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"$9.3 million to eliminate 328 teachers' assistants in first and second grades. $7.9 million to scale back the policy of providing low-income students with extra teachers, eliminating 134 positions."

"But Mr. Waronker decided to try out the model in one of the nation's toughest learning environments, a high poverty elementary school in which 20 percent of the children have been found to have emotional, physical or learning disabilities..."

"We have to get more efficient with state dollars. If you want to be efficient with how you spend money on preschool, it needs to be targeted to the kids that are going to get the most benefit, which is going to be the kids that are in poverty."

"Advocates for low-income students say that's easier said than done. 'It is very, very difficult to determine which one is accredited even when one is looking for it,' says Pauline Abernathy, vice president at the Institute for College Access and Success."

"The incoming GOP governor and legislative leaders have tagged it for the chopping block. In its place, House Republicans suggest vouchers should pay for low-income children to attend private preschools."

"Statistics show that there are more Americans below the poverty line now than when President Lyndon Johnson declared the War on Poverty. We must use every arrow in our collective quiver to reverse this devastating trend."

"'A big part of the program is that it is providing empowerment and work experience for formerly homeless and disabled adults,' said Jennifer Hall, former kitchen programs manager for Porchlight Products, who left last month to take a job as bakery manager at Daisy Cafe..."

"Yet two recent documentaries both critical of urban public school districts -- The Lottery and Waiting for Superman -- illustrate the frustration of low-income families whose hopes rest on a lottery system."

"In oral arguments in the decades-long case over whether the state's low-income districts have adequate funding, the justices repeatedly cited the state's economic crisis as a reason to hold off on ordering additional money for school districts."

"The court in 2009 gave its blessing to the formula, devised under former Gov. Jon Corzine, which sends more money to districts with children with higher needssuch as those in poverty, with disabilities or who know little English."

"Low-income students make up 97 percent to 99 percent of the student body at the four schools.Most students at the high school come from within its boundaries, according to the district. "

"As a result, the infant mortality rate among participant families is well below the national average, despite their poverty rates -- an outcome that Van Ginkel finds more exciting than playing golf. And so, "I'm going to continue doing this as long as I can do it well," she tells me."