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"Despite the advances, the 44,500-student system continues to trail far behind schools in the suburbs, other big cities and the nation. It faces huge challenges to further improvement related to poverty in many parts of the nation's capital and troubles within its schools."

"The prevailing view is that such neighborhoods are a black hole of poverty, ignorance, crime and hopelessness. No one can escape. High school graduation rates average below 40 percent. And only one in 40 urban African-American boys finish college."

"Most teacher-coaching in Idaho has its roots in Reading First, a federally funded state program that started about seven years ago with 20 coaches in elementary schools that have relatively high poverty rates and low test scores."

"During his commencement speech, Duncan called teachers the nation's `unsung heroes' and described their low wages as a `national embarrassment.' ...He also urged the students `to remember that poverty is not destiny.'''

"The designation applies to schools that are high-performing (ranking above the 67th percentile in average state standardized test scores), and high-poverty (having more than 50 percent of its students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches)."

"That was just the beginning, said Serena Peterson, assistant principal at McAuliffe, which has more than 800 students, most of them from families whose incomes are below the poverty level. The school was the first in the city to offer a free breakfast to all its students."

"1,051 -- Number of homeless school children counted by Anchorage School District in 2005.2,238 -- Number of homeless school children counted by district as of May 18, 2010.111% -- Increase in number of homeless children over last five years."

"Other abuses included admitting a family who lived outside the Head Start service area, ignoring proof of employment, and admitting extraordinarily high numbers of 'homeless' children. Under new rules, homeless children are automatically eligible for Head Start."

"In March, Obama cited the mass firings as an example of the tough measures needed to turn around struggling schools like Central Falls, which serves a low-income, heavily immigrant community."

"Public school children in both states fared better than the national average of 68 percent below proficient. Minority children and those living in poverty were much less likely to be proficient readers."

"Heartland Housing Executive Director Andrew Geer said there is a need for affordable senior housing in the area. About 90 percent of the apartments would be subsidized for low-income senior citizens."

"'The bottom line is that if we don't get dramatically more children on track as proficient readers, the United States will lose a growing and essential proportion of its human capital to poverty,' the authors say."