Data Surfer: Education Department web site has school lunch stats

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Data Surfer

Spotlight on valuable information sources on the Web

December 13, 2008

Education Department web site has school lunch stats

A recent Bee story reported that demand for subsidized school lunches is outpacing the program's funding, which could run dry at the end of the school year. So warned state Superintendent of Public Schools Jack O'Connell, who called on the Assembly to increase money for Free and Reduced-Price Meals by $31.1 million. Statewide, schools provided a record 770.6 million meals in 2007-08. That's 28 million more than the year before. About 3.1 million California students, 49.7 percent of the total enrollment, benefit from the program.

The Education Department's Ed-Data website has an easy-to-use database of student statistics on ethnicity and participation in special programs like Free and Reduced-Price Meals. You can search for data on individual schools, districts, counties and the state going back as far as 1992-93.

Here's the 2007-08 breakdown of hot meal programs in our region:

County	Number of students	Percent of enrollment
El Dorado	6,616	22.3%
Placer	12,593	19.2%
Sacramento	115,880	48.6%
Sutter	9,814	50.1%
Yolo	12,640	42.8%
Yuba	8,451	58.4%

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It's all about information -- statistics, documents and data of all types that help us understand the world, make informed decisions and monitor government. It's about empowering citizens with tools and sources so they can conduct their own investigative research. This blog is a place to discuss information that's available on the Internet. What's relevant, useful, valid and accurate -- and what's not.

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