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ERIC Number: EJ1471326
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2025-Jun
Pages: 23
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0162-3737
EISSN: EISSN-1935-1062
Available Date: 0000-00-00
Measuring School Economic Disadvantage
Michelle Spiegel1; Leah R. Clark2; Thurston Domina3; Vitaly Radsky3; Paul Y. Yoo4; Andrew Penner4
Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, v47 n2 p413-435 2025
Many educational policies hinge on the valid measurement of student economic disadvantage at the school level. Measures based on free and reduced-price lunch enrollment are used widely. However, recent research raises questions about their reliability, particularly following the introduction of universal free lunch in certain schools and districts. Using unique data linking the universe of students in Oregon public schools to IRS tax records and other data housed at the U.S. Census Bureau, we provide the first examination of how well different measures capture school economic disadvantage. We find that, in Oregon, direct certification provides the best widely available measure, both over time and across the distribution of school economic disadvantage. By contrast, neighborhood-based measures consistently perform relatively poorly.
SAGE Publications. 2455 Teller Road, Thousand Oaks, CA 91320. Tel: 800-818-7243; Tel: 805-499-9774; Fax: 800-583-2665; e-mail: journals@sagepub.com; Web site: https://sagepub.com
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Oregon
Identifiers - Laws, Policies, & Programs: Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)
Grant or Contract Numbers: R01HD094007
Author Affiliations: 1Stanford University; 2U.S. Census Bureau; 3The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; 4University of California, Irvine