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"Tuesday, administrators will present a revised 2011-12 student assignment plan that's expected to include tweaks to move minority and low-income students from schools across the county to schools in their Southeast Raleigh neighborhoods. "

"Now Bill Gates, who in recent years has turned his attention and considerable fortune to improving American education, is investing $335 million through his foundation to overhaul the personnel departments of several big school systems. A big chunk of that money is financing research by dozens of social scientists and thousands of teachers to develop a better system for evaluating classroom instruction."

"The overall percentage of teachers with less than three years experience has grown dramatically in one year - especially in high-poverty schools in the city - widening the teacher gap between high- and low-poverty schools, according to a report the group released yesterday."

"As part of the project to develop new ways to evaluate teachers, researchers have recruited 3,000 teachers in seven school systems Dallas; Denver; Charlotte, N.C.; Hillsborough County, Fla.; Memphis; New York; and Pittsburgh who allowed themselves to be videotaped in their classrooms."

"The group provides scholarships to help the 50 low-income single mothers enrolled in the program graduate from college. Women can use the $255 monthly stipend for whatever they need to help them finish their degrees."

"Most often that means low-income children. Their low scores do not reflect an inability to learn, but reflect instead how the burdens and lack of opportunity for those living in poverty inevitably impede educational progress."

"Of course, with diversity no longer in the equation, some neighborhood schools would have enrollments made up mostly of kids from lower-income families. Such schools are places where academic success becomes even more elusive for students dealing with the challenges of poverty."

"The percentage of students in poverty had increased to 92.4 the highest rate of any school not only in the school district but in Crawford County."

"During a one-hour conversation, Saunders made it clear that he rejects the core of the educational world view held by Rhee and her successor, interim Chancellor Kaya Henderson, who have argued that the disadvantages produced by poverty, crime and family dysfunction can no longer be excuses for failing to raise academic achievement."

"J.S. Clark Elementary School has been recognized for the past two years as a high-performing high-poverty school in Louisiana. Now, the school is receiving national recognition for reducing the differences in achievement between its students."

"The school system is 88 percent black (compared with the city's 63 percent black population), and 84 percent of students are on free or reduced-price meals, a measure of poverty."

"'I do not want to see all those high-poverty schools created and no diversity at all in the rim schools,' said Morrison, referring to schools between downtown and outer suburbia. 'It's going back to resegregation, and it's very intentional in my opinion.'"