Illinois

"The most important civil rights battleground today is education, and, likewise, the most crucial struggle against poverty is the one fought in schools. Inner-city urban schools today echo the separate but equal' system of the early 1950s. In the Chicago Public Schools where teachers are now on strike, 86 percent of children are black or Hispanic, and 87 percent come from low-income families. Those students often don't get a solid education, any more than blacks received in their separate schools before Brown v. Board of Education."

"In Chicago, 85 percent of the roughly 400,000 public school students are either African-American or Latino. A similar percentage receives free or reduced-price meals, which means these students live at or near the poverty line: $27,214 for a family of three, in a typical case. The average public-school teacher in Chicago earned almost triple that amount - $76,000 per year, according to the school district. In contract negotiations this year, Chicago Public Schools offered an average total pay increase of 16 percent over four years."

"On Sunday night, when she announced that the teachers were going on strike, Lewis said that teachers should not be at risk of losing their jobs over new evaluations that rely heavily on standardized test scores, which don't account for outside factors like poverty and homelessness. Reformers have long complained that teachers' unions too often use poverty as an excuse for poor performance. Lewis's remarks would seem to justify that complaint."

"With the number of low income and special education students growing each year, officials said it's time to reapply the strategies that have been successful and maybe look for new ways to reach those groups. One of the biggest challenges we face is that our at-risk populations are increasing substantially,' said Cordogan."

"SCARCE, or School and Community Assistance for Recycling and Composting Education, provides teachers and schools with supplies and books throughout the year. At the fair, the organization will have 12,000 books to give to students targeted at preschool children all the way through high school. It's helping them because it's low-income kids, so they might not have their own resources to go out and buy books,' Kelly Burda of SCARCE said. It's helping them with literacy because they're more likely to read if they have something they enjoy.'"

"Low-income seniors often end up in costly nursing homes, even though they don't need the skilled nursing services. The guiding philosophy behind supportive housing is to provide a cost-effective setting for seniors who need help with daily routines and can't afford private-pay assisted living, but don't require nursing care. Illinois is a leader in affordable assisted living, experts say. Other states are experimenting with assisted living for low-income seniors, but Illinois has purpose-built facilities that have assisted services and accept Medicaid."