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"The state learned this week that it was awarded $697 million in federal Race to the Top money, but it can't be used for hiring teachers. Half of that will be used for statewide initiatives. Most of the other half will go to districts with high poverty rates."

"About half of the money from Race to the Top, which is aimed at spurring education reform and innovation, will fund statewide efforts, and most of the rest will go to school districts with high poverty rates."

"Citizen Schools has been around since 1995, providing mostly after-school programs for low-income students at 37 school sites across the country. In Boston, the nonprofit offered an extended school day similar to the programs starting in Oakland, doubling proficiency rates..."

"Low-income college students who rely on New Jersey's popular Tuition Aid Grant program to help pay their tuition bills will see their aid checks slashed by nearly 8 percent as they return to campus for the new school year, state officials said."

"The D.C. mayoral race is deeply split on most issues, but everyone agrees on one thing: We must reduce the achievement gap between minority and white students. It is too bad, then, that the gap is such a mindless measure of school progress."

"The month of August has marked the 75th anniversary of a program that has lifted millions of Americans out of poverty and helped them cope with the economic uncertainties of retirement, disability and the death of family wage-earners: Social Security."

"But while plenty of that money may have been spent superfluously, it also appears to have played an important role in funding college educations, particularly for lower income families, according to Cornell University economist Michael Lovenheim."

"President Franklin Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act in 1935. Since then, it has unquestionably kept millions of people - most importantly, the elderly and disabled - from the depths of poverty.

"In June, Vantaja, 17, graduated from Malverne High School. She is an honors graduate, a scholarship recipient, and this week she is due to become a freshman at Nassau Community College. Until February, she was homeless."

"Randolph High dropped fees and restored junior-varsity sports after a $5.48 million override passed in April 2008, and Brockton officials say fees would create hardship for the 64 percent of the students at the high school who are classified as low-income."

"The district could not afford to forgo the grant money, said Burlington schools superintendent Jeanne Collins. Nor could Wheeler - a school with many recently arrived refugees from Africa and other parts of the world, many students from deep poverty, and notably low test scores."

"A volunteer team from Rebuilding Together, a nonprofit that updates low-income seniors' homes with safety items such as grab bars and wheelchair ramps, is on the job in his mother's south Sacramento house."