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"A recent estimate by state Education Commissioner Terry Holliday forced a harsh retabulation of school budgets last week. District administrators face up to 9.2 percent in federal, across-the-board budget cuts prompted by the March 1 sequestration. Funding to special education and low-income learners will take the hardest hits, Holliday said. The cuts will slice up to $3 billion nationally in education alone."

"That marked the birth of A Child's Place, a nonprofit that today provides services for 2,200 homeless children in elementary and middle schools, or 45% of the more than 4,900 enrolled children the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools have identified as homeless."

"Homeless people can receive free tuition at Florida public colleges - and State Rep. John Tobia thinks this little-known legal loophole is a poor use of tax dollars that could be exploited by couch-surfing' students."

"Jonathan Kaplan from the California Budget Project said the formula would give schools with low-income students and English learners more money over seven years, which could end up flip-flopping current funding inequities. For example, the Dublin school district now gets about $1,000 more per student than Alameda City Unified, he said. But under the governor's proposal, Dublin would get about $3,000 less per student after seven years."

"Smaller districts are in great need of more state aid. As predicted, the state law that caps the annual increase in property taxes at 2 percent or the inflation rate, unless 60 percent of the voters agree to more, has hit hardest on some of the poorest school districts. The current formula for allotting school aid is skewed to help districts of politically powerful legislators; it should be changed to spread more money to impoverished areas."

"Unless Congress acts, the interest rate on new federally subsidized Stafford student loans taken out after June 30 will revert to 6.8 percent - the same rate charged on unsubsidized Stafford loans - from 3.4 percent. The discounted rate for subsidized loans, which go to lower-income families, was supposed to expire in June 2012. But lawmakers put on their can-kicking boots and postponed it for one year."

"In a potential replay of last year's stand-off, more than 7 million college students could again be threatened with a doubling of the interest rate on their school loans July 1 if Congress fails to act. Heading off the increase was one focus of a House Education and the Workforce Committee hearing this week, with the panel's top Republican saying lawmakers should move to strengthen the federal student loan program more generally."

"Superintendents and treasurers from low-income, rural school districts across the state gathered at the Statehouse yesterday to push for significant changes to a funding formula they say punishes their students."

"Studies have suggested that early childhood education benefits society, because children who are enrolled grow up to be more productive adults, more likely to hold a job and less likely to receive public benefits. Early education for low-income children is estimated to generate $4 to $11 in benefits for every dollar spent on the program, according to a 2011 cost-benefit analysis funded by the National Institutes of Health."

"As Oregon lawmakers consider more changes in a 50-year-old program that pays property taxes for low-income seniors and people with disabilities, they heard good news from two reports. According to the Oregon Department of Revenue, the program is back in balance after getting down to zero about two years ago."

"If children are prepared at home and in the community they are more likely to arrive at kindergarten ready to succeed. But if children are exposed to poverty and neglect they are more likely to remain behind their peers, and their chances are greater of having difficulty as they become adults who want to participate in the workforce, he said."

"Nearly four out of five Latino students were enrolled in predominantly minority schools in 2010, according to the Civil Rights Project, based at the University of California at Los Angeles. About 7 percent of those students went to intensely segregated minority schools' - ones where less than 10 percent of students were white and a large majority of students lived in poverty."