Well, duh, that's the problem. Schools funnel their budget into paying the food processors instead of hiring larger kitchen staffs and preparing food on-site.

there's an overall trend towards unnecessary and highly mechanized processing in the food industry while people's role in the kitchen takes a backseat.

This has been going on for a long time. Have you read Fast Food Nation? It's a pretty detailed account of how that works out in terms of fast food franchises like McDonalds.