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"More alarming is the rising number of young people who have dropped out of the system. Regionally, 14,000 youths ages 16-19 are not in school or working. Over their lifetime, they will cost us an estimated $13 billion in lost earnings, lower tax revenue and higher social service spending. What's harder to cost out is the lost potential of a young person who lacks the skills to get a career-track job, failing to break free of the poverty cycle."

"Florida school districts typically have used teacher recommendations and then an IQ test to identify gifted children. But teachers as gatekeepers' are problematic, Ford said, because most teachers aren't trained to spot gifted kids and often overlook the poor, minorities and those still learning English, as they don't fit their notion of the very bright. In Ford's view, traditional IQ tests also are biased against those groups, exacerbating the problem."

"One of this year's worst pieces of legislation would cut state welfare benefits to a family if a child doesn't do well in school. The theory is that cutting benefits to a poor family will cause parents to take greater responsibility for their child's education. This unfortunate piece of legislation is nave in its supposition, ill advised in targeting children, uninformed about the causes of underperforming students and insensitive to its potential consequences. We urge lawmakers to remove it from consideration."

"Perhaps most worrisome, many high-achieving, low-income students do not attend a selective college, despite their qualifications, and ultimately do not receive a bachelor's degree. Among the top 4 percent of students in the high school class of 2008, based on test scores and grades, only 34 percent of those from low-income households attended a selective college, according to Caroline Hoxby and Christopher Avery."

"Rep. Kathleen Passidomo, R-Naples, added an unexpected provision to her sweeping education accountability bill Thursday: a pitch to free Florida school districts from having to provide private tutoring services at low-income schools."

"If independent Portland lawmaker Ben Chipman's proposed legislation passes, college tuition could be covered for high-achieving Maine high schoolers living in poverty."

"The truth is that S.C. public schools are vastly outperforming their demographics. Our fourth graders who are not poor are reading better than or equal to peers in 21 states. Our teachers work miracles under intensely challenging conditions. They can do better with proper resources, but they have nothing to apologize for. Education is the best weapon we have against poverty. Unfortunately for those who struggle, our budgets don't allow for the kinds of interventions that other states invest in."

"An educational advocacy group released its third annual District Report Cards on Wednesday, showing that half the largest unified districts in the Bay Area improved in their efforts to educate low-income students and those who are African-American or Latino."

"Low-income schools traditionally have been a training ground for novice teachers and a depository for ineffective ones. A string of ineffective teachers is a deal killer for disadvantaged students who get little enrichment at home and can rarely make up the lost ground."

"A new report documents large differences in academic performance, course participation and discipline actions by race and income in the Burlington School District. The Equity and Inclusion Report released this week also found only slight progress has been made toward district goals to recruit more teachers of color. In a school system where 30 percent of students are non-white, just 4.4 percent of teachers look like them."

"Campus administration plans to phase out Help One Person Excel scholarships, a program that has assisted more than 1,500 Edison State students since its introduction in 1993. Recipients are predominantly low-income, minority, first-generation college students."

"Last month, the Chicago Board of Education announced it would close 54 schools, affecting 30,000 children, mostly in low-income, African-American neighborhoods on the city's South and West sides."