Low-Income Students
Equity & Diversity
High-Achieving Students in Low-Income Families Said Likely to Fall Behind
They start school with weaker academic skills and are less likely to flourish than their peers from better-off families, a report says.
Law & Courts
Income-Based Diversity Plans Highlighted
A new report surveys the use of students’ socioeconomic status in pursuit of diverse and high-achieving school populations in a dozen school districts.
Early Childhood
For Head Start, A Marathon Run
The pioneering federal preschool program, launched during the War on Poverty, faces reauthorization amid competition from state programs and perennial debates about its efficacy.
Equity & Diversity
Opinion
Chat Wrap-Up: Schools and Economic Mobility
On Dec. 15, guests Cecilia Elena Rouse and Isabel V. Sawhill answered readers' questions on recent research showing that economic mobility through education is more difficult to attain in the United States than previously.
Student Well-Being & Movement
Breaking the Cycle of Poverty
Reducing the disparities in children's achievement will require reaching beyond the educational system.
Student Well-Being & Movement
Scholars Test Out New Yardsticks of School Poverty
When education researchers want to measure the collective poverty level in a school, they typically use the same yardstick: the percentage of students who qualify for free or reduced-rate meals under the federal school lunch program. But dissatisfaction with that indicator is prompting some researchers to cast about for better ways to gauge the socioeconomic status of schools.
School Climate & Safety
In Wake of Riots, France Refashions Priority Zones
One year after widespread youth violence broke out in many disadvantaged communities in France, the government has embarked on an initiative aimed at adapting its 25-year-old “priority education” program to a landscape that has dramatically changed.
Reading & Literacy
President, First Lady Back Global Literacy to Fight ‘Hopelessness’
President Bush said last week that ensuring that people can read and write is one way to combat poverty and “radicalism” in the world.
Equity & Diversity
Opinion
Race and Class: Separate and Not Equal
While it seems that race has taken a back seat to class in the nation’s education agenda, racial discrimination is a continuing problem that must not be pushed aside, writes Tierney T. Fairchild.
Equity & Diversity
Choice Programs Found to Help Integration, But Not Scores
A study of several school choice programs in San Diego finds that they are promoting more racial and ethnic integration of students, but do not, in general, have any notable effect on test scores.
Equity & Diversity
Opinion
Closing ‘Dropout Factories’
Researchers Robert Balfanz and Nettie Legters list steps that can be implemented to tackle the graduation crisis head-on.
Federal
Opinion
Helping Children Move From Bad Schools to Good Ones
As Congress considers revising the No Child Left Behind Act, it should draw lessons from a growing number of schools that are using socioeconomic integration to reduce achievement gaps, writes Richard D. Kahlenberg, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation.
Equity & Diversity
Payne’s Pursuit
A former teacher with a message on educating children from poor backgrounds is influencing school leaders anxious to close the achievement gap.
Classroom Technology
U.N. Agency Signs On to Help Spread Low-Cost Laptops
Endorsing a novel $100 laptop for children, the U.N. agency that coordinates development assistance has agreed to help start projects to use the devices for education in some of the world’s poorest nations.