The National School Lunch Program's (NSLP) original goal was to help students in need, but policy changes in the past decade have made students from middle-income and upper-income families eligible for federally funded school meals. The Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), an expansion of the NSLP enacted in 2010, effectively created a federal…

This report presents findings from the Access Evaluation, a study component that is designed to assess the potential impacts of direct certification-Medicaid (DC-M) on students' access to free school meals by conducting retrospective simulations of DC-M in school year 2011-2012, the year before the demonstration began. For the Access Evaluation,…

This Kids Count data book examines statewide trends in the well-being of Kentucky's children. The statistical portrait is based on indicators of child well-being in the areas of: (1) child poverty; (2) family types; (4) child living arrangements and parental employment; (4) births; (5) child and teen deaths; (6) economic security; (7) student…