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"With so many older adults living alone and in poverty, some Clarksville- and- surrounding-area seniors will likely be struggling to make ends meet this holiday season. That's why the area Home Instead Senior Care office has partnered with retailers and community organizations to help make sure isolated seniors receive gifts and companionship through the Be a Santa to a Senior' program."

"More than 80 percent of voucher recipients qualify for free and reduced-price lunches, a common measure of poverty. About half of the students are minorities, including 20 percent who are black and 19 percent Hispanic. Two-thirds live in urban areas, where many of Indiana's worst-performing public schools are located. In only the second year of the voucher program, more than 9,300 students have been given the freedom to attend schools of their choice. Indiana's is the fast-growing voucher system in the nation. But is it constitutional?"

"Homelessness among people 65 and older is projected to grow nationwide by 33 percent by 2020 and double by 2050, according to a 2010 report by the National Alliance to End Homelessness. Older homeless people face a particular challenge: They tend to be beyond their employment years, and therefore less likely to find a way to support themselves."

"The number of homeless students in western Washington County remains relatively low compared to other areas, according to state figures. During last school year, 102 students in the Forest Grove School District --1.7 percent of the population --were homeless. This compared to roughly 3.6 percent of homeless students across the state, and much higher numbers in Portland and Beaverton."

"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."