Ditching Subsidized Lunch as Student Poverty Metric?
August 16, 2018
Until recently, economically disadvantaged students have generally been identified by their eligibility for the federal free or reduced-price lunch (FRL) program. But increasing numbers of schools providing free lunch to all under “community eligibility” provisions, can present a challenge for states as they “implement new school accountability systems” under ESSA, according to Matthew Chingos in a piece for the Brookings Institution. “Continuing to use FRL to identify economically disadvantaged students in community eligibility schools means either saying that all students are eligible, which would violate the spirit of ESSA, or surveying families to find out who would be eligible on an individual basis, which would be costly and burdensome.”