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"There are more students who don't speak English than there were a decade ago. The percentage of special-needs students is also higher, and the number of students living in poverty has grown. All those types of students are more expensive to educate."

"Homeless children are particularly at risk for dropping out of school - and of course this doesn't surprise anyone. The National Coalition for the Homeless reports that 75 percent of homeless youth drop out of school."

"'We've got some teaching and learning issues,' Spring said candidly after his first meeting with the district's principals. 'We've got some achievement gap and equity issues.' In layman's terms, he means the district's graduation rate of 60 percent is far too low and too few poor and minority students graduate."

"The financial pressure has made it more difficult for students like Saleh to attend private colleges. Grades and test scores are lower at underperforming schools, many of which are in urban, low-income areas like Oakland and Richmond, so 'merit-based' scholarships tend to help wealthier students from the suburbs afford expensive schools."

"The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cincinnati has announced plans to create a staff position, development director, to oversee fundraising for Dayton's urban schools. The director, to be hired by August and paid with donated money, will help establish and perpetuate a fund to give low-income city kids access to a Catholic education."

"The Service Collaborative, an independent non-profit organization, will provide financial coaches to low-income Buffalo families with a goal of increasing family and financial stability. The program has the capacity to serve 10,000 individuals."

"One effort has shown marked success. The Dayton Early College Academy, which opened in 2003 as a public high school, focuses on preparing low-income students for college. It sends 97 percent of its graduates to college, the vast majority to four-year programs."

"The state officially took over the schools in January. Jeffrey Riley, a former Boston school administrator, was named as the receiver and convened a stakeholder group to consider ways to change the direction of the impoverished city's schools."

"The Social Security disability program's trust fund is projected to run out of cash far sooner than the better-known Social Security retirement plan or Medicare. That will trigger a 21 percent cut in benefits to 11 million Americans - disabled people, their spouses, and children - many of whom rely on the program to stay out of poverty."

"When you live in a school district where 64 percent of the students come from low-income homes and budgets have been squeezed to death, every official school communication has the potential to ruin your day."

"The percentage of older people living below the poverty line has climbed steadily since 2005, according to a recent Employee Benefit Research Institute study. For Americans ages 65 to 74, poverty rates increased from 7.9 to 9.4 percent between 2005 and 2009. Among those ages 75 to 84, rates increased from 7.6 percent to 10.7 percent."

"Most, but not all, of those other schools don't receive federal funding to educate higher concentrations of low-income children and thus aren't eligible for extra help. But many of them, mainly in suburban and rural Minnesota, have seen huge increases of students living in poverty."