Massachusetts

"`One of the problems with poverty is your world gets so small,' said Anne Teschner, who directs the center. `But once they catch the fire, they're off.'''

"When Carey Sommer entered foster care in California, he left his mom, his high school and his friends. Bounced from home to home, he changed high schools nine times until the disheartened teen finally dropped out."

"`It's devastating,' said Shirley McCready, 76, a retiree from Springfield who cleaned restaurants for a living. `I only have one income - that's Social Security. If they start chipping away, what am I going to do? It's just one income, and it's low income, and they're going after us.'"

"Federal civil rights attorneys have launched an investigation into whether the state is discriminating against students who do not speak English fluently by failing to ensure that new charter schools are equipped to educate the students."

"While the organization's Great Teachers Great Schools campaign looks to mobilize voters and tie their proposal to efforts to close achievement gaps between students from high-income and low-income families, the Massachusetts Teachers Association has ripped the plan as an effort to limit bargaining rights, diminish the role of seniority and experience in personnel decisions, and preclude part-time teachers from attaining professional status."

"If the health care law is repealed and the eligibility age raised, hundreds of thousands of seniors could end up uninsured, said Paul Van de Water, a fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a nonpartisan organization in Washington, D.C., that analyzes how policies impact low-income Americans."