Let Them Eat Lunch: the Impact of Universal Free Meals on Student Performance
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Let Them Eat Lunch: The Impact of Universal Free Meals on Student Performance Amy Ellen Schwartz & Michah W. Rothbart Paper No. 203 July 2019 (Revised from December 2017) CENTER FOR POLICY RESEARCH – Summer 2019 Leonard M. Lopoo, Director Professor of Public Administration and International Affairs (PAIA) Associate Directors Margaret Austin Associate Director John Yinger Trustee Professor of ECON and PAIA Associate Director SENIOR RESEARCH ASSOCIATES Badi Baltagi, ECON Jeffrey Kubik, ECON Alexander Rothenberg, ECON Robert Bifulco, PAIA Yoonseok Lee, ECON Rebecca Schewe, SOC Leonard Burman, PAIA Amy Lutz, SOC Amy Ellen Schwartz, PAIA/ECON Carmen Carrión-Flores, ECON Yingyi Ma, SOC Ying Shi, PAIA Saba Siddiki, PAIA Alfonso Flores-Lagunes, ECON Katherine Michelmore, PAIA Perry Singleton, ECON Sarah Hamersma, PAIA Jerry Miner, ECON Yulong Wang, ECON Madonna Harrington Meyer, SOC Shannon Monnat, SOC Michael Wasylenko, ECON Jan Ondrich, ECON Colleen Heflin, PAIA Peter Wilcoxen, PAIA William Horrace, ECON David Popp, PAIA Maria Zhu, ECON Yilin Hou, PAIA Stuart Rosenthal, ECON Hugo Jales, ECON Michah Rothbart, PAIA GRADUATE ASSOCIATES Rhea Acuna, PAIA Hyoung Kwon, PAIA Mattie Mackenzie-Liu, PAIA Jun Cai, ECON Maeve Maloney, ECON Saied Toossi, PAIA Ziqiao Chen, PAIA Qasim Mehdi, PAIA Huong Tran, ECON Yoon Jung Choi, PAIA Jonathan Presler, ECON Joaquin Urrego, ECON Stephanie Coffey, ECON Krushna Ranaware, SOC Yi Yang, ECON Emily Gutierrez, PAIA Christopher Rick, PAIA Jeehee Han, PAIA David Schwegman, PAIA STAFF Joanna Bailey, Research Associate Emily Minnoe, Administrative Assistant Joseph Boskovski, Maxwell X Lab Candi Patterson, Computer Consultant Starlett Brown, Administrative Assistant Samantha Trajkovski, Postdoctoral Fellow Katrina Fiacchi, Administrative Specialist Laura Walsh, Administrative Assistant Michelle Kincaid, Maxwell X Lab Abstract This paper investigates the impact of extending free school lunch to all students, regardless of income, on academic performance in New York City middle schools. Using a difference-in-differences design and unique longitudinal, student level data, we derive credibly causal estimates of the impacts of “Universal Free Meals” (UFM) on test scores in English Language Arts (ELA) and mathematics, and participation in school lunch. We find UFM increases academic performance by as much as 0.083 standard deviations in math and 0.059 in ELA for non-poor students, with smaller, statistically significant effects of 0.032 and 0.027 standard deviations in math and ELA for poor students. Further, UFM increases participation in school lunch by roughly 11.0 percentage points for non-poor students and 5.4 percentage points for poor students. We then investigate the academic effects of school lunch participation per se, using UFM as an instrumental variable. Results indicate that increases in school lunch participation improve academic performance for both poor and non-poor students; an additional lunch every two weeks increases test scores by roughly 0.08 standard deviations in math and 0.07 standard deviations in ELA. Finally, we explore potential unintended consequences for student weight outcomes, finding no evidence that UFM increases the probability students are obese or overweight. We also find no evidence of increases in average BMI. Instead, we find some evidence that participation in school lunch improves weight outcomes for non-poor students. Results are robust to an array of alternative specifications and assumptions about sample. JEL No. I24, I38, H52 Keywords: School Food, Academic Performance, Free Lunch, Childhood Obesity Authors: Amy Ellen Schwartz, Center for Policy Research, Maxwell School, Syracuse University; Michah W. Rothbart, Center for Policy Research, Maxwell School, Syracuse University Acknowledgements We gratefully acknowledge funding from the National Institute of Health (R01 grant: 5R01DK097347- 02) and the Tufts/University of Connecticut Research Innovation and Development Grants in Economics Center (Tufts/UConn RIDGE Center), underwritten by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. We thank the NYC Department of Education for providing data and for their support, especially the Office of School Food, Dennis Barrett, Stephen O’Brien, and Armando Taddei. For data support, advice and suggestions, we also thank Meryle Weinstein, Emily Gutierrez, Zac McDermott, Siddhartha Aneja, Michele Leardo, Sarah Cordes, Joanna Bailey, and Brian Elbel. We thank seminar participants at the University of Connecticut, the University of Virginia, the University of Hong Kong, the Andrew Young School at Georgia State University, the Maxwell School at Syracuse University, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, and Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and participants at the APPAM, AEFP and NTA conferences for useful comments on previous drafts. The opinions expressed are those of the author and do not represent views of the National Institute of Health, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, or the NYC Department of Education. “Only one-third of public school students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch take part in the program. What is stopping them? Stigma.” -David Sandman, President & CEO, New York State of Health Foundation “What they’re offering people is a full stomach and an empty soul.” -Rep. Paul Ryan, 54th Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives “Free meals should go only to those students who are eligible for free meals, and reduced-price meals should go only to students eligible for reduced-price meals. Other students should be eligible for neither. This obvious and commonsense point has been lost.” -Daren Bakst and Rachel Sheffield, Heritage Foundation I. INTRODUCTION The National School Lunch Program (NSLP) is the second largest nutrition assistance program in the U.S., subsidizing over 30 million meals each school day at a Federal cost of $14 billion annually (US Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service, 2018). Traditionally, NSLP provides free or reduced price meals for eligible low income students. A growing number of schools (and districts) have adopted “Universal Free Meals” (UFM) providing free lunch and breakfast for all students, regardless of income. Advocates hope UFM will reduce the stigma that limits participation, address food insecurity, improve student readiness to learn, and reduce administrative burden. Skeptics worry about possible deleterious effects on weight either because of excess consumption or because the school lunch is less healthy (higher calorie) than the alternative. In a different vein, some worry about the administrative costs and potential budget pressures. Unfortunately, there is a dearth of credibly causal estimates of the 1 impact of UFM on student outcomes, particularly important as UFM spreads across the country.1 This paper begins to fill this gap, exploiting the plausibly exogenous timing of the adoption of UFM by New York City (NYC) public middle schools to estimate the impact of UFM on student outcomes, including participation in school meals, performance on standardized tests (English Language Arts -- ELA -- and Mathematics), attendance and a set of weight outcomes (obesity, overweight, BMI). Specifically, we use detailed student-level data to estimate the impact of UFM on attendance and test scores, using a difference-in-differences design with student (or school) fixed effects and a range of student and school control variables. We then estimate the impact of UFM on participation in school lunch using unique student-level data on lunch transactions in schools with Point of Service (POS) tracking systems. This is the first use of such data that we are aware of and a significant improvement over survey data typically used in previous research.2 We then investigate the academic effects of school lunch participation per se, using UFM as an instrumental variable. Finally, we explore unintended consequences for student obesity. Thus, our analyses provide reduced form estimates of the impact of UFM on academic outcomes and school meal participation – particularly relevant for policymakers – and on the effect of school lunch per se on academic outcomes. The findings of this study will inform policymakers weighting the benefits and potential unintended consequences of expanding UFM. We focus on middle school students for three reasons. First, middle school students are more likely than elementary school students to make autonomous decisions about lunch participation each day and are, 1 The Federal government made expansion of UFM a priority in the reauthorization of the NSLP in 2010 (Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act of 2010), creating a new UFM program designed to encourage more schools and districts to participate (e.g., the CEP, “Community Eligibility Provision”). 2 Virtually all previous policy research uses parent responses to surveys or aggregate school data to measure participation in the school meals programs. We are able to measure individual, daily participation, allowing us to assess participation rates prior to measurement of outcomes, such as participation before measurement of height and weight (used to calculate BMI). 2 therefore, more likely to be price sensitive. Second, NYC subsequently expanded UFM to all middle schools as part of a broader effort to address the difficulties of middle school aged children (and then to all public schools in the 2017-2018 academic year). Third, POS data coverage is sufficiently broad in middle schools to allow us to estimate the impact on school lunch participation and consequences for student