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"The Springfield school board received both good and bad news Tuesday about its highest poverty schools. The good: More federal funding is now available to help low-income students. The bad: Four Springfield elementary schools have been placed on the state's list of focus' schools, those with high poverty and inadequate achievement among student subgroups."

"Three federal programs critical to education -- Title I funds for poor students, state grants for special education and the Head Start public pre-school program -- would lose $2.7 billion over 10 years, predicted a Senate report based on the Congressional Budget Office projection that sequestration would slash spending by 7.8 percent."

"Compared to 2011 figures, there are only slightly fewer Pennsylvania children living in low-income households and access to child care subsidies is flat, the report shows. Also, the number of kids enrolled in publicly funded early childhood education programs, such as Pre-K Counts and Head Start, is down. Only 16.5 percent of Pennsylvania's 3- and 4-year-olds are benefiting from such programs, the lowest number since 2007, according to the report."

"The graduation rates for S.C. high school students and the report card ratings of the state's schools both improved in 2012 in spite of rising poverty rates."

"Rutherford County Sheriff's Office initiated the Shop with the Sheriff event in 2011 to help 25 of the 600-plus homeless students enrolled in Rutherford County Schools. To fund the event, Sheriff Robert Arnold and other school resource officers partnered with Toot's South restaurant by asking customers to donate money."

"Evers' request aims to address discrepancies in taxing by incorporating a poverty weighting factor of 30% to account for family income. Currently, state funding for a district hinges largely on its property values. That could significantly benefit places such as the School District of Rhinelander, business manager Marta Kwiatkowski said."

"Typically left out of the discussion is the single biggest thing affecting children and the quality of their education - their lives outside the classroom. Poverty, and a lack of support at home, harm a student's learning capability more than anything that occurs inside a school, yet politicians too often talk as if all outside societal problems can be overcome with quality instruction alone."

"Outreach workers who make home visits and provide services can help reduce truancy, records and interviews show. With rising rates of child poverty and homelessness contributing to the problem, sometimes the fix is as simple as an alarm clock or winter boots."

"For Donald Carter, the groundbreaking of an LGBT-friendly senior housing facility meant more than just the creation of a facility. It was the culmination of more than 40 years of activism."

"The usual rule is the higher the percentage of low-income children, who often start school behind, the lower the school's average test scores. Petrilli discovered useful secrets in the subcategories available under the No Child Left Behind law to those who look for them. There were several schools near his home with a minority of white kids like his and many low-income children. They all had passing rates in reading above 90 percent, the result of an easy state test that made it hard to differentiate between schools."

"For children born into poverty, the flood of missed days threatens to swallow any hope for a better life. For the Chicago Public Schools, the empty seats undermine efforts to boost achievement and cost the district millions in attendance-based funding."

"Casillas and Leslie Hahn, who coaches other teachers on instructional strategies, said they think their school's test scores will continue to rise, despite growing poverty in the west Riverside neighborhood. About 84 percent of students are from low income families, a figure that has risen about 10 percent since 2008, Casillas said."