These are the guidelines my child’s school system uses. I pack his lunch 4 times a week and he’s allowed to buy lunch on Fridays (probably the worst choice of the week - hot dogs). I think they do a much better job in the school cafeterias than they did when I was a kid.
From a blog I found recently via Yahoo!, Fed Up with Lunch, I get the feeling that some lunches really are a problem and some are not.
The content is much more in the comments than the blog itself, and I cannot keep up with them, so I haven’t read it in awhile, but there’s definitely indications in those comments (and in the blog itself) that some lunches are terrible, both taste-wise and nutritionally, and some schools get it right.
Thanks for the eGullet link, Shalmanese. That was interesting reading!