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"The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that 25 percent of the energy used in schools is wasted. In a world of shrinking budgets and resources, energy-efficiency savings in utility costs could be used for desperately needed funding for additional teachers and school resources. Nowhere is this more important than in our nation's poorest school districts, where the concept of a green, healthy school is rarely a priority."

"Scholarships can be used at school-based programs. But scholarships also can be used at high-quality early-education programs operating out of centers, churches, nonprofit organizations and homes many of which are located in low-income areas. Scholarships are a both/and solution."

"In East New York, there is a children's marching band that has performed with celebrities such as Mariah Carey and The Sugar Hill Gang; they play at national competitions, the U.S. Open, and have traveled to Senegal, Gambia, and Panama. Yet, good grades are the sole criteria for joining."

"Republican governors like Michigan's Rick Snyder and presidential candidates like former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush keep talking about the need to address poverty a welcomed pivot in a party whose policies tend to pretend poor people either don't matter or got that way on purpose and don't deserve help."

"The new study is based on an analysis of demographic changes in 66 cities between 1990 and 2012. It comes just months after a surge of headlines about suburban poverty following a Brookings Institution study that found that more Americans are now living in poverty in the suburbs than in rural or urban areas. News of this demographic shift comes as no surprise to suburban school superintendents and school boards. They know their student populations are shifting, and they are wrestling with how to adequately serve the rising number of poor children who come to class with far more needs than their more affluent peers."

"A $128,000 grant will provide emergency services to low-income residents in three Essex County towns. A $128,505.50 County Community Services Block grant has been awarded to the Montclair Neighborhood Development Corporation, an area nonprofit, to assist needy residents in Montclair, Bloomfield, and Belleville, Freeholder Brendan Gill announced in a release this week."

"And the idea was to narrow the achievement gap by removing barriers to early education for families that couldn't otherwise afford it. Like many policymakers and children's advocates, including President Obama, de Blasio had concluded that universal prekindergartena model known in education circles as UPKwould be key to solving the city's socioeconomic inequalities."

"Due to an unexpected federal policy reversal sought by advocates for nearly 10 years, schools could start billing Medicaid for health services such as asthma screenings, vaccinations and care for chronic diseases provided to some low-income students."

"ne in five Americans spends his or her days in our nation's 140,000 K-12 schools. Those schools spend close to $8 billion a year on energy costs, the second-largest line item in a school budget after personnel costs. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that 25 percent of the energy used in schools is wasted. In a world of shrinking budgets and resources, energy-efficiency savings in utility costs could be used for desperately needed funding for additional teachers and school resources."

"As America recovers from the recession, wealthy households are recovering faster than low-income ones, whose incomes have stagnated or declined since the crash. A new report says that this widening gap is sapping Social Security. Currently, two-thirds of seniors rely on the program for their retirement income. The wage gap may have cost Social Security$1 trillion over the last 30 years, according to a report last week from the Center for American Progress."

"Currently, two-thirds of seniors rely on the program for their retirement income. The wage gap may have cost Social Security $1 trillion over the last 30 years, according to a report last week from the Center for American Progress. And as more Americans reach retirement age, Social Security is set to eat through its funding by 2033, assuming that Congress took no action to bolster it. After that it would only be able to cover 77 percent of its claims."

"Most federal housing subsidies go to renters with average incomes of about $11,000 a year, but even those have become very difficult to find because production of low-income senior housing has dropped dramatically in the last few years, said Alayna Waldrum, housing legislative representative for LeadingAge, an association of not-for-profit aging service providers."