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"The 100 recent college grads who arrived in Miami this month are among the most accomplished young people in the country. And next year, they'll be teachers in Miami-Dade's low-income schools."

"Low-income seniors in Nebraska can stock up on farmers' market food with help from a federal grant. The Nebraska Department of Agriculture says more than $253,000 is available under the Senior Farmers' Market Nutrition Program."

"Vermont teachers want more say in education policy, and they see firsthand that poverty can slow student achievement. However, most public-school teachers in the state say their schools are great places to learn, and few have plans to leave the profession."

"Born into poverty outside Kingston, Jamaica, Williams grew up with no water or electricity, scrounging food from the street and avoiding gangs. He was 12 when his mother sent him to Florida with only the clothes on his back."

"Social Security and Medicare are not broken. They are successful, popular programs that protect America's elderly from poverty. Cutting them would be devastating."

"But students are chosen by a lottery of public school students. Most are low-income and without home computers, yet they are expected to manage their high school careers on a laptop."

"Scholar Academies operates Young Scholars, a charter middle school that serves about 200 low-income African American children in Philadelphia. According to its Web site, it uses an extended school day and school year to improve academic rigor."

"For-profit schools such as the University of Phoenix, DeVry University and Kaplan University... offer professional, vocational and technical training and serve a large number of minority, low-income and first-generation college students. But they face federal scrutiny and lawsuits..."

"Combee Elementary School is one of many schools seeking private help amid the orange groves of central Florida's Polk County, which has an unemployment rate of 12.1% and the fifth-highest rate of suburban poverty in the nation, according to the Brookings Institution..."

"This was a startling contrast to what people expected from such a school. Half of the students are low-income. The ethnic mix is 47 percent Hispanic, 27 percent black, 15 percent white and 11 percent Asian. Its building is a wreck, with an infestation of rodents and burst pipes..."

"The proposed district-run, or Horace Mann, charter high school in Salem is designed for students at risk of dropping out due to poor grades, poor test scores, or disciplinary problems. Many of the 50 to 100 students served would be teens facing personal issues such as poverty ."

"`There is the sense out there that the profession is under siege,' Patrick said. `But teachers are not the problem - poverty is the problem.'''