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"Teachers in low-income school districts often get specialized training about the culture of poverty in order to better understand their students' lives and take those challenges into account in the classroom."

"High-income families are spending more time and money than ever on their children's education, further widening the gulf between rich and poor students, according to a new report."

"This summer, instead of hanging out poolside or playing outside all day, about 100 Jefferson County Public Schools students will be working on reading comprehension as part of the district's Summer Reading Institute. The program, which is in its first year, is JCPS' way of reaching its homeless students, who number more than many people realize, said John David Marshall, JCPS assistant superintendent of diversity, equity and poverty."

"As ElderBranch highlights in their article on LGBT senior living, LGBT seniors face a variety of challenges, including a higher risk of poverty, than do heterosexual seniors. Finally being on a level playing field in terms of access to federal spousal benefits is therefore a significant step forward for this community."

"The local organization is among 45 Goodwill agencies nationwide to take part in the job training and placement program, funded through a $7.7 million grant from the Walmart Foundation [��_]The Beyond Jobs program is part of Walmart's Global Women's Economic Empowerment Initiative, which includes helping 200,000 U.S. women from low-income households with workforce readiness through job training, education, career counseling and mentoring."

"Federal officials have opened the door for Wake County to reintroduce students' family income as a basis for school assignments. U.S. Department of Agriculture attorneys say Wake can use data on students who receive subsidized lunches to balance schools by family income as long as the process doesn't result in the identification of individual students."

"Hawaii's governor this week signed a bill that expands the state's existing Preschool Open Doors program to fund subsidies for 900 children. The more than $7 million package is seen as a step toward eventually providing state-funded public preschool, but is less than half of what Gov. Neil Abercrombie originally proposed. Thousands of kids will lose services when the state's junior kindergarten program for late-born 4-year-olds expires in mid-2015."

"Federal officials have opened the door for Wake County to reintroduce students' family income as a basis for school assignments. U.S. Department of Agriculture attorneys say Wake can use data on students who receive subsidized lunches to balance schools by family income as long as the process doesn't result in the identification of individual students."

"As Virginia's Board of Education begins to develop a formula for calculating letter grades for each of its public schools by fall 2014, superintendents across the state are getting nervous. The A to F scale, which was approved by the General Assembly earlier this year, is intended to give parents an easy-to-understand summary of the varying quality of each of the state's schools. But school leaders are worried that the measures will be more of a reflection of how many poor students they serve."

"The Hamilton Project, a Washington group affiliated with the Brookings Institution, has released a report calling for the expansion of a recent experiment aimed at persuading highly qualified low-income students to apply to top colleges. Only 34 percent of high-achieving high school seniors in the bottom fourth of income distribution attended any one of the country's 238 most selective colleges in a recent year, according to research conducted by Caroline M. Hoxby of Stanford and Christopher Avery of Harvard. Among top students in the highest income quartile, the figure was 78 percent."

"The rising cost of college looms like an insurmountable obstacle for many low-income Americans hoping to get a higher education. The notion of a college education becoming a financial albatross around the neck of the nation's youth is a growing meme across the culture. Some education experts now advise high school graduates that a college education may not be such a good investment after all."

"The University of Missouri-Kansas City, which was once among the more costly public universities for low-income students, has created a new grant program to help those students pay for their education."