Latest Coverage

"The greatest increases in enrollment have occurred among the lowest-income groups over the 2006-11 period; income groups that fall below the median household income threshold not only make up the majority share of the total enrollment, but account for the greatest percentage increase in enrollment at Virginia's public higher education institutions. Lower-income groups are disproportionately affected by changes in costs."

"The Food Research and Action Center states in its School Breakfast Scorecard: 2011-2012 School Year, that increasing participation in the School Breakfast Program, and extending these benefits to all low-income children, can contribute significantly to improving health and learning outcomes."

"Despite being told that Gov. Bill Haslam is now flatly opposed to a bill that would cut welfare benefits to parents of children failing in school, Republican legislators unanimously backed the measure in a House committee on Tuesday."

"Across the country in communities like Newark, the early college high school model is being lauded as a way to provide low-income students with a road map to and through college. According to the most recent figures from the National Center for Education Statistics, 68 percent of all high school graduates make it to a two- or four-year institution, but only 52 percent of low-income students do the same."

"The head of the state Democratic Party on Monday attacked a Republican lawmaker's bill that seeks to cut cash benefits for parents on welfare whose children don't attend or do poorly in school. Chairman Roy Herron said the bill, sponsored by Sen. Stacey Campfield, R-Knoxville, would be named Starve the Children' and denounced the measure as perhaps the worst bill yet from the radical Republicans.'"

"Iowa House lawmakers voted Monday to expand a tax credit for Iowans who give money for scholarships for low-income children to attend private schools. The School Tuition Organization Tax Credit has been around since 2006, and currently offers a maximum of $8.75 million in tax credits for scholarship donors."

"Rep. Kathleen Passidomo, R-Naples, added an unexpected provision to her sweeping education accountability bill Thursday: a pitch to free Florida school districts from having to provide private tutoring services at low-income schools."

"Lack of economic diversity among students in some Sanford area elementary schools is pushing the Seminole School Board to consider taking a stronger role in deciding who attends which school. That could include setting a specific percentage of low-income students for each of the five schools on the west side of town and assigning students to meet that percentage, based on whether the children qualify for government subsidized lunches."

Commentary: Andrew Wainer, Bread for the World Institute

"Rollins students make up more than half of the adult mentoring force at Fern Creek, spending at least one hour a week with their designated child. The college also has helped develop a science lab at the elementary school, resurrected an arts club, taught a robotics class, painted classrooms, worked on landscaping projects, directed a theater production and donated more than 1,000 books to the school's library."

"David Brown, the executive director of Grace Scholars, an SSO that serves 900 students in the Augusta area and 17,000 in Georgia, said he hopes the new transparency encourages more individuals and businesses to donate to a child's private education. Like GOAL, Grace already targets low-income families and publishes its financial data to the public voluntarily. However, he has seen evidence of abuses when donors call his office to ask whether they can contribute to their own child at a particular school and then receive a tax credit."

"If enacted, the measures promise to have a particularly pernicious effect on students from low-income families without college-educated parents. The National Council of La Raza and the Education Trust, advocates for poor and minority students, have labeled the proposed changes a retreat from progress' that would take Texas back to the bad old days of pervasive tracking.'"