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"Do high-stakes tests so-called accountability reduce test score gaps? A little fact checking is in order. The cities that have been most obsessed with high stakes testing have seen no test score improvements for black, Hispanic, and low-income students. Nationally, the black-white test score gap has been shrinking for decades, but the introduction of high-stakes tests did not improve results."

"High-poverty schools tend to have lower achievement than low-poverty schools. Milwaukee's highest-poverty schools serve racial minorities. Milwaukee's black students post some of the lowest achievement scores nationally among black students nationwide in certain grades and subjects."

"While politically unpopular, increasing tuition at the University of California is necessary to maintain the system's economic and racial diversity, according to former UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau."

"An early childhood center for children 5-years-old and younger opened in East Baltimore Wednesday. It's part of an initiative to better prepare that area's low-income children for school. Located in the 100 block of N. Chester Street, the new Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Early Childhood Center will serve more than 100 children."

"Some Washington, DC children are being denied participation in the Opportunity Scholarship Program, which gives students from low-income families scholarships to attend private schools, despite a law giving preference to these students with siblings in the program. The Scholarships for Opportunity and Results Act, which reauthorized the program in 2011, says students with a sibling already in the program are to be given priority. But that preference is denied for some families.

"This is not your normal child care offering, the kind that fines parents for each minute past 6 p.m. or kicks families out if they have three or more late pickups. This is a program specifically designed to take pressure off low-income parents who are juggling unemployment or several low-paying jobs with erratic hours. These parents can't help their kids with homework and often have difficulty even feeding them."

"When college students come from a lower-income background, the deck is often stacked against them in graduating to the corporate world. Many simply don't understand the culture, let alone what to wear in job interviews or in the workplace. A nonprofit program is teaming up with Florida State College at Jacksonville to help create a pipeline for some of those students to corporate America. Year Up, based in Boston and operating in about a dozen cities, will begin the program Jan. 8 with an office at FSCJ's downtown campus. But efforts are well underway to recruit more businesses to participate in the program."

"All school leaders know that children have to be in school to learn, but fewer are aware that their school's rate of chronic absenteeism can reveal a wealth of information about the school and the community around it. Our new report Building a Better Picture of Poverty: What Chronic Absenteeism and Risk Load Reveal About NYC's Lowest-Income Elementary Schools, demonstrates that schools with persistently high rates of chronic absenteeism face, on average, a higher burden of community- and school-level risks such as child maltreatment, homelessness and teacher turnover. In this way, chronic absenteeism serves as a powerful warning sign to help identify schools and families with the greatest need."

"Students from low-income households are harder to teach, and Illinois has a growing number of them. 1.05 million students come from families whose income makes the kids eligible for free or reduced-price lunches at school, a typical measure of poverty or low-income status for schools. That�s 51�_ percent of the Illinois school population, the first time that figure has ever been over 50 percent."

"Feeding America, a nonprofit organization that runs a network of food banks that help feed more than 37 million people each year, estimates 7 million of that number are elderly residents. Thirty-three percent of Feeding America's client households have at least one member who is age 60 or over, and an estimated 76 percent or 3.9 million households are food insecure. Although exact statistics for elderly residents in Mississippi have not been released, the problem is very real in the Magnolia State."

"Thanks to a digital library program being rolled out in local schools, similar electronic books will soon be a click away for tens of thousands of students. Within the next few weeks, the program will be available at about 30 low-income elementary schools and four specialty programs in Brevard."

"The Alabama Supreme Court will hear arguments Wednesday in a challenge to the Alabama Accountability Act. The law provides state income tax credits to help low-income parents cover the cost of private school tuition with priority given to families zoned for schools designated as failing. The court could be the final stop in a long battle over whether the Republican-backed 2013 school legislation is legal and if it was properly approved during a tumultuous 2013 night in the Alabama Legislature."