginning to be felt."

The Post "estimates that there are now between 1.9 million and 2.7 million home-schooled children in the United States, depending on the rate of increase in areas without reliable data."

The Washington Post graph

The sheer number of home schooled children has left some citizens worried. The Post reports, "Many of America's new home-schooled children have entered a world where no government official will ever check on what, or how well, they are being taught." Elizabeth Bartholet, an emeritus professor at Harvard Law School and child welfare advocate, told reporters: "Policymakers should think, 'Wow — this is a lot of kids.' We should worry about whether they're learning anything."

"If there is a capital of American home schooling, it may be Hillsborough County, Fla," the Post reports. "There were 10,680 children being home-schooled at the beginning of the 2022 academic year within Hillsborough County's school district, the biggest total in The Post's home-schooling database." Corey McKeown, a home schooling advocate and teacher in Hillsborough, told the Post: "Home-schoolers in Hillsborough County do not lack for anything. We have come such a long way."

But Hillsborough County School Board member Lynn Gray, a former public school teacher who taught history part-time for several years at a Catholic home-schooling co-op, told the Post, "I can tell you right now: Many of these parents don't have any understanding of education. The price will be very big to us and to society. But that won't show up for a few years."