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"The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and MDC announced Wednesday that Raleigh and Charlotte could receive funding to get more low-income young people into post-secondary education that will help them get good jobs."

"...32 receive Title I funding because they serve large low-income populations. Receiving that money means the schools face federal sanctions for their performance that can include allowing students to transfer to higher-achieving schools within the district or replacing the principal..."

"'Natalie would be thoroughly pleased. The school would be very dear to her heart,' Blass said... Heineman served many organizations, including the Child Welfare League of America, and worked in many of the city's low-income neighborhoods."

"'It makes me feel like a million dollars!' is how senior companion Flora D. Bell describes it.The program looks for volunteers 55 years and older who love being around seniors. They visit low-income senior clients who may be homebound, lonely or have medical issues."

"Dickie Stevens, president of a catfish processing company in the Delta, knows there are already several groups attempting to bolster the poverty-stricken region, but he believes there's room for one more."

"`They're the best,' Broad said, quickly adding that others are also doing well... Though Gwinnett County is in suburban Atlanta, the district meets the criteria for the Broad Prize because it has a high percentage of minority and low-income students."

""There are examples all across the nation of public schools that work in high-poverty neighborhoods, but none of them are here," said Jos̩ Cerda III, a vice president with IFF."

"The award, financed by philanthropist Eli Broad (it rhymes with "road"), was created to highlight school districts making significant gains with low-income and minority students... [T]hose students are less likely than white and middle-class peers to pass exams and graduate..."

"Andrea Thomas tried the traditional college route. After graduating from Ridgeland High School, she enrolled at one of the state's public universities, but she felt like a number and didn't have a base of support."

"The program... comes at a time of heightened concern aboutchildhood poverty in the city. Census data show that the poverty rate among black children is 43 percent, up from 31 percent in 2007 and significantly higher than national rates."

"Students in underachieving poor and minority districts are more likely to be taught by underqualified teachers than those in better-performing, affluent white districts, according to a survey released Monday in Austin that measured teacher quality across the state."

"At the age of 80, Exaltacion Divinagracia thought that life would be easier. The petite widow still works part time at a nursery school... After church on Saturdays and Sundays, she drags a beat-up suitcase from one food pantry to the next in search of enough to eat for the coming week."