"Kids Share 2014: Report on Federal Expenditures on Children through 2013," an eighth annual report, looks comprehensively at federal spending and tax expenditures on children. Total federal expenditures on children were up from 2012, but below spending in 2010. Broader budgetary forces will continue to restrict spending on children over…

The history of the school lunch program is laden with the political wrangling and compromises that usually beset massive government initiatives, and as with other government initiatives, the results of the wrangling and compromises have tended to be sadly durable. The school lunch program has consistently been viewed and managed not primarily as a…

States and school districts receive funding through ESEA, IDEA, and national school meals programs. Some requirements for these programs are intended to help ensure program integrity and transparency, among other purposes, but questions have been raised about whether some federal requirements place an undue burden on states and school districts.…

Through its commodity program, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) provides commodity foods at no cost to schools taking part in the national school meals programs. Commodities include raw ground beef, cheese, poultry, and fresh produce. Like federal food safety agencies, the commodity program has taken steps designed to reduce microbial…

"Kids' Share 2013: Federal Expenditures on Children in 2012 and Future Projections," a seventh annual report, looks comprehensively at federal spending and taxes on children. Federal outlays on children fell by 7 percent between 2011 and 2012, which is the greatest single-year drop since the early 1980s. While most of this decline is…

Implementation of the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 will provide an opportunity for school nurses to intervene in the serious childhood obesity problem in the United States. Major changes in the management of the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) will likely challenge schools yet may provide the impetus for a collaborative effort by the…

Fill it out and turn it in: that's the message thousands of school districts send parents each year when they offer applications for the federal government's National School Lunch Program (NSLP). And each year, millions of parents comply. But new data suggest that the process for verifying eligibility for the program is fundamentally broken and…

This report responds to the legislative requirement of Public Law 110-246 to assess the effectiveness of State and local efforts to directly certify children for free school meals. Under direct certification, children are determined eligible for free school meals without the need for household applications by using data from other means-tested…

The 2013 edition of the "Digest of Education Statistics" is the 49th in a series of publications initiated in 1962. The Digest has been issued annually except for combined editions for the years 1977-78, 1983-84, and 1985-86. Its primary purpose is to provide a compilation of statistical information covering the broad field of American…

This report serves as a quick reference guide for elected officials to compare key education policies and data in their states to the rest of the nation. The first section highlights major state policies for all 50 states in both table and chart formats (see Summary Charts ). The second section provides key state data, such as per-student spending…

Policies originally designed to address food insecurity are in need of revision due to rising rates of obesity among those they serve. Within the context of national policies, this article uses an ecological perspective to consider the links between food insecurity and obesity. The recommendations include adjusting the nutritional standards of the…

"Kids' Share 2012: Report on Federal Expenditures on Children through 2011," a sixth annual report, looks comprehensively at trends over the past 50 years in federal spending and tax expenditures on children. Key findings suggest that the size and composition of expenditures on children have changed considerably, but children have not…

When the federal government passed the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation into law, its main objective was to improve the education in America's schools so that all students will be learning at the proficient level by the year 2014. However, not all students may be able to achieve at the same levels in some science classes, especially…

In fiscal year 2008, about 31 million children participated in the National School Lunch Program and more than 10 million children participated in the School Breakfast Program each school day. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) spent $11.7 billion on the school meal programs in that year. The majority of…

With food and fuel prices increasing sharply, food and nutrition directors in school districts around the country are finding themselves facing some uncomfortable choices. In some districts, school lunch menus are being pared down to fewer selections, instead of the array of healthy options districts would like to offer. In other areas, canned and…