The US should join other nations in giving public schoolkids free breakfast and lunch | Katrina vanden Heuvel

Free school meals increase attendance rates, improve nutrition, help low-income students and cut down on bureaucracy

Children with stamped wrists. Debt collectors hounding parents. Untouched food thrown away while an adult says: You have no money." In a dystopian thriller, these scenes might be dismissed as on-the-nose. But they're all real humiliations inflicted over unpaid accounts in US public school cafeterias.

Contrast these chilling scenes with a different one: a proud, middle-aged former teacher in a suit, surrounded by beaming schoolchildren, signing into law a program that will feed every student in his state. The most adorable bill-signing in US history - and a vision for how simple it could be to improve our kids' lives - came courtesy of Tim Walz.