The Arkansas Better Chance (ABC) program longitudinal study (2009-2021) reviews the changing circumstances and outcomes of participation in Pre-K services in Arkansas. The "core comparison" of this study is between ABC participants and students who had no known Pre-K participation but have similar low socio-economic household income…

Financial support provided by the Legislature helps to ensure Washington children have access to healthy school meals. In fiscal year 2022, the Legislature provided $11.5 million to eliminate the co-pay for reduced-price meals, support summer meal programs, provide school districts with financial support for breakfast meal service, and provide…

In Philadelphia, over 40% of youth are overweight or obese. The objective in this assessment was to learn about urban residents' perspectives regarding the local food environment and its impact on eating behaviors. Using photo-elicitation, 20 adolescents reflected on their food environments through photographs and corresponding interviews. Without…

The issue of 'holiday hunger' (i.e. food insecurity during school holidays) has received increased attention in recent years, though research in this area is limited. Through qualitative, semi-structured interviews, the current study investigated the views of 12 primary school staff on the existence, impacts and potential solutions to holiday…

This Research Brief examines the success of Miami-Dade County Public Schools (MDCPS) 12th grade students in meeting missing assessment graduation requirements through the non-reportable (NR) American College Testing ACT and the College Board SAT exams. 1337 students took either one of the exams or both in the spring of 2024, and most students took…

In 2023, the Australian Education Research Organisation (AERO) investigated student attendance in Australian schools at the request of Education Ministers. Two literature reviews were commissioned as part of this project. This rapid literature review is the result of a systematic review of 332 peer-reviewed journal articles that describe studies…

Abstract Households with children eligible for Free School Meals are at risk of food insecurity. This paper reports on a rapid-response study that investigated the impact of the school food voucher scheme during the COVID-19 crisis on young people, families and schools. It pays close attention to the reliance of the state on the goodwill of…

The latest round of fiscal austerity in Ghana has meant that the feeding rate paid to the service providers of Ghana's school feeding programme is both frozen and unrealistically low. Accordingly, service providers adopt discretionary coping strategies. This qualitative case study, therefore, explores the impacts of austerity on children's school…

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of selected demographic factors on the academic achievement of high school students. More specifically, this study was concerned with the effects of the variables gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status on the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) scores in Mathematics,…

This dissertation consists of two chapters that examine the impact of educational and positive youth development programs on students' academic and behavioral outcomes. In the first chapter, I evaluate the effect of the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) program, a school meal provision allowing schools meeting the eligibility requirements to…

Excessive plate waste is generated in elementary school cafeterias. Adapting nutrition promotion strategies to target waste reduction and encouraging mindful and sustainable eating (MSE) are possible strategies to encourage students to reduce waste during school lunch. "Farm to Tray, Tray to Farm" is a 16-week intervention that aims to…

Background: Schools are a promising site for influencing the dietary intake of children and adolescents. The US Department of Agriculture recently released flexibilities to requirements for whole-grains, sodium, and low-fat milk in schools who demonstrated difficulty meeting nutrition standards for school meal programs. The support of School…

Young people's wellbeing is often lowest where they assume a relatively low position within their school's socioeconomic hierarchy, for example, among poorer children attending more affluent schools. Transition to secondary school is a period during which young people typically enter an environment which is more socioeconomically diverse than…

This paper investigates the impact of extending free school lunch to all students, regardless of income, on academic performance in New York City middle schools. Using a difference-in-differences design and unique longitudinal, student-level data, we derive credibly causal estimates of the impacts of "Universal Free Meals" (UFM) on test…

The federal government has a long history of investing in programs for feeding children, starting with federal aid for school lunch programs in the 1930s. Today, federal child nutrition programs support food served to children in schools and a variety of other institutional settings. The child nutrition programs support meals and snacks served to…