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"Lewis, who won key concessions from Emanuel's school board by leading her union's 29,000 members on a seven-day strike in September, said social and economic concerns have to be addressed before schools can get better. We cannot fix what's wrong with our schools until we are prepared to have honest conversations about poverty and race,' Lewis said. Until we do, we will be mired in the no-excuses mentality (that) poverty doesn't matter. Poverty matters a lot when you are teaching children who are distracted by their lives.'"

"To say it affects the school is an understatement,' she said. Oftentimes, we have kids who haven't eaten since they came to school the day before.' To qualify for free lunch through the federally assisted meal program, students must come from a family with a household income that is at or less than 130 percent of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's established poverty guidelines."

"The grants must be used for research-proven counseling methods, she said, that focus on mental and social health for specific students. She said she hopes to see the funding and new counselors increase attendance and discipline in her schools. The Eureka City Schools funding proposal sent to the Department of Education said that its district suffers from severe poverty, and the district's free/reduced lunch rate is about 80 percent."

"Beaverton's Greenway Elementary was named one of two National Title I Distinguished Schools in Oregon, according to the Oregon Department of Education. The school was recognized for making significant progress in closing the achievement gap of its low-income and Latino students. The school eliminated the gap for fifth-grade Latino students in math."

"As families across Oklahoma gear up for the holidays, a segment of the state's senior population faces a lonely season. Home Instead Senior Care in Oklahoma City aims to provide a more cheerful and happy Christmas to seniors who are homebound and feel isolated. Be a Santa to a Senior is a program sponsored by Home Instead that gathers gifts, wraps them up for Christmas and delivers them to deserving seniors."

"[M]ost low-income families don't have many options when it comes to choosing schools for their children. School boundaries are determined by school districts, according to Greg Duncan, professor of education at UC Irvine. In many cases, the lines are drawn in such a way that all the low-income children in the district are put in one school and the middle- and high-income children in others."

"To maintain or build the levels of racial diversity on selective campuses, it is necessary to maintain race-conscious admissions. While there are higher shares of blacks and Hispanics among low-income Americans, their smaller shares of the whole population mean that whites make up by far the largest portion of low-income families."

"The number of homeless students in the Salem-Keizer School District grew to its highest level since the recession began in 2007, according to Oregon Department of Education numbers released Thursday."

"Most unsuccessful students are not different from successful ones in their level of natural ability. The difference lies in significant skills and personal characteristics established in the earliest years of life preceding entrance into the school system, which are very much a factor of the home environment and parenting skills children experience. These are highly correlated with socioeconomic level and, therefore, demonstrate their impact most significantly in schools that are most impoverished."

"After all, with an education from HISD's best public schools and the polish from a Texas university, these middle-class kids will meet, learn from and influence non-Texans throughout their business and private lives. It's the brilliant, low-income students who are the great loss. If they aren't exposed to global ideas and opportunities through college, they may never encounter them at all."

"Marc Spencer has a vision: to have low-income youth graduate from college. After becoming CEO of Juma Ventures, Spencer changed the organization's mission from helping low-income youth get into college to ensuring they complete a four-year higher education degree."

"The population of homeless students in Oregon has leveled off, but the numbers still paint a bleak picture of Oregon's economic recovery as families struggle to find stable housing amid strained resources. Across Oregon, 20,370 students --or about 3.65 percent --were identified by school districts as having unstable housing at some point during the 2011-12 school year, according to data from the Oregon Department of Education's annual count."