The school districts were/are under a lot of pressure to increase the number of students receiving free/reduced-price lunches. The school I taught at awarded prizes to students who returned their free-lunch applications. I believe schools get extra funding for higher “poverty” populations—which are measured by the free-lunch count.
That's why a lot of school districts that weren't filled with welfare recipients dumped their Federal school lunch programs entirely. If only 20% of their students were getting Federally-subsidized lunches but the other 80% had to eat the same sh!t that was being served in the school cafeteria, then they lost more money when the 80% stopped buying the school lunches than they got in Federal money anyway.
Schools also get extra money for each child it puts into a "special ed" program. This happened to us with our youngest daughter. In kindergarten they wanted to take her out of class each day for a special ed teacher to have time with her. Hubby blew his stack.
We immediately put her into a private kindergarten program. There the teachers seemed to understand that, at that age, all kids are not at the same level in all things. The teacher pointed out one little boy, said he was very bright, but had a hard time just pulling up his pants. When my daughter began the 1st grade in a Catholic school, the teacher there had a few kids who needed help with following instruction. Each of these kids had a little list on their desk of what they were supposed to do first thing when they arrived in class. It didn't take long for my daugher to get her program in order. She is a very intelligent young woman who just had her 30th birthday. She has a bit of a different, quirky kind of personality; but, she did NOT need a special ed teacher. Just a regular teacher with a bit of patience.