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ExpectMore.govExpectMore.gov home pageEXPECT FEDERAL PROGRAMS TO PERFORM WELL, AND BETTER EVERY YEAR.
 
Program Assessment

Program

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National School Lunch

The National School Lunch Program is a federally-assisted meal program operating in public and nonprofit private schools. It provides nutritionally balanced, low-cost or free lunches and is intended to safeguard the health and well-being of the Nation's children and support domestic agricultural production.

Rating

What This Rating Means

PERFORMING
Moderately Effective

In general, a program rated Moderately Effective has set ambitious goals and is well-managed. Moderately Effective programs likely need to improve their efficiency or address other problems in the programs' design or management in order to achieve better results.
  • The program has made progress in improving the nutritional content of meals by reducing the proportion of calories from fat and saturated fat. Between 1993 and 1999 the proportion of calories from fat in the lunches was reduced from 39% to 34%.
  • The program has implemented a series of new short-term measures focusing on meal quality and program accountability that better track progress towards long-term goals.
  • The program does not have a reliable measure of the level of erroneous payments it makes. The number of children approved for free meals each year exceeds estimates of the number of children who should be eligible.

Improvement Plan

About Improvement Plans

We are taking the following actions to improve the performance of the program:

  • Conducting nationally representative study updating information on the nutrient content of meals.
  • Working to produce a reliable estimate of erroneous payments by 2007.

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