Schools Found Doing Better Job Flagging Pupils for Meals Help

Researchers report half of U.S. children will be on food stamps at some point

Schools are doing a better job of identifying students who are eligible for free or reduced-price school lunches, but some states are much better than others, the U.S. Department of Agriculture says in a report to Congress.

Also last week, researchers reported that nearly half of all U.S. children, and 90 percent of black youngsters, will be on food stamps at some point during childhood. Fallout from the recession could push those numbers even higher, they said.

In 2008-09, 78 percent of schools identified students eligible for subsidized lunches by using government records of which households already received aid such as food stamps. Use of that “direct certification” method—considered the most efficient way to enroll schoolchildren in subsidized-lunch programs—was up 11 percentage points from the previous year, according...