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"...Connecticut's poorest students are about three grade levels behind their peers in reading and math. It also says 60 percent of low-income students graduated from high school in 2009, compared with 86 percent of more affluent students."

"The tuition is $85 a week. But for Hite - and for her daughter Jameria, who almost dropped out of public school after giving birth to a child when she was 14 - the academy offers something invaluable: an escape from the troubled public school in her district."

"For Wendy Kopp, class of 1989, it became a career devoted to transforming primary and secondary education. What began as an idea for a teacher corps for hard-to-staff schools, urban and rural, became Teach for America."

"She believed something that bemused skeptics - that students from elite schools would volunteer to have their first experience out of college teaching in difficult-to-staff schools in areas of urban and rural poverty."

"Parents and teachers alike fear children, especially from low-income families, won't be prepared for kindergarten and beyond. And some parents are already scrambling to find extra care for their children this fall."

"And in low-tax, low-spending Texas, the kids are not all right. The high school graduation rate, at just 61.3 percent, puts Texas 43rd out of 50 in state rankings. Nationally, the state ranks fifth in child poverty; it leads in the percentage of children without health insurance."

"Black, Hispanic and low-income students are decidedly underrepresented -- a disparity that has long plagued more traditional part-time gifted and talented programs in the state and beyond."

"Tim Albrecht, a spokesman for the governor's office, said Branstad's plan would cut costs while continuing to offer assistance to those needing it most. Parents would pay fees on a sliding scale ranging from $3 per month for the lowest-income families to $133 per month..."

"The UT School of Public Health study focused on fourth- and fifth-graders at eight low-income elementary schools in Houston and Austin . It showed that students at schools with Marathon Kids spent more minutes exercising.'"

"[Clackamas Elementary's] parents and teachers questioned whether students would still have access to supplemental resources that are financed by Title I funding, which the district grants to schools with a high percentage of low-income students. "

"Free and reduced-price lunches are available to students determined to be in or near poverty.. This year, for example, students from a four-person household were generally eligible for free or reduced-price lunches if the household income was less than $40,793."

"Alianza hopes the hybrid model will help diminish the persistent achievement gaps between affluent and economically disadvantaged students and whites and minorities."