Massachusetts

"A child's destiny should not be determined by her zip code. Massachusetts has been a leader in public education reform for nearly two decades, but persistent poverty- and race-based achievement gaps in low-income communities are reminders that we have not done enough to meet our commitment to offer educational opportunity to every young person in the Commonwealth. These inequalities persist under our watch despite clear policy options that work but are not available in every community where they are needed."

"Sandwiched between Governor Patrick's call for major increases in spending for early childhood education and public higher education is a modest bump of $5 million to extend the school day in fiscal year 2014. The money is focused precisely where it belongs middle school students in high-poverty districts."

"To begin putting more students in classrooms, Governor Deval Patrick has proposed boosting spending on early childhood education next year by about $130 million. Those dollars would be used to increase the pool of money low-income families can access to help pay for day care."

"Museums including Children's regularly shave costs to ease the burden on cash-strapped families. But when officials started digging, they discovered that the old set of discounts did little to attract the people they were intended to benefit. The state is now watching the Children's Museum experiment and hoping other museums and cultural institutions will follow suit.The Children's Museum quietly began offering the savings in August and is now launching a campaign to get word out. The museum bought ads on buses serving low-income areas of the city, and officials have been handing out fliers at local centers, churches, and community meetings."

"According to the U.S. Department of Education, the National School Lunch program, which provides free or reduced-price meals to children of low-income families, experienced steady expansion in Massachusetts between 2006 and 2011. As of the close of the 2010/2011 academic year, some 34.2 percent of the state's K-12 students were enrolled in the free and reduced-price lunch program, compared to 28.9 percent in the 2006/2007 academic year."

"The initiative will target 14 classrooms that serve about 200 students in areas of the city with high rates of poverty. Low- income students tend to enter kindergarten less prepared than their more affluent peers, and the quality of pre-kindergarten programs can vary tremendously in the private sector."