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"A lack of available beds for senior citizens in the Kentucky area neighboring Ohio is increasingly forcing many to move north of the Ohio river, according to The Cincinnati Enquirer. The newspaper's investigation showed that Ohio taxpayers shell out more than $6 million per year for the Kentucky patients covered by Medicaid. Sixty percent of the cost is paid using federal dollars and the rest is picked up by the state."

"If kids count in the United States, and I am not sure they do, political leadership will change the course of education reform and begin a commitment to social reform that attends to the needs of the growing numbers of impoverished, working poor, and working class families who populate the country, and thus, depend on public education."

"Roughly 300,000 California grandparents 65,000 of them past the age of 65 have primary responsibility for their grandchildren. As the numbers have grown, so has the size of a particularly desperate sliver of grandparents who fall through the cracks in near-poverty, ineligible for assistance and services."

"Since high school dropouts have few opportunities for good-paying jobs and often have to rely on publicly funded hospitals for health care, cutting the dropout rate by 50 percent could save the state as much as $119 million a year in Medicaid spending, a recent study shows."

"The loss of summer learning has sparked concern that low-income students suffer as summer classes vanish. While wealthier families can afford summer camps and private academic studies, low-income children have limited opportunities beyond those at their neighborhood school."

"A report released Wednesday says that cutting the state's number of high school dropouts in half would result in annual savings of $127 million in TennCare, the state's Medicaid health care program for many of Tennessee's poor."

"Newark Mayor and U.S. Senate hopeful Cory Booker today will release a plan to curb childhood poverty nationally by increasing federal benefits for the poor, expanding access to affordable housing and making pre-school and college more available to America's low-income families."

"A recent survey by the Annie E. Casey Foundation found that 19 percent of Kansas children are living below the poverty line. That's nearly 1 in 5. More than half of 3- to 4-year-olds in Kansas are not attending preschool. Study after study has proved that early education is the essential foundation for success in school, college, career and life. We can fight poverty and move to greater productivity by investing more in quality early education for disadvantaged children."

"A statewide program will soon start distributing fresh produce to more than 4,500 low-income seniors in New Hampshire. The New Hampshire Farm Fresh Delivery Program, funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Nutrition Service, provides seniors with locally grown fruits and vegetables from 18 farmers in the state."

"An audit of South Carolina First Steps, the state's school-readiness program, suggests too many parents are not preparing their children to learn, and the state should do more to help them. First Steps' goal is to reach children who face risks such as low birthweight, poverty, abuse or having teenage mothers. The Legislative Audit Council's report, released last month, found that 14 years after the program was created, the percentage of at-risk children in South Carolina remains high."

"Alarmingly, approximately 24 percent of Virginia's economically disadvantaged children failed to meet third-grade Standards of Learning in reading in the 2011-12 school year - a critical shortcoming foretelling future poor performance. This failure rate contributes directly to the $5 billion to $9.9 billion the Annie E. Casey Foundation estimates that childhood poverty costs the state of Virginia each year."

"Now, a major research project will bring handymen, occupational therapists and nurses into the homes of 800 low-income seniors in Baltimore to test if some inexpensive fix-ups and strategies for daily living can keep them independent longer, and save millions in taxpayer dollars spent on nursing home care."