Skip Navigation


Table 2.  Percentage of public elementary and secondary school students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch and percentage enrollment by race and ethnicity in the 100 and 500 largest school districts in the United States and jurisdictions: School year 2008–09
 
District characteristic All school districts   100 largest school districts   500 largest school districts
Membership eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, of those
    schools that reported free and reduced-price lunch1
45.2   55.9   51.2  
             
Percentage enrollment by race and ethnicity2            
American Indian/Alaska Native 1.3   0.5   0.7  
Asian/Pacific Islander 4.9   7.7   6.9  
Hispanic 22.3   36.8   32.1  
Black 16.8   25.9   23.0  
White 54.3   28.9   36.9  
Two or more races 0.5   0.3   0.5  
1 These percentages should be interpreted with caution. The Department of Defense dependents schools (overseas and domestic), American Samoa, and Guam did not report free and reduced-price lunch eligibility and are not included in the totals. Also, states may not have reported students eligible for reduced-price lunch, and a number of states reported participation instead of eligibility data, which may not be strictly comparable. See the Methodology section, appendix B, for further description. Percentages are based on those schools that reported data.
2 Black includes African American, Pacific Islander includes Native Hawaiian, and Hispanic includes Latino. Race categories do not include Hispanic.
NOTE: Data include all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, four outlying areas (American Samoa, Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and the U.S. Virgin Islands), the Bureau of Indian Education, and the Department of Defense dependents schools (overseas and domestic). Detail may not sum to totals because of rounding.
SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Common Core of Data (CCD), "Public Elementary/ Secondary School Universe Survey," 2008–09, Version 1a, and "Local Education Agency Universe Survey," 2008–09, Version 1a.