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"A rigorous study of a national charter school system has found that most of its low-income students achieve "overwhelmingly positive" academic improvements in a few years."

" But CMS formulas tend to create confusion as they try to account for all sorts of variables, from classrooms set aside for special education to smaller classes for at-risk kids in high-poverty schools."

"But most children live in the neighborhoods around the school. About 90 percent qualify for free or reduced-price lunch because they come from low-income families."

"The small schools are not academically selective; they are open to all eighth-grade graduates. Both groups were overwhelmingly black and Hispanic and living in neighborhoods with high poverty rates students who are most at risk for dropping out."

"Founded in Houston in 1994 by two young alumni of Teach for America, KIPP has grown into a national network of 82 schools -- including seven in the District -- that serve children from low-income backgrounds."

"But schools in affluent suburban neighborhoods quickly overflowed into encampments of mobile classrooms. Meanwhile, families fled schools in low-income areas, leaving many schools with rising poverty levels and plunging test scores."

"Boston College will launch an innovative training program for school principals in January to improve urban education and prepare more low-income students for college, with a $20 million donation from Fidelity vice chairman Peter Lynch and his wife, Carolyn."

"Their jobless rate may be lower than average, but when an older worker loses a job, it can be devastating. These workers, typically 55 or older, aren't ready to retire. But their years of work experience don't make regrouping to find the next job any easier."

"At a time when more than a third of minority students drop out of California public high schools, 100 percent of the first graduating class of Cristo Rey High School Sacramento, a... school for children of low-income, mostly minority families, has been accepted to college."

"Although Empowerment schools, the district's lowest-performers, outgained the rest of the district, only 41 percent of students in those schools scored proficient or better in reading, and 46 percent in math. Students with disabilities...and low-income students also posted gains..."

"The diocese formed an exploratory committee several years ago, and the group decided to open a tuition-free private school for boys in Congress Heights to provide low-income families an alternative to underperforming schools."

"The transfer influx has brought diversity to Charlottesville as many top public universities are becoming increasingly wealthy and white. Last year's transfer students were three times as likely as freshmen to come from low-income homes."