Poverty – Children Eligible for Free/Reduced Price Lunch
This indicator reports the percentage of public school students eligible for free or reduced price lunches. This indicator is relevant because it assesses vulnerable populations which are more likely to have multiple health access, health status, and social support needs. Additionally, when combined with poverty data, providers can use this measure to identify gaps in eligibility and enrollment.
Note: States with more than 80% records labeled as “not reported” are suppressed for all geographic areas, including hospital service area, census tract, zip code, school district, county, state, etc.
Source
Source Description
The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) is the primary federal entity for collecting, analyzing, and reporting data related to education in the United States and other nations. It fulfills a congressional mandate to collect, collate, analyze, and report full and complete statistics on the condition of education in the United States; conduct and publish reports and specialized analyses of the meaning and significance of such statistics; assist state and local education agencies in improving their statistical systems; and review and report on education activities in foreign countries.
Citation: Documentation to the NCES Common Core of Data Public Elementary/Secondary School Universe Survey (2017).
The National Center for Education Statistics releases a dataset containing detailed information about every public school in the United States in their annual Common Core of Data (CCD) files. The information from which this data is compiled is supplied by state education agency officials. The CCD reports information about both schools and school districts, including name, address, and phone number; descriptive information about students and staff demographics; and fiscal data, including revenues and current expenditures.
For more information, please visit the Common Core of Data web page.
Methodology
The National School Lunch Program is a federally assisted meal program operating in public and nonprofit private schools and residential child care institutions. Children from families with incomes at or below 130 percent of the poverty level are eligible for free meals. Those with incomes between 130 percent and 185 percent of the poverty level are eligible for reduced-price meals, for which students can be charged no more than 40 cents.
Total student counts and counts for students eligible for free and reduced price lunches are acquired for the most recent school year from the NCES Common Core of Data (CCD) Public School Universe Survey. Point locations for schools are obtained by mapping the latitude and longitude coordinates for each school provided in the CCD file. School-level data are summarized to the county, state, and national levels for reporting purposes. For more information, please see the complete dataset documentation.
Data Breakouts Available
- Children Eligible for Free or Reduced Price Lunch by Eligibility
- Children Eligible for Free or Reduced Price Lunch by School Year, 2013-14 through 2022-23
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