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"The latest proposal on the table calls for creating 25 to 30 rental units: four one-bedrooms; 22 two-bedroom and four three-bedroom units. To be financed through low-income tax credits, the units would be rented to families earning 60 percent of the area's median income; to qualify, a family of four would have to earn $60,000. Rents would be $907 for a one-bedroom unit and $1088 for a two-bedroom unit, with the tenant paying all utilities."

"More than half the district's black males, 55 percent, had one or more of those red flags, according to the researchers at Urban Strategies Council, an Oakland-based nonprofit that focuses on improving conditions in low-income communities."

"Under the program, students from low-income families attending schools with low performance scores can have their tuition at private schools paid by the state. The Department of Education released a list of participating schools Tuesday for the program, which included St. Frances Cabrini in Alexandria, Cenla Christian Academy in Pineville, St. Mary's Assumption in Cottonport and BeauVer Christian in DeRidder."

"The nonprofit that administers the District's program of federally funded school vouchers held two open houses to solicit interest from low-income families for the upcoming school year. The response was overwhelming; nearly 1,200 new applications were received."

"School districts will be able to submit proposals for innovative educational programs this year to compete for federal grants of up to $25 million under a new national contest, part of the three-year-old Race to the Top program. Rules for the competition were to be announced on Tuesday by the Department of Education. Like the department's state-level competition for federal grants that preceded it, the program will require systems for measuring student progress and assessing teachers and administrators and will target low-income communities."

"When the Georgia legislature passed a private school scholarship program in 2008, lawmakers promoted it as a way to give poor children the same education choices as the wealthy [...] That was the idea, at least. But parents meeting at Gwinnett Christian Academy got a completely different story last year."

"Many child advocates say the state's children are still struggling to keep from falling through the cracks in the state's education, health-care and public-safety systems, and that Florida simply isn't doing enough."

"Comparison of the figures for U.S. schools with poverty rates of less than 10 percent with those of higher poverty rates makes the connection between poverty and test performance clear."

"Studies show that in low-income neighborhoods, there is one book for every 300 children. In middle-class home, figures show 13 books for each child."

"Amid the ceaseless and cacophonous debates about how to close the achievement gap, we've turned away from one tool that has been shown to work: school desegregation."

"Pinellas County's school administrators have given what they hope is that final answer to a faith-based group seeking educators' buy-in to change the way core reading instruction is delivered in high-poverty schools."

"Sonya Swansbrough - principal of Poe Middle School, where many students are living in poverty or learning English as a second language - agreed. The old tests were 'just a minimum standard - this is the basic that all students should be able to achieve,' she said. 'We don't want to stop at that. Nobody wants their children to have minimum standards.'"