| Detailed Objective: This project assesses the prevalence of direct certification in the National
School Lunch Program (NSLP) and its effects on certification, participation,
and verification error rates. A nationally representative sample of School Food
Authorities (SFA's) will be surveyed to gather information from NSLP applications
for free and reduced-price meals and from State and local welfare offices.
In recent years, SFA's have greatly expanded direct certification, under USDA's
encouragement. Under direct certification, students whose families receive food
stamps or Temporary Assistance for Needy Families are automatically certified
to receive free school meals, bypassing the usual application process. The policy
is designed to reduce administrative burden and to expand access to free school
meals for poor children. A 1996 study found that direct certification led to
small increases in the percentage of students certified for free school meals
and the percentage eating free lunches each day. SFA's reported that direct
certification saved them time and money.
This project will update the 1996 Study of Direct Certification. The current
study has three objectives: (1) to estimate the prevalence of direct certification
as well as the prevalence of methods used to implement direct certification,
both at the SFA and student levels, (2) to examine the incidence of errors in
certification for free and reduced-price school meals, both among students who
become certified via application and among those who are directly certified,
and (3) to estimate the impacts of direct certification on rates of certification
for free and reduced-price meals and participation in the National School Lunch
Program, and on certification error rates. A telephone survey will be conducted
with the heads of SFA's in a nationally representative sample of 1,200 public
school districts to collect information on SFAs' experiences with direct certification
as well as the data items necessary to measure certification rates, participation
rates, and selected error rates. To measure the direct certification error rate,
administrative data will be collected from the State agencies that work with
school districts in conducting direct certification. To estimate the impacts
of direct certification on certification, participation, and error rates, the
survey data and State welfare/food stamp agency administrative data will be
supplemented with State-level data on rates of certification and participation
to be collected from the Food and Nutrition Service of USDA. |
