More than 1.2 million children attending public school lack a home of their own, my colleague Douglas Rice recently noted. They also are at greater risk of...
off the charts
POLICY INSIGHT
BEYOND THE NUMBERS
BEYOND THE NUMBERS
Schools Can Do Even More to Shield Children From Hunger
September 8, 2014
As students begin a new school year, U.S. Department of Agriculture data confirm that too many children — nearly 16 million — live in families that continue to struggle to afford adequate food, known as “food insecurity.” While many parents in these households can shield their children from hardship, in more than half of them,...
Community Eligibility: A Proven Tool to Address Child Hunger
July 14, 2014
Many school districts across the country are adopting community eligibility — which allows high-poverty schools to offer breakfast and lunch to all students at no charge without having to process meal applications — to support their students’ health and learning. Some eligible districts are...
School Districts Can Adopt Community Eligibility and Still Obtain Other Assistance
June 27, 2014
Thousands of high-poverty schools across the country have already adopted “community eligibility” to offer nutritious meals to all students at no charge. Officials in some school districts considering the...
Congress Must Resist Lobbyists’ Efforts to Undercut Nutrition Reforms
June 17, 2014
The Senate today will begin considering its annual Agriculture Department funding bill, which covers the child nutrition programs. The bill already includes measures promoted by industry lobbyists that would undercut reforms designed to improve children’s nutrition and combat childhood obesity. Senators must reject any amendments that would further weaken reforms, as we explain in an...
Identifying Low-Income Students in Community Eligibility Schools for “Title I” Purposes
June 2, 2014
Most schools use applications for the school breakfast and lunch programs to determine students’ income levels for the federal “Title I” program for disadvantaged students, our new report explains, but schools offering community eligibility — a new option that allows...
No, Dietary Guidelines Don’t Support Adding White Potatoes to WIC
May 30, 2014
We’ve highlighted one harmful provision (school meals) in the 2015 agriculture spending bill that the House Appropriations Committee approved yesterday. Here’s another: it overrides the science-based process for deciding which foods the WIC program provides by requiring...
House Bill Would Gut New School Meal Standards, Undermining Children’s Health
May 28, 2014
The House Appropriations Committee is scheduled to vote tomorrow on the fiscal year 2015 agriculture spending bill, which would establish sweeping waivers from new nutrition standards for school meals. While waiver proponents...
How Community Eligibility Is Helping West Virginia Reduce Hunger
May 27, 2014
Eligible schools across the country have until June 30 to adopt “community eligibility” for the 2014-2015 school year, enabling them to serve school meals to all students at no charge. Community eligibility became available in West Virginia a couple of years ago, and State Board of Education President Gayle Manchin recently...
White Potatoes, WIC, and Farmers’ Markets: Just the Facts
May 15, 2014
As potato industry lobbyists push Congress to override a well-established, science-based rule by dictating that WIC offer white potatoes, they claim that WIC participants can purchase white potatoes at farmers’ markets but not grocery stores. This claim is extremely misleading.
The vouchers for fruit and vegetables that WIC participants receive each month cannot be used to purchase...