Latest Coverage

"In addition to school-wide performance, the scores of select subgroups, including minorities, low-income children, students with disabilities and those still learning English, also are weighed. An entire school can fail if just one group falls short."

"The chief of the county's anti-poverty agency says there's the potential to start chipping away at a Meals on Wheels waiting list effective immediately. Steve Walker... said he's told the nonprofit agency that certifies senior citizens as eligible for receiving home-delivered meals to sign up the next 100 eligible seniors as soon as possible."

"But it's a choice denied most every other parent who is forced by city employment residency laws or poverty to send their children to failing Chicago public schools. But there's a solution: vouchers, a system in which parents receive public money for their children's education, and take it to the school of their choice."

"Schools that receive federal Title I funding for low-income children and fail to meet adequate yearly progress standards for two years in a row face a variety of sanctions, including having to offer tutoring services, giving students a chance to leave for a better school and restructuring a school."

"Pell Grants, which provide a maximum of $5,550 and aim to help low-income families, cover just one-third of tuition on average. They are nonetheless the cornerstone of federal financial aid and enable many students to attend college who lack the means otherwise."

"The Retired and Senior Volunteer Program, or RSVP, of Macomb and Elder Law of Michigan have launched an effort to help adults 60 and older with low incomes get state food benefits. The groups rolled out the program last week."

"It is increasingly clear that one of the possible casualties of the nation's rancorous debt-ceiling debate is the Pell Grant program. The grants, which have helped millions of low-income and moderate-income students attend college over the last few decades, would be reduced significantly if the most strident of Republican budget-cutters have their way."

"A similar program is in place. Under the No Child Left Behind law, districts are required to offer public school options to parents in high-poverty schools that repeatedly fail to meet federal standards. Generally speaking, few parents exercise that option."

"While employment rates have fallen sharply among the general population, they have not done so among the elderly."

"In the next two years the University of Minnesota and the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system will each receive a little over a billion dollars in state aid, 10 percent less than they received in the previous two years."

"The research showed that while some high-poverty schools suspended students at unexpectedly high rates, others with strikingly similar characteristics did not. The same discipline gap was clear for prosperous, suburban schools and small, rural schools: Some were harsh and others with nearly identical qualities were not."

"A third of Michigan's seniors are considered 'economically insecure' far more than the federal poverty limits would suggest, according to a new study."