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"The American Red Cross will help fund training for 2,500 students in the Red Cross Nurse Assistant Training (NAT) program over the next two years thanks to a $3.5 million grant from the Walmart Foundation. The grant also covers the cost of the state certification exam to become a Certified Nurse Assistant (CNA). [...] Majority of NAT graduates are women who come from lower-income households and are living below the poverty line. NAT graduates earn an average wage increase of around 20 percent and many find jobs that provide much needed health insurance for themselves and their families."

"Mary Harken, executive director of Raising Readers, said the $10,000 will go toward Raising Readers� Thrive to Five program, which focuses on the importance of reading and school readiness for children ranging from infants to age five. The grant would advance the Thrive to Five program with the hope of reaching even more families in poverty and bringing forth more tools to advance parent or caregiver and child-learning processes."

"U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan says Pennsylvania has the largest spending gap between rich and poor school districts and that must change. Data from the National Center for Education Statistics shows that high-poverty school districts spent 15.6 percent less than those in the group with the least poverty."

"The federal government said Friday that Connecticut 'shortchanges low-income, minority students.' Connecticut and local governments are spending 8.7 percent less per student in the poorest school districts than they are in the most affluent school districts, according to data from the U.S. Department of Education."

"'Comparative loophole.' It's bureaucratic jargon with a name seemingly calculated to cure insomnia. But a new analysis reveals that the real-life effect of those two words is shortchanging public-school students in poor neighborhoods nationwide by nearly $9 billion per yearthe difference between the substandard education they're getting now and the quality one enjoyed by their affluent peers."

"Children who live in poverty come to school at a disadvantage, arriving at their classrooms with far more intensive needs than their middle-class and affluent counterparts. Poor children also lag their peers, on average, on almost every measure of academic achievement. But in 23 states, state and local governments are together spending less per pupil in the poorest school districts than they are in the most affluent school districts, according to federal data from fiscal year 2012, the most recent figures available."

"Almost 80 percent of high school graduates go to college nowadays. Almost half of them, mostly low-income students, start at a community college. And 80 percent of those say they hope to get a four-year bachelor's degree. But in the end, less than a third of community college graduates transfer to a four-year college, and still fewer of them only about 15 percent succeed in getting that undergraduate degree."

"New research illustrates the graduation advantage of attending a four-year university over a community college, particularly for low-income students.The working paper, 'College Access, Initial College Choice, and Degree Completion' by Joshua Goodman, an assistant professor at Harvard University, and Michael Hurwitiz and Jonathan Smith, both of the College Board, recently was posted on the National Bureau of Economic Research website."

"Like their peers across the country, Virginia public institutions have responded to state funding reductions in recent years by raising tuition. A new analysis released Wednesday shows, in stark detail, how those increased costs to students are impairing the success of students in the state, particularly low-income students."