Pope: Universal school-lunch programs can shrink quality by crowding out private support
Using New York's universal free school-lunch rollout, Chris Pope said universalizing the program spread resources thinner and removed private revenue that supported higher-quality meals, producing poorer outcomes for some students.
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Chris Pope used New York's recent universal free school lunch rollout as a concrete example of trade-offs from broad program expansions. He said the program did not increase the budget overall but spread funds more thinly, which he said reduced meal quality: "When they said universal free school lunch, the budget didn't increase. It was just spread thinner. And so the quality of the food diminished."
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