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"Brain research shows a child's intellectual capacity is largely set before he ever reaches kindergarten. Poor children are far less likely than middle-class children to receive the sort of brain stimulation they need at home. High-quality child development programs can increase that capacity, and our state's 4K program has won national note for doing just that."

"For years, students, teachers and administrators in California's poorest districts have been given every disadvantage possible. Brown wants to fix that injustice. We hope the Legislature will work with him to find a truly just solution."

"Forty-six seniors were honored earlier this week with four-year college tuition scholarships totaling more than $780,000 from The Foundation for Lee County Public Schools' Take Stock in Children program. The students are from low-income families and were selected as scholarship recipients in sixth and ninth grades. In order to receive the full scholarships, each of the students had to sign contracts promising to maintain good grades and behavior, meet with their assigned mentor regularly and stay away from crime and drugs."

"The Let�s Get Ready program has been awarded a $3,000 grant from the Betty Beland Greater Lawrence Summer Fund, a fund of the Essex County Community Foundation (ECCF). Let�s Get Ready will use the money to support its Lawrence program and help low-income and first-generation, college-bound students from the Greater Lawrence area attend college."

"Some education experts say rich districts should not receive any of the money when impoverished districts are in more dire need. But local administrators say the money is necessary, and used specifically to address issues related to low-income students within their districts."

"Research shows that students living in poverty have greater stress than their more well-off counterparts and have more behavioral and emotional problems that could lead to lower academic success. Title I funding addresses the added needs of low-income students when they get to school."

"The effort is part of ICCSD's diversity policy. Passed by the School Board earlier this year, the policy charges administrators with leveling out poverty rates across the district. Proponents say specialized curriculum will draw students from around the district, from both low-income and high-income families.

"Many public colleges and universities expect their poorest students to pay a third, half or even more of their families' annual incomes each year for college, a new study of college costs has found. With most American students enrolling in their states' public institutions in hopes of gaining affordable degrees, the new data shows that the net price the full cost of attending college minus scholarships can be surprisingly high for families that make $30,000 a year or less. The numbers track with larger national trends: the growing student-loan debt and decline in college completion among low-income students."

Commentary: Anthony P. Carnevale, Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce

"An Ochs Center for Metropolitan Studies report, State of the Region Report: Education' reaffirmed that the system's poor, majority-black schools just don't do as well as schools in more prosperous usually whiter neighborhoods. School leaders don't dispute the findings, but they say it will take more money, more people and more programs if the county ever hopes to sever the link between poverty and low school performance. Right now, though, funding for poor schools is trending in the other direction."

"With much of Washington still focused on the White House's ongoing scandals, a top Obama administration official Wednesday tried to shift attention back to a top policy priority: an ambitious expansion of prekindergarten programs."

"'Poverty rate is the biggest factor, I believe, that impacts graduation rates,' said Kewanee District 229 Superintendent Christopher Sullens. There's a lot of reasons for that. Students in low-income families don't always have the resources to help them out at night or provide extra services, and so it falls on the school to do.'"