Direct Certification in the National School Lunch Program—Impacts on Program Access and Integrity

By Philip Gleason, Tania Tasse, Kenneth Jackson, and Patricia Nemeth. ERS project representative: Linda Ghelfi

E-FAN No. (03-009) , October 2003

About 61 percent of school districts used direct certification in the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) in the 2001-02 school year, the same share as in 1996. Direct certification increased the number of children certified for free meals by about 400,000 and slightly increased overall NSLP participation. Under direct certification, school districts use information from State welfare or food stamp offices to certify children to receive free meals. To qualify, the children's families must receive food stamps, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or assistance from the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations. Children's families who are directly certified do not have to complete certification applications. Direct certification was designed primarily to improve NSLP access and administrative efficiency. The Executive Summary provides highlights and the full report provides details of a study on the prevalence of direct certification, its implementation methods, and its effects on NSLP access and integrity.

Keywords: National School Lunch Program, NSLP, direct certification, nutrition, agricultural economics, Food Assistance and Nutrition Research Program, FANRP, ERS, USDA

In this report ...

Chapters are in Adobe Acrobat PDF format.

• Executive Summary

• Abstract, Acknowledgments, Contents, 317 kb
• Chapter 1: Introduction, 151 kb
• Chapter 2: Direct Certification Prevalence and Implementation, 489 kb
• Chapter 3: Certificaton and Participation Effects of Direct Certification, 698 kb
• Chapter 4: Estimated Ineligibility Among Certified Students, 522 kb
• Chapter 5:The Effects of Direct Certification on Ineligibility Rates, 370 kb
• Chapter 6: Summary, 105 kb
• References, 139 kb
• Appendix A: Description of Data Collection, 249 kb
• Appendix B: Ananlysis of Non-Response on the SFA SURVEY and State Administrative Data Collection Efforts, 187 kb
• Appendix C: Supplemental Tables for Analysis of the Effects of Direct Certification on Rates of Certification, Participation, and Ineligibility Among Certified Students, 460 kb
• Appendix D: Analysis of Data From the Survey of Income and Program Participation, 159 kb