Why is this important? Economic disadvantage presents major hurdles to school success, and hunger due to poverty can be a serious barrier to learning. The number of children who qualify for free or reduced price school lunches in public schools is a widely-used indicator of childhood poverty. To qualify for free meals, a student’s annual family income must be less than 130% of the poverty rate. Students from households with incomes between 130% and 185% of the poverty rate qualify for reduced-price meals.How are we doing?
More than 74% of Boston public school students qualified for the city’s free or reduced price lunch program in 2004-2005, indicating a high rate of poverty among the families of Boston’s schoolchildren. This rate actually increased from 64% in the mid-1990s as the cost of living increased and through the economic expansion of the 1990s.
The highest rates of poverty among families with children attending BPS, as measured by the federal lunch program eligibility guidelines, are among Boston’s black and Latino households: 78% of all black students and 90% of all Latino students qualified. Of the total 48,608 BPS students who qualified for free- or reduced- price lunches, 48% were black and 32% Latino. The average rate of public school students qualifying for free or reduced price lunches in the metro region is 24%—only about one third the rate in Boston. Communities with relatively high average incomes such as Dover-Sherborn, Duxbury, Holliston, Hopkinton and Medfield have the lowest rate at 1%. Some inner core communities have rates at the other end of the spectrum: Chelsea (83%); Boston (74%); Somerville (69%); Lynn (47%); and Revere (41%). |  | |
"Boston Public Schools students receiving free or reduced price lunch, by race/ethnicity-Boston, 1994-2003"
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