Stakeholder Analysis

Read Nicholas Confessore’s 2014 piece in the NYT Magazine, “How School Lunch Became the Latest Political Battleground.\”

The policy in question is the Healthy, Hunger Free Kids Act, which passed in 2010 but then went through the rule-making process through 2014 to guide implementation. Confessore writes,

“Some Democrats in Congress fear that if Republicans win control of the Senate this fall, Obama’s reform will be gutted within a year — and with it, the government’s single-best weapon against childhood obesity. “It’s a war of attrition at this point,” one congressional aide told me. “Right now we’re in that phase where you’re fighting a rear-guard action to hold on to as much territory as you can.”

Assignment

You are a policy analyst to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, who works for President Obama in 2014, an election year (like now). Using the attached stakeholder analysis matrix, please conduct a brief analysis of the stakeholders in Confessore\’s piece about federal school lunch policy, to outline who are your allies (2-3) and opponents (2-3). Remember, your goal is to keep the Act intact and not undermined through rulemaking or legislative change.

SAMPLE SOLUTION

Introduction
The Federal school lunch policy was enacted with view of providing school going children with low cost lunch or free lunch in an attempt to reduce obesity. This act was enforced after public concern over statistical figures that indicated obesity was on the rise among school going children. An obese populace would mean reduced productivity, increased chances of contracting diseases and general increase in government expenditure on healthcare. The act that was implemented in 2014 received praise and criticism in equal measure from many quarters.
Many stakeholders voiced their concern on the lunch policy making it a source of debate both in congress and senate and as Nicholas Confessore indicates in his article, the school lunch policy became the source of the recent political battleground (Taber, Chriqui, Powell, & Chaloupka, 2013). The enacted policy became a political issue especially when the real rules started being implemented. This essay is therefore meant to look at an in depth analysis of stakeholders and the interests they have in the whole policy issue. The essay will also highlight the source of influence of such stakeholders…