Tesis: El efecto del “healthy hunger – free kids act” en el desempeño en las pruebas estandarizadas, en el área de matemáticas.

Abstract

Results on standardized tests from the Puerto Rico Department of Education showed that 71 percent of students do not meet the level of achievement that is required in mathematics. Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) education is a priority in economic development agenda. On the other hand, 64 percent of school kids in primary and secondary schools eat school lunches every day (AESAN; P.R. Department of Education, 2014) and 84 percent of those students are under the poverty level. School meals are therefore a powerful instrument for policy intervention. This study evaluates the impact of the changes introduced by the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act (HH-FK Act) to school meal menus on Puerto Rican public school students’ performance in math standardized testing. Using 2,324 observations, this panel data analysis focus on third grade students from the academic years 2009 to 2012. Estimating a fixed effect model we found a positive relation between implementation of the changes in menu and the percentage of students with Advance outcome on math. We also found a negative relation between Advance scores and increases in temperature.