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Commentary: Anthony P. Carnevale, Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce

"An Ochs Center for Metropolitan Studies report, State of the Region Report: Education' reaffirmed that the system's poor, majority-black schools just don't do as well as schools in more prosperous usually whiter neighborhoods. School leaders don't dispute the findings, but they say it will take more money, more people and more programs if the county ever hopes to sever the link between poverty and low school performance. Right now, though, funding for poor schools is trending in the other direction."

"With much of Washington still focused on the White House's ongoing scandals, a top Obama administration official Wednesday tried to shift attention back to a top policy priority: an ambitious expansion of prekindergarten programs."

"'Poverty rate is the biggest factor, I believe, that impacts graduation rates,' said Kewanee District 229 Superintendent Christopher Sullens. There's a lot of reasons for that. Students in low-income families don't always have the resources to help them out at night or provide extra services, and so it falls on the school to do.'"

"A plan to provide taxpayer money for low-income children to attend private schools cleared a significant hurdle Tuesday after hours of arguments about parental choice and the impact on public schools. The 27-21 vote in the House Education Committee was a significant victory for lawmakers who support what they call opportunity scholarships,' operators of private and religious schools, and parents who want to remove their children from public schools. Supporters have been working for years on a way to provide tuition assistance for K-12 parents through vouchers or tax credits."

"The program, which puts children from low-income homes into preschool classrooms in the name of school readiness, has been slashed nationally. That's because of the sequester - the automatic spending cuts agreed to last year after a Congressional deadlock on the budget."

"This is the way to fund schools: simple, transparent and cognizant of the fact that disadvantaged students -- who make up 60% of the public school population -- are more expensive to educate, through no fault of their own. Every student in the state must have a safe place to attend school, and the schools of low-income students are more likely to be located in dangerous neighborhoods."

"A recent Tribune analysis showed that many of Illinois' wealthiest school districts like New Trier Township High School District, Winnetka District 36 and Wilmette District 39 have seen a significant increase since 2006 in the amount of poverty dollars used to help disadvantaged children. That rise has occurred even as some of the state's poorest schools are seeing their own allotments reduced."

"According to new poverty measures from the Census Bureau, 15 percent of people ages 65 or older nationwide are living in poverty 6 percent higher than previously thought."

"Poverty rate is the biggest factor, I believe, that impacts graduation rates,' said Kewanee District 229 Superintendent Christopher Sullens. There's a lot of reasons for that. Students in low-income families don't always have the resources to help them out at night or provide extra services, and so it falls on the school to do.'"

"Senate Appropriations Chairman Luke Kenley said he and other GOP legislative leaders have 'lost confidence' in the accuracy of the federal school lunch program as an indicator of poverty. There's no accountability in the federal program,' Kenley said."

"In the Philadelphia area, teachers see themselves as first responders in the ongoing emergency of poverty. Many say that if they falter, they fail the children."