School lunch: Time to improve programl lunch

School lunch: Time to improve programl lunch: Time to improve As Congress gets back to business next week, it is scheduled to take up the Child Nutrition Act, which comes up for reauthorization every five years. And the timing couldn’t be better.

It’s an opportunity for lawmakers to tweak requirements for the federal school nutrition program. This "free lunch" program fed about 19 million children last year, including 417,000 in New Jersey.

Those numbers are steadily growing, according to school districts, with more and more families applying for the program.

Clifton saw one of the biggest increases this year, with 37 percent of children now qualifying for free or reduced-price lunches, up from 21 percent of students four years ago.

Further south, the Lenape Regional High School District in Burlington County has seen a 131 percent increase in the number of students applying for free and reduced-price lunches between 2004 and 2009.

Advocates say the bump in applications is partly due to the economy and partly to efforts by school districts to get more eligible children signed up.

That’s a good thing, because hungry children have lower levels of concentration in class. But advocates for the poor say paying for lunch is still a struggle for families just above the income cutoff — 130 percent of the poverty level, or about $28,665 for a family of four.

Lawmakers can address that by raising the income cap, allowing more families to qualify — and more children to eat and learn.