More Low-income Kids Get School Breakfasts, But Problems Remain

The Food Research and Action Center (FRAC) reports a substantial jump in the number of low-income children taking advantage of the nation's School Breakfast Program during the 2003-2004 school year. More than 7.1 million kids -- a 5.2 percent increase over last year -- received free or reduced price breakfasts. The not-so-good news, says FRAC, is that some states are lagging behind and should be serving nearly 2 million more low-income children. 

Participation by low-income children in the nation's School Breakfast Program rose by more than 353,000 in the 2003-2004 school year, the biggest jump in nine years, according to the annual School Breakfast Scorecard released today by the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC).

More than 7.1 million children received free or reduced price meals, a 5.2 percent increase in the number of low-income children eating breakfast at school compared to the prior year. Since 1990, the number of low-income students receiving free or reduced price breakfasts has more than doubled.

The total number of children participating, including more affluent children who paid for their own breakfasts, was also a record number -- 8.7 million.

"The jump in participation and the record numbers of children starting the day off with a nutritious breakfast at school are great news," said FRAC President James Weill. "Study after study shows that a good breakfast eaten at school boosts not just student nutrition, but also student achievement and health, as well as reducing absenteeism, school nurse visits, and overweight."

"School breakfast is a key ingredient in a health and anti-obesity agenda and we are now seeing research documenting that," said nutritionist Lynn Parker, FRAC's Director of Child Nutrition Programs and Nutrition Policy. She explained, "School breakfast helps ensure that children are not tempted to overeat at other meals or snack before lunch." She cited findings published in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine that hungry and food insecure elementary school-aged girls who participate in school breakfast have significantly less risk of being overweight.

Getting the most out of school breakfast means more schools offering breakfast, and more children participating when their school does offer it. In 2003-2004, nearly eight in ten (79.4 percent) of the schools that offered school lunch also participated in school breakfast, also a record.

Despite these gains, the program still reaches barely 2 in 5 eligible children -- 43 low-income children for every 100 who eat school lunch.

FRAC reported that almost 9.4 million low-income students who participate in school lunch go without school breakfast. Weill said, "No child should have to start the school day hungry to learn, but unable to do so because of a hungry stomach. Recent progress is promising, but we need the nation, states, cities and schools to accelerate their work to reach the many millions of students who still need access to a good breakfast."

School Breakfast Program performance among the states varied widely. FRAC identified five states (Oregon, West Virginia, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Texas) that had the best results in 2003-2004 in reaching low-income youngsters with school breakfasts - with an average performance ratio of 55 students in free or reduced-price breakfasts per 100 in free or reduced-price lunches.

If the other states and the District of Columbia just performed at the level achieved by these top states, FRAC estimates that the program would feed nearly two million additional low-income children and provide a total of $391 million each year in additional federal funds to schools across the nation.

The states sacrificing the most federal funds in absolute terms are those with both large populations and substantial lags in getting breakfasts to low-income children. California, Florida, Illinois, and New York together have 831,000 (42.3 percent) of the two million low-income children who are unserved under this standard.

The states doing the worst job of serving their low-income children school breakfast under the FRAC criteria were Wisconsin, New Jersey, Utah, Illinois, Alaska, Nebraska and New Hampshire, all with student breakfast-to-lunch ratios below 33:100.

The FRAC Scorecard identified a positive trend of more schools offering "universal" School Breakfast Programs, programs that serve breakfast at no charge to all children. Universal programs get every child's day off to a good start, reduce administrative burdens and costs, draw no lines between students based on income, reduce the stigma some students feel in a means-tested program, and rapidly increase student participation and school achievement.

FRAC Senior Policy Analyst Randy Rosso, the principal author of the FRAC Scorecard, identified key changes made in the 2004 Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization Act that will help boost participation in School Breakfast, including an expansion in the way school districts can operate universal breakfast. Other changes include: reducing paperwork for schools in low-income areas make it easier for them to receive extra "severe need" federal reimbursements; expanding the availability of school breakfast for some very vulnerable populations (including children in food stamp and military households, and homeless, migrant and runaway children); and improving the quality of food in schools.

School Breakfast Program funding is available on an entitlement basis to eligible public and non-profit private schools and residential child care institutions. The federal government reimburses schools for all or part of the cost of every meal, depending on the financial means of participating children's families.

Source: Food Research and Action Center

Also See: Food Stamp Facts