Accurately measuring the family incomes of students is essential to allocating school resources that meet the educational needs of all students, particularly the needs of students from low-income families. With the onset of the COVID-19 health and economic crisis, the need to accurately assess the financial condition of families who are suffering…

As this paper was being written, school systems across the country were increasingly announcing plans for full or partial distance learning to respond to COVID-19, and it seems likely that more school systems may implement these plans should the pandemic surge in the fall or winter. As a result, working parents with school-age children are faced…

The FNS Research Corner provides a continuing series to summarize recently completed and current research conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) in the area of child nutrition. Summaries of recently completed research projects and in-progress research are provided in this article.

This report presents findings from the Access Evaluation, a study component that is designed to assess the potential impacts of direct certification-Medicaid (DC-M) on students' access to free school meals by conducting retrospective simulations of DC-M in school year 2011-2012, the year before the demonstration began. For the Access Evaluation,…

The percentage of public school students qualifying for free or reduced price meals has increased from about 33 percent to nearly 50 percent over the past 15 years. Kansas uses the number of students eligible for free (but not reduced-price) lunch to determine the amount of funding school districts receive to provide for services to at-risk…

This report investigates three important aspects of National School Lunch Program (NSLP) and School Breakfast Program (SBP) participation using recently collected data on a large, nationally representative sample of students certified for free and reduced-price meals during the 2005-2006 school year. First, we examine the factors that influence…

The Center for Public Policy Priorities supports HB 2574. Why encourage school districts to offer free meals to all students? The link between adequate nutrition and improved academic performance creates a clear incentive for Texas to increase participation in the school breakfast and lunch programs, particularly among low-income children.…