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"Medical costs are a reason that AARP and other senior advocacy groups believe the government's poverty threshold needs to be replaced with an experimental, more detailed measurement called the Supplemental Poverty Measure."

"Examples of housing instability include a student in the foster-care system or in a joint-custody situation, or families that face homelessness or are in temporary shelters due to an inability to pay rent or a mortgage. Lauren Greene, a representative of the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE), said homelessness looks different in the Berkshires than it does in urban areas, leading to a lower student mobility rate in the county when the two are compared."

"Because there is a relationship between economic advantage and student performance, students of disadvantaged households are more likely to develop feelings of apathy. This is a major problem facing our institution, especially as 20% of American children are living in poverty. The level of achievement required of all students - including those in poverty - places a lot of pressure on schools."

"The Brattleboro School Board at its meeting this week approved a plan by Early Education Services to cut 25 Head Start classroom slots, and another 12 Early Head Start home-based visiting slots due to the federal cuts that will go into place on July 1. Early Education Services Executive Director Debra Gass said the cuts had to be made after Congress failed to address the sequester earlier this year and the EES budget, which starts on July 1, had to be put in place."

"As Richard Weissbourd continues to find teachers and schools focusing on the life-diminishing troubles of the increasing number of low-income children across the nation, I'll be reporting them here along with those I discover elsewhere."

"All the while, low-income students' parents cannot pay for books or games. They cannot afford tutors or extra curricular and enrichment activities. They generally have to work more and consequently cannot spend a lot of individual time with their kids. For that same reason, they cannot volunteer in classrooms. Sometimes they do not have sufficient education to help their kids with schoolwork. And they often do not bestow the value of education upon their children."

"The latest barrier being put in the way of children's interests is the decision by the Louisiana Supreme Court that the funding method for the Louisiana Scholarship Program is unconstitutional. Fortunately there is a fix. Gov. Bobby Jindal and the Legislature must find a different method to fund the program, which allows some low-income families to send their children to private and parochial schools."

"This spreadsheet lists each grade at each school from this past fall's Iowa Assessments. The first four columns represent school-wide percentile rankings in main subject areas."

"The reasons low-income children sometimes perform worse on exams aren't totally clear, even to administrators and researchers who study the issue, said Pam Ehly, the Iowa City Community School District's instruction director. It's difficult to pinpoint what the reason is - you can look at correlates like if they didn't engage in preschool, that's a factor. If you don't have funds as a family for additional opportunities like going to a museum or having books at home, those factors become compounded and it has an effect,' she said."

"The 11-district cooperative in the Omaha area originally lacked explicit authority for programs targeting children under age 5. State law called for programs aimed at elementary-age children. Nebraska lawmakers this month gave the education cooperative new spending authority and authorized expansion into early childhood education for children in poverty."

"Far from wanting to enroll more low-income students, colleges recruit more affluent ones who will pay full price to attend. A follow-up survey of college business officers found that the most common strategy to deal with financial challenges in the next few years was to raise net tuition revenue.'"

"Currently, 15 of the district's highest-poverty schools offer full-day kindergarten. This decision expands the opportunity to 19 more schools and would mean hiring the equivalent of at least 25 full-time teaching positions and possibly 27 other faculty, such as counselors."