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"The financial penalties that Medicare imposes on hospitals with high rates of patient readmissions are too harsh for hospitals serving the poor and should be changed, according to a congressional advisory agency."

"SOAR stands for Skills, Opportunity, Achievement and Reward and is designed to help residents who might not otherwise have the chance to attend school, take some classes. The tuition reimbursement program is funded through a Community Development Block Grant the village received and will be applied to all qualified low-income families, as long as they meet the requirements."

"Now, as President Obama pushes a proposal to provide public preschool for all 4-year-olds from families with low or moderate incomes, his administration acknowledges that many children will attend classes outside the public schools."

"Under the plan, the federal government would offer grants to states that choose to enroll 4-year-olds from low- and moderate-income families. The plan calls for the federal share to gradually diminish from 91 percent initially to 25 percent after 10 years. In addition to preschool, Obama is seeking $15 billion for education programs for babies and toddlers."

"Some experts criticize a rise in state poverty grant' money for wealthier school districts, including the ones in Glenview and Northbrook, but local administrators and parents say the funding is warranted and needed."

"Welcome to Educare, a state-of-the-art $16 million preschool that education officials consider a model for the nation. It is part of a national network of high-quality early education facilities aimed at low-income children and funded with private and public money."

"Started in 1965 as part of the War on Poverty, Head Start aims to address the social, emotional, and academic needs of more than a million children in classrooms nationwide as well as aid their families. Students learn ABCs, numbers, and science basics, most notably, in one Jamaica Plain classroom, about caterpillars. Head Start is one of a broad range of programs, such as those that provide housing for the poor and shelter for the homeless, that are beginning to suffer from the impact of sequestration, the term applied to sweeping federal spending cuts intentionally forged to be so dire that they would force Washington lawmakers to reach a compromise on reducing the nation's deficit."

"Low academic achievement has been linked to poverty in education research and Sandburg is among schools with student test scores low enough for the state Department of Public Instruction to label it a focus' school in need of more interventions to close the achievement gap. Wilfrid points out, though, that the school also was recognized for a greater-than-expected rate of improvement among its English language learners."

Commentary: Deborah Axt, Make the Road New York

"In his most ambitious overhaul effort yet, Gov. Jerry Brown has proposed to dramatically change how California funds education. Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, and Assembly Speaker John A. P̩rez, D-Los Angeles, in their final years in the Legislature, should get behind the governor's effort. Brown's idea is to replace state-mandated categorical programs with a new formula that provides a basic level of funding, with additional money for disadvantaged students and those learning English."

"One of the most important, and least considered, factors influencing what happens in classrooms is what happens in lunchrooms. That's because lunchrooms are where a school's relationship to the socioeconomic realities of its community are most glaringly apparent. As much as we argue over myriad issues surrounding education from testing to charter schools to teachers unions there is an insurmountable truth in the lunchroom: Impoverished children bring massive challenges into schools. Many of the problems that have been identified as school failures stem as much from poverty as anything."

"Local educators say those attendance rates the number of actual days of attendance divided by the possible days of attendance are overall very good, but there still is room for improvement. Students from families that qualify for free- and reduced-price school meals, which a measurement of family's economic status, typically rank about 1 percentage to 3 percentage points behind their more affluent peers. Although 1 percent might not seem like much, in reality it means that low-income students don't spend as many hours in class, and that could be a substantial reason why they typically lag behind in typical measurements of academic performance, educators say."