TY  - JOUR
AB  - Free and reduced-price meal (FRM) eligibility is commonly used in education research and policy applications as an indicator of student poverty. However, using multiple data sources external to the school system, we show that FRM status is a poor proxy for poverty, with eligibility rates far exceeding what would be expected based on stated income thresholds for program participation. This is true even without accounting for community eligibility for free meals, although community eligibility has exacerbated the problem in recent years. Over the course of showing the limitations of using FRM data to measure poverty, we provide promising validity evidence for a new, publicly-available measure of school poverty based on local-area family incomes.
AU  - Fazlul, Ishtiaque
AU  - Koedel, Cory
AU  - Parsons, Eric
DA  - May 2021
DO  - 10.26300/ytaf-nc39
PY  - 2021
ST  - Free and reduced-price meal eligibility does not measure student poverty: Evidence and policy significance
T2  - EdWorkingPapers.com
TI  - Free and reduced-price meal eligibility does not measure student poverty: Evidence and policy significance
UR  - https://www.edworkingpapers.com/ai21-415
ID  - 386
ER  -