With food and fuel prices increasing sharply, food and nutrition directors in school districts around the country are finding themselves facing some uncomfortable choices. In some districts, school lunch menus are being pared down to fewer selections, instead of the array of healthy options districts would like to offer. In other areas, canned and…

Purpose/Objectives: The purpose of this study was to determine the best practices (quality indicators) related to recess placement before lunch in elementary schools; compile a best practices checklist that can be used as an assessment tool for school nutrition programs; and validate and evaluate the usefulness of the best practices checklist.…

This report provides a detailed portrait of Hispanic and White academic achievement gaps and how students' performance has changed over time at both the national and state levels. The report presents achievement gaps using reading and mathematics assessment data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) for the 4th- and 8th-grade…

This paper assesses whether school lunches contribute to childhood obesity. I employ two methods to isolate the causal impact of school lunches on obesity. First, using panel data, I ?nd that children who consume school lunches are more likely to be obese than those who brown bag their lunches even though they enter kindergarten with the same…

"The Condition of Education 2018" is a congressionally mandated annual report summarizing the latest data on education in the United States. This report is designed to help policymakers and the public monitor educational progress. This report contains indicators on the state of education in the United States, from prekindergarten through…

The purpose of this study was to examine parent preferences for school counselor professional activities. The primary focus of research was to determine if any relationship exists between (1) parents' demographic factors--gender, age, socioeconomic status, ethnicity--and their preferences for school counselors' professional activities; (2)…

Statements were presented by: Honorable Tom Harkin, Chairman, U.S. Senator from Iowa, Chairman, Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry; Honorable Robert B. Casey, Jr., U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania; Honorable Saxby Chambliss, U.S. Senator from Georgia; Honorable Richard G. Lugar; Honorable Ken Salazar, U.S. Senator from Colorado; Kelly…

The number of overweight and obese children and adolescents has reached epidemic proportions, and recent federal surveys show that most school meals do not meet federal nutrition guidelines. Accordingly, there is growing interest in the nutritional quality of foods available in U.S. schools--and in the role of the government in helping to make…

This report presents the results for Part I of the study focusing on the performance of American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) fourth- and eighth-graders on the 2007 National Assessment of Educational Progress in reading and mathematics. A national sample of approximately 10,100 AI/AN students at grades 4 and 8 participated in the 2007 reading…

With nearly 27 million school children participating in the National School Lunch Program and in 1999 $5.46 billion spent to fund it, school lunch is clearly a part of the experience of schooling for most children. But, if one accepts the definition of curriculum as the planned experiences that happen in school (Ornstein & Levine, 1989), then…

Recent increases in child obesity have sparked concerns about competitive foods--foods sold to students at school that are not part of federally reimbursable school meals. The nutritional value of these foods is largely unregulated, and students can often purchase these foods in addition to or instead of school meals. Nearly 9 out of 10 schools…

The purpose of this publication is to provide basic descriptive information about the 100 largest school districts (ranked by student membership, that is, the number of students enrolled at the beginning of the school year) for the 2004-05 school year in the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the Bureau of Indian Education, the…

U.S. organizations interested in and involved with hunger issues and actions are described in this annotated listing. There are four major sections: (1) non-government organizations; (2) regional agencies; (3) government organizations, including United Nations and multilateral agencies, U.S. Congress, and federal government agencies; and (4)…

This Food and Nutrition Information Center (FNIC) Resource List is a quick guide designed to help professionals find information related to nutrition, learning and behavior in children. Each resource has been placed into one of five categories, in alphabetical order, by title.

This is traditionally an annual hearing of the Committee with school nutrition managers who travel to Washington, DC. Their representatives testify to the Committee regarding the practical benefits of the nutrition policies under the legislative review of the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee. Testimony was presented by Senators…