Utah

"Lawmakers rejected a bill designed to close the educational achievement gap for at-risk students through an expansion of high-quality public preschool."

"On Tuesday the Senate voted down a bill sponsored by Sen. Aaron Osmond, R-South Jordan, that sought to give parents of a defined group of at-risk children the opportunity to enroll them in a state-funded preschool program."

"Called Pathways in Technology Early College High School, or P-TECH, the school preps students for tech jobs at IBM with starting salaries of about $40,000. The first of its kind in America, the grade 9-14 school employs a curriculum mapped backward from workplace needs at IBM to help low-income kids beat a dreary pile of statistics that show students from poor neighborhoods especially black males face long odds for finishing high school and getting into college."

"Utah Valley University broke ground Thursday on an expansion of its child-care center for low-income students. Designed to help more parents finish college, the 14,000-square-foot Wee Care Center at 1138 S. 400 West in Orem, will be able to hold 110 children when complete."

"[M]ost low-income families don't have many options when it comes to choosing schools for their children. School boundaries are determined by school districts, according to Greg Duncan, professor of education at UC Irvine. In many cases, the lines are drawn in such a way that all the low-income children in the district are put in one school and the middle- and high-income children in others."

"Education is the brightest hope for breaking the cycle of multi-generational poverty. But kids born to poor, under-educated parents aren't likely to succeed at school without help that targets their family situations, and that help is most needed during their earliest years."