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"State education officials say the number of homeless students continues to rise.More than 27,000 students were reported as homeless in the 2011-12 school year. That number is up about 5 percent from 2010-11 and up nearly 47 percent from the beginning of the recession."

"Read to Succeed Buffalo will receive $495,000 to support its early childhood literacy programs from the John R. Oishei Foundation. The foundation announced the three-year commitment today, aimed at boosting early learning opportunities to help decrease poverty and help individuals become self-sufficient."

"A successful, prosperous future for Lexington is a goal we all share. We will not succeed, however, if fully one quarter of our children are growing up in poverty and lack the economic and social opportunities they need to succeed. Our schools and the early childhood community are making great strides to ensure preschool-age children have a good foundation. But we have done little as a community to ensure pre-teens and teens from households with low-incomes are on a track for success."

"Nearly half of Ohio's 1.8 million elementary and secondary students could qualify in the coming years for tax-funded tuition to private schools under Gov. John Kasich's plan to expand the state's voucher program, which would change the face of education in the Buckeye State."

"Museums including Children's regularly shave costs to ease the burden on cash-strapped families. But when officials started digging, they discovered that the old set of discounts did little to attract the people they were intended to benefit. The state is now watching the Children's Museum experiment and hoping other museums and cultural institutions will follow suit.The Children's Museum quietly began offering the savings in August and is now launching a campaign to get word out. The museum bought ads on buses serving low-income areas of the city, and officials have been handing out fliers at local centers, churches, and community meetings."

"Nearly 10,000 low-income youths ages 16 to 24 are neither working nor in school. Raise D.C. wants to see that number shrink to 7,000 by next year. And only 42 percent of youths ages 20 to 24 are employed full-time. Raise D.C. wants to raise that to two-thirds of that population by 2017."

"That poverty exists and is growing is indicated by increasing numbers of students receiving free and discounted meals in Idaho schools. Yet, compared with other countries, American students are far better off. The problem is that young people might equate poverty with lacking a better house or some material possession their classmates have. I contend that poverty is not the lack of material things but the lack of dreams. When young people have a dream to pursue, lack of material resources becomes secondary."

"Halfway into the 2012-13 academic year, the number of homeless students being tracked countywide has fallen by more than 200 from the end of last year. The figures -- from 1,536 at the end of 2011-12 to 1,328 now -- come as some districts report more students without permanent homes while others reported fewer."

"Researchers know a lot about how various factors associated with income level affect a child's learning: parents' educational attainment; how parents read to, play with and respond to their children; the quality of early care and early education; access to consistent physical and mental health services and healthy food. Poor children's limited access to these fundamentals accounts for a good chunk of the achievement gap, which is why conceiving of it instead as an opportunity gap makes a lot more sense."

"Focusing on boosting the quality of the state's patchwork early learning programs and eliminating duplication and inefficiencies should be paired with a wider effort to expand children's access to care. We -- as a company and as parents, siblings, neighbors -- cannot emphasize enough the importance of investing in quality preschool, child care and programs that help parents, particularly those living at or near the poverty line, to become stronger caregivers."

"Washington kindergartners are physically coordinated enough for their first year of school, but their ability to count to 20 and clearly express themselves are lagging, according to a new assessment released by the state. Early-learning advocates suspected the state's kindergartners were entering school less than fully prepared, especially low-income and minority students. Now there's data to back up the theory."

"Proponents of school choice argue too many of the nation's children are zoned to failing public schools, effectively trapping them into a lifetime of poverty. Many see alternative schools, parental empowerment and vouchers as a way out for these students."