Houston — THERE’S something about comparing America’s school food to the superior meals in other countries’ schools that we seem to enjoy, in a masochistic sort of way.

The latest example is Michael Moore’s new documentary, “Where to Invade Next,” which opens nationwide next month. Mr. Moore visits a village in Normandy and finds schoolchildren eating scallops, lamb skewers and a cheese course. He tells us, astonishingly, that the chef “spends less per lunch than we do in our schools in the United States,” and ends the segment by showing French students and adults photos of the food served in a Boston high school. As they pore over the pictures in puzzlement and horror, we read subtitled comments like “Seriously, what is that?” and “Frankly, that’s not food.”

That scene drew a lot of laughs, but as someone who has written about school food for almost six years, it made me want to scream in frustration. One might easily conclude from this segment that our students could have these same delicious meals, cooked from scratch, if only our school districts weren’t cheap, mismanaged or somehow captive to the processed food industry. But the problem with America’s school food has little to do with the schools themselves.

Let’s start with money. The federal government provides a little over $3 per student per lunch, and school districts receive a smaller contribution from their state. But districts generally require their food departments to pay their own overhead, including electricity, accounting and trash collection. Most are left with a dollar and change for food — and no matter what Mr. Moore says, no one is buying scallops and lamb on that meager budget.