Programs using means tests to identify low-income households face a trade-off between promoting access and ensuring program integrity. The authors use a comparison-district design to estimate the effects of a pilot program to improve the accuracy of the process of certifying students for free or reduced-price meals in the National School Lunch…

This report is the forth in the series of evaluations of the National School Lunch Program. The findings presented here are the result of an analysis of pilot project operations and costs for two alternatives to the current application-based certification process--Up-Front Documentation and Graduated Verification--that were tested in 12 public…

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) sponsored the NSLP Application/Verification Pilot Projects to test ways to improve the process for certifying students for free or reduced-price meals. This report presents findings on the impacts of two alternatives to the current application based certification process--Up-Front Documentation and…

This is Volume II of the report on the evaluation of the NSLP Application Verification Pilot Projects. It supplements Volume I, which presents the evaluation findings. Volume II has two objectives: (1) to provide a detailed description of the methods used to conduct the study; and (2) to present tabulations that supplement and extend the analyses…