No "Free Lunch"
I'm really hoping Bruce Baker puts down his sparkler for a minute this weekend and weighs in on NJ's "free lunch" v school aid debate:
Thousands of students getting free or reduced-cost school lunches may not be eligible for the program, a report released by the state auditor this week finds. But school districts have little incentive to question applications because a higher participation rate also increases their state aid, the report states.As a result, the state auditor has recommended that the state stop using the school lunch program enrollment to calculate how the aid is distributed.
“There is a significant error rate,” state auditor Stephen M. Eells said of the school lunch database. “It’s not accurate by a long shot, and I don’t think we should be using it to determine state aid.”The 428,000 students in the free meal program in 2010 would generate about $2 billion in extra “at-risk” state aid under the state school funding formula, which provides an extra $4,700 to $5,700 per student in
