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"Cash Michaels is hammering the Wake County school board for not planning for the costs of high-poverty neighborhood schools, and he's warning that the budget cuts in Charlotte could be a sign of things to come locally."

"Teaching is incredibly hard, especially when dealing with children in high-poverty communities who come to school with enormous challenges."

"Those numbers raise questions about who's getting the district's best and worst teachers, based on the new measure. They're likely to rattle parents' perceptions. For instance: Wilson Middle, a long-struggling high-poverty school, is rated near the top for teacher effectiveness."

"Over the years, many programs have aimed to ease poverty's grip on Washington's Parkside-Kenilworth Community, and each has failed. Now the DC Promise Neighborhood Initiative, basing its ambitious effort on the cradle-to-college model of Geoffrey Canada's Harlem Children's Zone, is hoping to break that pattern."

"More than 218,000 of America's most vulnerable children may soon lose access to a vital program that significantly increases their chances for success in school... Head Start, one of America's best-researched and most effective social programs, is once again under attack."

"A basic educational challenge is not that teachers are raking it in, but that they are underpaid. If we want to compete with other countries, and chip away at poverty across America, then we need to pay teachers more so as to attract better people into the profession."

"I take them at their word and wish them Godspeed. But though I have no ax to grind against them, the FMAE's modest ($500 each for five needy students) scholarship does serve as a fascinating sign of our times."

"Schools like Sherwood, and teachers like Mr. Ramos, are on the front lines, struggling against family mobility, neighborhood violence and the ''pobrecito,'' or ''poor little thing,'' mentality of low academic expectations."

"We recruit top recent college graduates of all academic majors, all career interests to commit two years to teach in high-poverty communities and ultimately become lifelong leaders in pursuit of educational excellence."

"These are our poorest students, the ones who likely will be denied an opportunity to write their own ticket out of poverty if Pell Grants are reduced, as is being proposed in Congress."

"Unfortunately, in 2009, this oasis of a safe, nurturing educational environment provided for D.C. children by the Opportunity Program in this city of crime and poverty was terminated by Democrat politicians beholden to teacher union bosses."

Topic(s): Aging, Economic Opportunity, Education, Health