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"Oregon high schools made near-zero progress at getting more students prepared for college and careers last school year, according to test scores released Wednesday. Statewide, 30 percent of high school juniors failed the high school math test, 16 percent failed the reading test and 41 percent failed the writing test. Passing rates were essentially unchanged from the low levels achieved in 2013, and the wide gaps separating minority, low-income and limited-English students from the rest did not narrow."

"Thousands of public school children in Fresno County are homeless and living in hotels or motels, shelters, doubling up with family or on the street, according to a study released Wednesday. The situation is even worse in Los Angeles, which has the highest number of homeless students in the state. In Trinity County, the percentage of homeless children is highest and growing, the report said."

"Rather than simply expanding Medicaid - a program that sometimes essentially denies care to the poor because doctors avoid its low reimbursement rates - Corbett sought to reform it. Corbett's program seeks to provide coverage to an estimated 600,000 additional Pennsylvanians by offering them federal subsidies to purchase private insurance. This will reduce disruption for those whose incomes rise enough to no longer qualify for the program and likely provide better coverage overall."

"Roughly 100 students on Mesa's campus are registered as Homeless or Former Foster Youth. These students, who struggle to finance their basic needs along with their academic expenses, frequently find themselves living in their cars and showering at the gym."

"The relentless economics of the U.S. health care system have sapped resources in poor areas for decades as hospitals and doctors follow the money in the form of well-insured patients. Doctors and medical care facilities serving large numbers of poor patients have trouble staying afloat because uninsured patients and those on Medicaid are expensive."

"University System of Maryland schools have had mixed success in improving the graduation rates of minority and low-income students, according to an annual progress report released this week. Some colleges, including the University of Maryland, College Park and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, have been able to boost minority and low-income achievement. But at other schools, the gaps between those students and middle-class whites have increased in recent years."

"Gov. Paul LePage's decision to shrink Medicaid instead of expanding it was a radical departure from a decade-long effort to cover more people in this small rural state of farmers, lobstermen, craftsmen and other seasonal workers, which at least until recently, boasted one of the lowest rates of uninsured in the nation. Maine was the only state in New England, and one of 23 nationally, to decline federal money to expand Medicaid under the federal law."

"If the 23 states that have rejected expanding Medicaid under the 2010 health-care law continue to do so for the next eight years, they'll pay $152 billion to extend the program in other states -- while receiving nothing in return. This exodus of federal tax dollars from 2013 through 2022 would pay 37 percent of the cost to expand Medicaid in the 27 remaining states and Washington, D.C., over that time. Most of the money, nearly $88 billion, would come from taxpayers in just five non-expansion states: Texas, Florida, North Carolina, Georgia and Virginia."

"Some Missouri Republicans say they're willing to expand Medicaid - provided that new recipients look for jobs as a condition of eligibility. But a new agreement between the federal government and Pennsylvania suggests that strategy probably won't work. Pennsylvania's plan to provide coverage to as many as 600,000 low-income residents was approved last week, but only after its work-search requirement was dropped after stiff resistance from the federal government"

"Georgia has opted out of expanding Medicaid under Obamacare, aiming to avoid increased costs. On top of that, at the close of this year's legislative session Gov. Nathan Deal signed a bill making sure Medicaid cannot be expanded in Georgia without approval by the legislature. HB 990 bars any expansion of Medicaid eligibility 'through an increase in the income threshold without prior legislative approval.' The law specifies the approval must be by a legislative act or joint resolution of the General Assembly. Maybe this is a hedge against the possibility of pro-Medicaid expansion Democratic nominee for governor Jason Carter winning in November? Carter, trailing Deal, is trying to make Medicaid a key issue in the race."